Barton's  Lincoln 

Complete  in  One  Volume 

IN  THE  OPENING  CHAPTERS  of  this  book 
dealing  with  Lincoln's  pedigree,  Dr. 
Barton  gives  the  Lincoln  student  much 
that  is  new. 

His  revelations  as  to  Lucy  Hanks, 
Nancy  Hanks,  and  the  Sparrow  family 
into  which  Nancy's  mother  married,  are 
of  the  greatest  importance  and  interest 
— as  is  also  the  chapter  on  Thomas  Lin- 
coln, Abraham's  father. 

Seven  years  of  boy  life  were  spent  in 
Kentucky  and  fourteen  of  young  man- 
hood in  Indiana;  then  to  Illinois  where 
the  future  President  graduated  out  of 
buckskin  trousers  into  butternut  jeans, 
became  a  storekeeper,  a  flat-boat  man 
and  a  debater. 

Then  comes  the  Black  Hawk  War  in 
which  Lincoln's  experience  in  handling 
men  and  in  overcoming  military  difficul- 
ties was  of  great  value  to  him  in  later  life. 

Lincoln's  thirst  for  knowledge,  his  im- 
mense power  of  concentration,  and  later 
on,  his  desire  for  "reading  less  and  think- 
ing more"  are  interestingly  developed. 

A  chapter  of  great  human  interest  is 
that  of  Lincoln  as  a  lover;  Ann  Rutledge, 
Mary  Owens,  and  Mary  Todd. 

His  home  life  at  Springfield  is  de- 
scribed in  detail;  he  is  pictured  as  the 
lonely  lawyer  and  as  the  politician;  his 
first  defeat  for  the  legislature,  his  subse- 
quent success;  the  growing  slavery  is- 
sue; the  Missouri  Compromise;  the 
Douglas  debates;  the  formation  of  the 
Republican  Party;  the  Chicago  conven- 
tion  and  Lincoln's  nomination. 


M  1 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://www.archive.org/details/lifeofabrahamlinOObart 


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THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

TWO  VOLUMES  IN  OXE  BOOK 


Court  esx  of  F.  W.  Mr  serve 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
Photographed  in  1859  by  S.  M.  Fassett 


THE  LIFE  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

BY 
WILLIAM  E.  BARTON 

Author  of  The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
The  Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Etc. 

TWO  VOLUMES  IN  ONE 
ILLUSTRATED 


BOOKS,     INC. 

BOSTON  NEW  YORK 


THE   LIFE   OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

FIRST   PUBLISHED   AND   COPYRIGHTED,    1925 

BY  THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

PUBLISHED   BY  BOOKS,   INC.,    1943 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 
BY  THE  COLONIAL  PRESS  INC.,  CLINTON,  MASSACHUSETTS 


Vim  1,3 

v.  |-L 


To 
CALVIN  COOLIDGE 

Like   Lincoln   a   Man   of   the   People 

and  a  Leader  of   the   Nation 

This   Work    is   Dedicated 

With   His    Permission 


CONTEXTS 

BOOK  I 

CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I 

The  Birth  of  Abraham  Lixcolx     .                              1 

II 

The  Parents  of  Abraham  Lincoln     . 

9 

III 

The  Lincoln's 

21 

IV 

The  Hankses  and  Sparrows 

37 

V 

The  Childhood  of  Lincoln  :  1809-1816 

70 

VI 
VII 

Lincoln's  Kentucky 

97 

Lincoln's  Boyhood:  1816-1830   .      .      . 

112 

VIII 
IX 

Removal  to  Illinois  :  1830     .... 

138 

A  Wizard  of  Finance:  1831-1832     .      . 

144 

X 

The  Driftwood  and  the  Dam:   1831-1832 

155 

XI 

The  Black  Hawk  War:  April-July,  1832 

172 

XII 

Politician  and  Postmaster:  1832-1833     . 

181 

XIII 

Surveyor    and    Lawmaker:    1834-1835 

187 

XIV 

Lincoln's    Alma   Mater:    1831-1837     . 

192 

XV 

202 

XVI 

Ann  Rutledge  :   1834-1835      .... 

211 

XVII 

Lawyer  and  Lover:  1836-1839     . 

223 

XVIII 

Mary    Todd:    1839-1842 

243 

XIX 

Lincoln  the  Politician  :  1842-1849     . 

267 

XX 

Lincoln  out  of  Politics  :  1849-1854     . 

287 

XXI 

Lincoln  as  a  Lawyer:  1848-1860     . 

300 

XXII 

Home  Life  in  Springfield:  1842-1860  . 

319 

XXIII 

Lincoln  and  Slavery:  1848-1854     . 

328 

XXIV 

The  Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromis] 

e:  ] 

.85- 

\  339 

XXV 

The  Republican  Party:  1856     . 

352 

XXVI 

The   Lincoln-Douglas    Debates:    1858 

364 

CONTENT  S— Continued 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXVII     Lincoln  tfie  Railsplitter  :  1860 404 

XXVIII  Lincoln  as  a  Newspaper  Owner:  1859-1861  .      .  416 

XXIX  The  Nomination  of  Lincoln  :  May,  1860     .      .  425 

XXX  The  Election  of  Lincoln  :  November,  1860     .      .  436 

XXXI  The  Interregnum  :  November  6,  1860-March  4, 

1861 448 

XXXII  The  Journey  to  Washington  :  March,  1861  .      .  463 


APPENDIX 

I  Jesse  Head 479 

II  An  Autobiographical  Letter  of  Dennis  Hanks     .  484 

III  New  Salem  Elections 485 

IV  Lincoln  in  the  Legislature 492 

V  Lincoln's  Attendance  in  1841 493 

VI  The  Graves  of  Ann  Rutledge 494 

VII  Sangamon,  and  the  Journal 495 

VIII  The  Lincoln  Circuit 496 

IX  The  First  Lincoln-Douglas  Debate,  in  1839     .      .  497 

X  The  Lincoln  and  Douglas  Speaking  Dates  in  1858  .   500 

XI  The  Armstrong  Murder  Trial  Almanac    .  506 

XII  Lincoln's    Beard 515 


CONTENTS 

BOOK  II 

CHAPTER 

I  The    First    Inaugural     . 

II  The    Cabinet      .... 

III  Inside  the  White  House 

IV  The   House   Divided     . 
V  On  to  Richmond     . 

VI  Lincoln   and   Congress     . 

VII  Lincoln   and   McClellan 

VIII  Lincoln    and    Stanton     . 

IX  The  Trent  and  the  Monitor 

X  The  Battle  of  Antietam 

XI  Emancipation    .... 

XII  "He  Said  He  Was  Master" 

XIII  "Abraham  Lincoln,  Give  Us  a  Man  ! 

XIV  Gettysburg  :     What  They  Did  There 
XV  Gettysburg:    What  He  Said  There 

XVI  The  Turn  of  the  Tide     . 

XVII  The  Draft  Riots     . 

XVIII  Justice   and    Mercy     . 

XIX  Radicals  and  Copperheads 

XX  The   Election    of   1864     . 

XXI  The  Second  Inaugural     . 

XXII  Liberty  and   Union     . 

XXIII  Appomattox        .... 

XXIV  The  Death  of  Lincoln     . 
XXV  The  Government  Still  Lives 


page 

1 

19 

40 

53 

65 

77 

88 

107 

115 

123 

128 

150 

162 

174 

185 

227 

239 

248 

271 

282 

309 

319 

332 

338 

349 


CONTENT  S— Continued 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXVI  The  Funeral  of  Lincoln 356 

XXVII  Lincoln  and  Labor 367 

XXVIII  Lincoln  the  Orator 379 

XXIX  The  Humor  of  Abraham  Lincoln 390 

XXX  Mrs.  Lincoln 409 

XXXI  Mr.    Lincoln 423 


APPENDIX 

I     Corporal  Tanner's  Account  of  the  Death   of 

Lincoln 469 

II     The  Passing  of  Lincoln 474 

III  The  Diary  of  John  Wilkes  Booth     ....   481 

IV  How  Edwin  Booth  Saved  Robert  Lincoln's  Life  484 
V     The    Gettysburg    Address 486 

Index    .     .      .      .     8     0      .     .      .      .      .      .      .      .   495 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

BOOK  I 

Abraham    Lincoln Frontispiece 

Photograph  in  1859  by  S.  M.  Fassett. 

Marriage   Bond    for   Marriage   of   Thomas   Lincoln    and 

Nancy  Hanks Facing  page     16 

Photographed  for  this  work. 

Marriage  Return  of  Reverend  Jesse  Head     .     Facing  page     2( 
Certifying  the   marriage  of  Thomas   Lincoln  and   Nancy 
Hanks.     Photographed  for  this  work. 

Marriage  Returns  of  Reverend  Jesse  Head    .     Facing  page    26 
Immediately  preceding  and  following  that  in  which  the  Lin- 
coln marriage  is  recorded.    Discovered  at  Springfield,  Ken- 
tucky, by  the  author  and  Honorable  Joseph  Polin. 

Dennis  F.  Hanks Facing  page     56 

Portrait  and  autobiographical  sketch.     Photographed  for 
this  work. 

The  One  Existing  Autograph  of  Lincoln's  Lost  Grand- 
mother        Facing  page     62 

Discovered  by  the  author. 

Marriage    Bond    of    Henry    Sparrow    and    Lucy    Hanks 

Facing    page     64 

Discovered    at    Harrodsburg,    Kentucky,    by    the    Misses 
Mary  A.  and  Martha  Stephenson. 

Snapshots  of  Gentryville Facing  page  122 

Main    Street.      Little    Pigeon    Church.      Site    of    Lincoln 
home.     Grave  of  Lincoln's  sister. 

The  Sangamon  at  New  Salem Facing  page  160 

Photographed  by  Herbert  Georg. 

New  Salem  Restored Facing  page  198 

The  Rutledge  Tavern  and  the  Museum.     The  Lincoln  and 
Berry  store.     Photographed  for  this  work. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS— Continued 

The  Grave  of  Ann  Rutledge Facing  page  220 

Petersburg,   Illinois.     The  original  grave.     Rutledge  lilac 
bush.     Old  Concord  Cemetery.     McGrady  Rutledge  Farm. 

Abraham  Lincoln's  First  Portrait     .      .      .     Facing  page  238 
From  a  daguerreotype  owned  by  Robert  T.  Lincoln. 

Mary  Todd  Lincoln Facing  page  246 

From  photograph  in  Springfield  about  1858. 

Parlor  in  the  Edwards  House     ...  .     Facing  page  264 

Where   Abraham    Lincoln   married    Mary   Todd.      Photo- 
graphed for  this  work  by  Eugene  J.  Hall. 

Abraham  Lincoln Facing  page  302 

Photograph  by  Alexander  H.  Hessler. 

Abraham  Lincoln's  Springfield  Home     .      .     Facing  page  320 
Photographed  for  this  work  by  Eugene  J.  Hall. 

Stephen  A.  Douglas Facing  page  366 

From  a  contemporary  steel  engraving. 

Abraham  Lincoln  in  1860 Facing  page  410 

Photograph  by  Brady   at  the  time  of  the  Cooper  Union 
Address. 

The  Republican  Convention  of  1860  .      .      .     Facing  page  428 
From  a  contemporary  drawing. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

BOOK  II 

Abraham   Lincoln   in   1861 Frontispiece 

Photograph  by  C.  S.  Germon. 

Lincoln  and  His  Secretaries Facing  page     16 

John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay. 

Lincoln  and  His  Cabinet Facing  page     22 

From  a  contemporary  steel  engraving. 

Union   Generals  Prominent  in  First  Half  of  the  War 

Facing    page  132 

From  first  volume  of  Greeley's  American  Conflict. 

Union    Generals   Prominent   in   Last  Half  of  the  War 

Facing    page  164 

From  second  volume  of  Greeley's  American  Conflict. 

Abraham    Lincoln Facing   page  176 

Photograph  by  Gardner,  November  8,  1863. 

The  Gettysburg  Speech  Monument     .      .      .     Facing  page  186 

The  Cemetery  at  Gettysburg Facing  page  186 

Abraham    Lincoln Facing    page  240 

Photograph  by  Brady,  February  9,  1864. 

On  Board  the  River  Queen Facing  page  334 

Sherman  describing  his  march  to  the  sea  to  President  Lin- 
coln, General  Grant  and  Admiral  Porter. 

The  Stage  of  Ford's  Theater Facing  page  344 

From  rare  photograph  made  immediately  after  the  tragedy, 
the  flag  torn  by  Booth's  spur  still  hanging  before  the  pres- 
ident's box. 

The  House  Where  Lincoln  Died     ....     Facing  page  352 

The  Lincoln  Funeral  Car     ......     Facing  page  364 

Abraham    Lincoln Facing    page  392 

Statue  by  George  Grey  Barnard. 


INTRODUCTION 

He  who  adds  another  to  the  already  long  list  of  biographies 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  should  be  ready  to  give  a  reason  for  the 
faith  that  is  within  him.     My  reasons  are  three: 

The  first  is  that  the  biographies  of  Lincoln  already  in  print 
have  not  discovered  all  the  important  facts  of  his  life.  Their 
authors  have  shown,  in  the  main,  commendable  diligence,  and  I 
am  greatly  indebted  to  my  predecessors;  but  I  have  been  able  to 
explore  with  greater  thoroughness  some  fields  hitherto  inade- 
quately covered  and  to  penetrate  some  areas  hitherto  unknown. 
Commonplace  men  are  easily  classified  as  tall  or  short,  white  or 
black,  good  or  bad ;  but  genius  has  the  saving  grace  of  in- 
consistency. Every  really  great  man  is  easy  to  caricature — by 
so  narrow  a  margin  is  the  sublime  separated  from  the  ridiculous. 
Every  great  man  combines  in  his  personality,  and  generally  in 
unstable  equilibrium,  a  group  of  contradictory  qualities.  The 
character  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  so  complex,  so  capable  of  mis- 
judgment,  we  need  for  its  interpretation  ever}'  scrap  of  authentic 
information  that  will  enable  us  more  nearly  to  understand  the 
hiding  of  his  power. 

The  second  reason  is  that  all  of  the  extant  biographies  of 
Lincoln  contain  inaccuracies,  some  of  them  trivial,  others  im- 
portant, and  a  few  of  them  very  grave.  I  am  able  to  correct 
some  of  these  errors  and  I  hope  that  I  am  not  adding  any  new 
ones. 

The  third  reason  is  that  it  is  now  possible  to  write  a  life  of 
Lincoln  with  a  perspective  of  more  than  half  a  century.  Con- 
temporaries are  valuable  witnesses  but  notoriously  incompetent 
judges. 

xi 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

I  have  come  to  this  task  with  a  conviction  of  duty  and  the 
joy  of  a  rare  privilege.  I  was  born  in  Illinois  in  the  first  year 
of  the  Civil  War.  My  earliest  memories  are  a  child's  wonder- 
ing impressions  of  the  departure  of  the  last  volunteers  in  the 
spring  of  1865 — my  father's  youngest  brother  among  them;  the 
funeral  of  a  soldier,  an  uncle  of  mine ;  the  north-bound  trains  of 
freight-cars  on  the  Illinois  Central,  loaded  inside  and  out  with 
bearded  men  in  faded  blue,  shamelessly  throwing  kisses  to  every 
woman  in  sight,  and  none  of  those  women  resenting  it;  and,  in 
some  respects  most  vivid  of  all,  the  death  and  funeral  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

I  passed  the  years  of  my  boyhood  among  men  who  had  known 
Lincoln.  The  years  of  my  early  manhood  I  spent  as  teacher  and 
circuit-riding  preacher  in  the  hills  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee 
among  people  akin  to  Lincoln  and  living  as  the  Lincolns  lived. 
Subsequent  years  brought  me  unusual,  if  not  unique,  opportuni- 
ties of  travel  and  research  regarding  Lincoln,  till  I  had  traveled 
in  his  footsteps  the  whole  of  his  life  journey. 

I  could  not  say  of  this  book  that  its  story  of  the  birth  of 
Lincoln  was  written  in  the  cabin  where  he  was  born  and  the 
story  of  his  death  in  the  room  where  he  died,  and  everything 
between  in  similarly  appropriate  places;  the  actual  writing  has 
been  done  under  conditions  more  favorable  to  methodical  literary 
composition.  But  if  such  a  statement  were  to  be  made  of  the 
notes  on  which  this  biography  is  based,  it  would  be  far  within 
the  truth ;  I  am  confident  that  no  biographer  of  Lincoln  can 
have  covered  the  actual  ground  as  I  have  covered  it,  or  visited 
the  scenes  associated  with  Lincoln's  life  so  frequently  or 
methodically  as  I  have  been  able  to  do. 

But  I  am  not  thinking  of  this  book  as  chiefly  justified  by  the 
aggregate  of  miles  its  author  has  traveled  or  the  number  of 
people  whom  he  has  interviewed,  nor  by  the  thousands  of  letters 
he  has  written  and  received.  I  am  thinking  rather  that  not  many 
men  of  my  generation  have  had  such  opportunities  as  these  for 
learning  about  Lincoln,   and  that  mine  is  the  only  generation 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

that  can  combine  the  judgment  of  a  sixty  years'  perspective  with 
a  body  of  testimony  gathered  at  first  hand  from  people  who 
knew  Lincoln.  Whatever  biographies  of  Lincoln  the  future 
may  produce,  this  combination  of  direct  testimony  and  historic 
perspective  is  possible  now,  and  will  never  be  possible  to  the 
biographers  of  any  later  generation. 

I  can  not  adequately  thank  the  hundreds  of  correspondents  and 
friends  who  have  assisted  me,  but  I  must  mention  my  special 
obligations  to  the  Honorable  William  H.  Townsend,  of  Lexing- 
ton, Reverend  Louis  A.  Warren,  of  Morganfield,  Honorable 
Joseph  Polin,  of  Springfield,  Honorable  L.  S.  Pence,  of  Lebanon, 
Honorable  Otis  M.  Mather,  of  Hodgenville,  Honorable  R.  C. 
Ballard-Thruston,  of  Louisville,  Mrs.  Jouette  Cannon  Taylor 
and  Miss  Nina  Yisscher,  of  Frankfort,  and  the  Misses  Mary  A. 
and  Martha  Stephenson,  of  Harrodsburg,  all  of  Kentucky;  Pro- 
fessor James  A.  Woodburn,  of  the  University  of  Indiana,  and 
Honorable  Albert  J.  Beveridge,  of  Indianapolis;  Professor  L.  E. 
Robinson,  of  Monmouth  College,  Mr.  Oliver  R.  Barrett,  of  Chi- 
cago, Mrs.  Jessie  Palmer  Weber  and  Miss  Georgia  L.  Osborne, 
of  Springfield,  Miss  Caroline  Mcllvaine,  of  Chicago,  and  Miss 
Bernice  V.  Lovely,  of  Colchester,  Illinois;  Mr.  A.  H.  Griffith, 
of  Fisk,  Wisconsin;  Doctor  Herbert  Putnam,  Mr.  A.  P.  C.  Grif- 
fin, Doctor  Charles  Moore  and  Mr.  William  Adams  Slade,  of 
the  Library  of  Congress.  This  is  a  most  meager  list  compared 
with  the  number  to  whom  I  am  indebted,  but  I  can  not  mention 
all,  and  I  must  not  omit  these  to  whom  my  obligation  is  so 
great.  I  must  mention,  however,  the  libraries  that  have  given  me 
most  valued  aid.  These  are  the  State  Historical  Libraries  of 
Massachusetts,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Indiana,  Wisconsin  and  Kan- 
sas; the  Newberry  Library  of  Chicago  and  that  of  the  Chicago 
Historical  Society ;  the  McLellan  Collection  in  Brown  University ; 
the  Draper  Collection  in  the  Library  of  the  Lniversity  of  Wiscon- 
sin ;  and  the  Durrett  Collection  in  the  Library  of  the  University 
of  Chicago.  I  reserve  for  special  mention  the  Library  of  Con- 
gress, especially  the  Manuscript  Division  and  the  remarkably  ef- 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

ficient  Department  of  Bibliography,  for  invaluable  aid,  most 
cheerfully  given,  and  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Society,  whose 
assistance  has  been  as  constant  as  its  courtesy  has  been  unfail- 
ing. From  this  last  society  I  have  had  the  special  courtesy  of 
the  use  of  the  diary  of  Senator  O.  H.  Browning,  a  remarkable 
document  and  a  new  and  intimate  source  of  knowledge  of  Lin- 
coln, soon  to  be  published,  but  furnished  to  me  in  advance  of 
publication  because  I  could  not  wait  for  its  printing. 

For  the  backgrounds  of  Lincoln's  life  in  Kentucky,  Indiana 
and  Illinois  I  have  a  basis  of  knowledge  in  my  own  experience 
more  valuable  to  me  than  books. 

Biography  is  more  than  narrative ;  it  is  also  interpretation.  It 
is  possible  to  compile  a  list  of  dates  and  events  in  Lincoln's  life, 
and  then  to  trundle  past  them,  one  after  another,  a  bronze  St. 
Gaudens'  statue  of  Lincoln,  formed  in  the  mold  of  the  biog- 
rapher's invention,  the  castors  audibly  creaking  and  the  biog- 
rapher visibly  pushing,  from  Hodgenville  to  Gentryville,  across 
the  prairies  to  New  Salem  and  Springfield,  and  finally  into  the 
front  door  of  the  White  House.  Neither  Lincoln  nor  any  other 
great  man  has  escaped  this  kind  of  biography ;  and  there  must 
be  readers  who  prefer  the  story  to  be  told  in  that  fashion.  But 
the  actual  Lincoln  was  developed  by  his  successive  environments. 
So  fully  did  he  realize  this  that  he  said  he  had  not  controlled 
events  but  been  controlled  by  them.  This  was  one-half  of  the 
truth.  We  can  not  understand  Lincoln  apart  from  his  environ- 
ments ;  neither  can  we  understand  his  environments  without  a 
knowledge  of  the  growing  personality  of  Lincoln.  If  the  Lin- 
coln of  the  earlier  chapters  of  this  work  is  a  less  heroic  figure 
than  the  man  who  emerges  at  the  close,  that  is,  as  I  conceive,  as 
Lincoln  should  be  portrayed.  From  the  beginning  of  his  life  to 
the  very  end,  the  character  of  Lincoln  grew  and  developed. 

This  book  is,  therefore,  a  study  of  the  progressive  evolution 
of  one  of  the  world's  greatest  leaders.  Of  him  it  may  reverently 
be  said  that  he  increased  in  wisdom  and  in  stature  and  in  favor 
with  God  and  man. 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

Abraham  Lincoln  did  not  enjoy  reading  biographies,  which  he 
said  were  falsified  by  their  authors  in  the  interest  of  eulogy. 
Closing  in  disgust  the  biography  of  a  noted  character,  he  said 
that  the  Bible,  after  all,  was  about  the  only  book  that  told  the 
truth  about  people.  While  he  was  president,  a  publishing  firm 
that  had  issued  a  Life  of  Lincoln  bound  a  copy  in  full  morocco, 
and  sent  it  to  the  White  House  in  a  vain  attempt  to  secure  from 
him  a  letter  of  commendation.  The  volume  is  in  existence,  and 
bears  on  its  fly-leaf  the  inscription  of  the  publishers.  On  the 
title-page  is  another  written  inscription.  Just  below  the  author's 
name  appears  the  president's  characterization  of  the  author,  "the 
premium  liar  of  history."  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  in 
what  terms  President  Lincoln  would  have  characterized 
some  of  his  more  recent  and  vastly  more  extravagant  biog- 
raphers. As  Cromwell  rebuked  the  artist  who  in  painting  the 
portrait  of  the  great  Protector  omitted  the  wart  upon  his  cheek, 
Abraham  Lincoln  would  have  sternly  admonished  his  biograph- 
ers, "Paint  me  as  I  am!"  This  book  attempts  to  tell  the  truth 
about  Abraham  Lincoln. 

I  am  striving  not  to  repeat  in  this  work  any  considerable  part 
of  what  I  have  said  in  The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  The 
Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  former  was  completely 
sold  out,  and  is  now  appearing  in  a  new  edition  with  a  few  cor- 
rections, mostly  unimportant.  I  have  little  to  add  to,  and  noth- 
ing to  subtract  from,  the  conclusions  announced  in  that  book. 
The  same  I  can  say  also  as  to  the  main  part  of  The  Paternity  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  The  book  as  a  whole  is  true.  But  in  the 
latter  part  of  it,  I  included  some  incomplete  material  on  mat- 
ters germane  to,  but  not  directly  involved  in,  the  main  line  of 
inquiry.  I  can  not  say  that  I  regret  having  printed  those  pages ; 
for  I  gave  the  material  for  just  what  it  might  prove  to  be  worth; 
but  the  conclusions  which  I  appeared  to  be  approaching  in  that 
part  of  the  book,  and  at  which  I  earnestly  hoped  to  arrive,  have 
not  been  sustained  by  subsequent  evidence.  The  true  answer 
to  the  questions  propounded  in  that  part  of  the  book  is  found 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

in  this  present  work.  But  the  book,  The  Paternity  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  reliable,  and,  as  I  believe,  a  per- 
manent contribution  to  knowledge.  The  essential  conclusions 
of  both  these  books  are  assumed  in  this  present  work;  for  the 
evidence  on  which  these  conclusions  rest,  I  refer  to  these  two 
books  themselves. 

As  the  first  draft  of  this  book  was  written  in  my  vacations, 
certain  portions  are  reminiscent  of  places  where  I  have  sojourned 
for  periods  of  rest  and  service.  Some  of  the  earlier  chapters 
were  written  in  the  Mission  Inn,  at  Riverside,  California,  and 
others  in  the  Coronado  Beach  Hotel,  and  still  others  on  the 
shores  of  Puget  Sound,  in  the  library  of  my  friend,  Professor 
Clark  P.  Bissett,  of  the  University  of  Washington.  Some  of  the 
last  work  was  done  amid  the  happy  surroundings  of  Lake  Placid 
Club  in  the  Adirondacks.  In  these  and  other  places  I  received 
marked  courtesies  which  it  is  a  pleasure  to  remember. 

This  manuscript,  which  has  been  several  years  in  writing,  and 
has  traveled  with  me  in  whole  or  in  part  on  innumerable  jour- 
neys wherein  I  have  followed  the  life  trail  of  Lincoln,  and  also 
from  coast  to  coast,  accomplishes  its  final  revision  in  a  remote 
and  quiet  place  where  for  many  years  I  have  had  my  summer 
home.  The  little  lake  beneath  the  windows  of  my  Wigwam 
gives  it  a  rippling  smile  of  farewell,  and  the  pine  trees  that  for 
many  summers  have  seen  it  unpacked  and  wrought  over  and 
packed  up  again,  murmur  after  it  a  fragrant  Godspeed.  And  I 
am  thankful  in  this  quiet  spot  for  the  strength  and  opportunity 
that  enable  me  thus  to  bring  to  a  close'  the  labor  of  many  years. 

William  E.  Barton 
The  Wrigwam 
on  Sunset  Lake, 
Foxboro,  Massachusetts. 


BOOK  I 


THE  LIFE  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   BIRTH   OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Birthplaces  of  eminent  men  are  not  selected  with  reference 
to  the  convenience  of  tourists  and  historians.  If  there  had  been 
an  American  traveler  in  London  in  1564,  and  he  had  cared  to 
ride  across  the  moors  to  bear  congratulations  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Shakespeare  on  the  birth  of  their  son,  William,  his  guide-borjk, 
if  he  had  possessed  a  guide-book,  would  have  afforded  him  little 
assistance.  Stratford-on-Avon  was  then  a  long,  long  way  from 
London,  and  few  people  in  that  city  had  ever  heard  of  the  squalid 
village  where  the  greatest  creative  genius  that  ever  spoke  the 
English  tongue  lay,  as  he  later  lived,  undiscovered.  Not  many 
of  the  gentlefolk  of  Edinburgh  or  Glasgow,  or  even  of  the  schol- 
ars in  the  universities  of  those  two  cities,  could  have  directed  a 
traveler  to  the  "clay-biggin"  at  Ayr,  where  Robert  Burns  lay  in 
a  built-in  bed.  Even  now  the  fast  trains  thunder  through  Ec- 
clefechan,  a  name  which  feels  like  a  Scotch  thistle  in  the  mouth 
of  him  who  essays  to  pronounce  it  properly,  and  most  of  the  pas- 
sengers, en  route  for  their  boats  at  Liverpool,  have  no  suspicion 
that  they  are  passing  the  home  where  Thomas  Carlyle,  even  in 
his  infancy  possessed  of  "that  diabolical  thing,  a  stomach,"  once 
lay  kicking  with  colic.  As  for  Bethlehem,  only  the  angels  knew 
the  way  thither ;  the  Magi  had  to  stop  in  Jerusalem  and  inquire. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  three  miles  south  of  the  present 

I 


2  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

site  of  Hodgenville,  in  what  is  now  Larue  County,  Kentucky,  on 
Sunday  morning,  February  12,  1809.  Hodgenville  has  a  court- 
house and  several  taverns  and  stores  and  a  garage  and  a  railway 
station  and  a  school  and  some  churches  and  enough  inhabitants 
to  make  up  a  small  town ;  but  there  was  no  court-house  or  store 
or  school  or  church  or  village  there  when  Lincoln  wras  born. 
The  larger  county  of  Hardin,  of  which  the  present  Larue  was 
then  a  part,  had'  only  one  town,  Elizabethtown,  or,  as  it  was 
then  and  still  now  is  often  abbreviated,  Etown.  Abraham  Lin- 
coln never  saw  Hodgenville,  and  he  stumbled  over  the  spelling 
of  the  name,  when,  after  his  nomination  for  the  presidency,  he 
tried  to  tell  just  where  he  was  born.  The  Hodgen  family  was 
there  in  Lincoln's  day,  and  they  had  a  mill,  but  the  Lincolns  did 
not  commonly  patronize  it,  the  Kirkpatrick  mill  being  nearer, 
and  they  moved  away  from  that  locality  before  Abraham  ever 
rode  a  horse  to  mill.  Hodgenville  is  now  a  town  with  a  place 
on  the  map,  and  has  come  to  fame  because  of  a  man  whom  it 
never  knew  and  who  never  knew  of  it  until  many  years  after 
the  event  which  linked  their  names  together. 

Of  «all  the  presidents  of  the  United  States,  only  Theodore 
Roosevelt  was  born  in  a  large  city,  and  he  escaped  to  the  plains. 
Birth  in  a  log  cabin  is  not  an  absolute  prerequisite  to  a  presi- 
dential election,  and  several  millions  of  Americans  have  been 
born  in  log  cabins  who  have  not  lived  in  the  White  House ;  but 
all  in  all,  a  log  cabin  has  proved  as  good  a  place  as  any  in  which 
to  be  born  if  a  man  intends  to  be  president.  William  Henry 
Harrison,  who  was  not  born  in  a  cabin,  was  the  first  presidential 
candidate  to  boast  of  having  lived  in  one,  but  Andrew  Jackson 
was  elected  twelve  years  before  Harrison,  and  his  birthplace  was 
a  cabin.  Millard  Fillmore  was  born  in  a  log  house,  and  rocked 
in  a  split-log  sap-trough,  thus  reversing  Samson's  riddle,  for  out 
of  the  sweetness  came  the  strong.  James  A.  Garfield  was  born 
in  a  cabin,  and  this  is  by  no  means  a  complete  list.  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  born  in  a  log  cabin. 

There  is  variety  in  log  cabins.     There  are  small  cabins  and 


THE  BIRTH  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  3 

large  cabins ;  cabins  with  open  spaces  between  the  logs,  and 
cabins  with  split  chinking  daubed  with  clay  or  even  smoothly 
covered  with  plaster;  cabins  with  doors  and  windows  and  cabins 
with  just  openings — maybe  a  blanket  or  a  bear-skin  hung  in  the 
aperture;  cabins  with  the  earth  for  a  floor  and  cabins  with  punch- 
eon or  even  with  a  floor  whose  boards  were  sawn  at  the  mill ; 
cabins  with  stick-chimneys  and  cabins  with  stone  fireplaces.  The 
one-room  cabin  is  the  germ-cell  of  American  architecture.  The 
cell  becomes  two  cells,  two  log  structures  set  end  to  end  with 
doors  facing,  and  an  open  space  between,  the  two  fireplaces 
being  usually,  though  not  invariably,  at  the  two  ends,  and  the 
roof-timbers  extended  across  the  open  space.  Then  a  third  cell 
may  be  added  for  a  kitchen  at  the  back,  the  three  architectural 
units  adjoining  each  other  like  three  black  squares  of  a  checker- 
board, with  the  open  porch  as  the  white  square  enclosed  by  the 
black  on  three  sides.  Other  units  may  be  piled  upon  the  top  of 
these  three,  or  over  the  front  two,  and  the  open  porch  becomes  a 
long  cold  hall,  with  a  staircase  rising  out  of  it.  By  this  time  the 
structure  has  become  a  good  example  of  Colonial  architecture, 
and  may,  if  one  likes,  be  weatherboarded,  and  painted  white, 
with  a  portico  in  front,  the  columns  surmounted  by  Ionic  capitols. 

There  are  "round-log  cabins"  and  "square-log  cabins."  In 
each  case  the  shape  of  the  house  itself  is  the  same ;  it  is  the  logs 
that  are  left  round  or  are  squared  by  hewing.  Primitive  Ameri- 
can cabins  were  all,  or  practically  all,  round-log  cabins ;  those 
built  of  hewn  logs  were  a  sign  of  prosperity. 

There  was  not  much  hewing  of  the  logs  that  framed  the  cabin 
where  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born.  The  cabin  was  of  one  room, 
had  a  door  in  the  side,  and  a  stick-chimney  at  the  left  hand  as 
one  entered  the  door.  There  was  an  unglazed  window,  closed  by 
a  hinged  door,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  that  was  there  when  Abra- 
ham was  born.  There  probably  was  not  a  single  nail  in  the  en- 
tire structure.  What  chinking  there  was  between  the  logs  we 
may  not  now  know,  but  in  most  cabins  of  this  character  there 
was  no  lack  of  ventilation. 


4  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

One  day,  many  years  ago,  when  I  was  teaching  in  an  old  log 
schoolhouse  in  Kentucky,  a  boy  kicked  with  his  bare  foot  through 
a  crack  between  the  logs  at  a  boy  who  was  passing  on  the  out- 
side, and  the  boy  outside  caught  his  foot.  The  crack  was  not 
large  enough  for  the  boy  outside  to  pull  the  inside  boy  out,  nor 
yet  for  the  inside  boy  to  pull  the  outside  boy  in,  and  so  I  caught 
them  in  their  misdemeanor.  That  was  an  unusually  large  crack, 
caused  by  a  curve  in  one  log  and  a  large  knot  in  its  neighbor 
log.  But  often  when  I  slept  in  cabins  that  would  have  been  well 
populated  even  if  I  had  not  been  there,  and  the  doors  were  shut 
and  there  were  no  windows,  I  was  not  wholly  sorry  for  the 
daubing  that  had  fallen  off  and  the  chinking  that  had  dropped 
out  or  perhaps  had  never  been. 

Fuel  was  abundant,  and  if  the  stick-chimney  caught  fire,  the 
accident  was  practically  certain  to  occur  when  the  family  was 
awake  and  the  blaze  could  be  extinguished  with  a  gourdful  of 
water,  the  hissing  noise  of  whose  falling  drops  upon  the  blazing 
logs  below  made  rather  a  cheerful  sound.  Fires  did  not  often 
occur  at  night,  at  least  not  late  at  night,  for  the  fire  was  covered 
with  ashes  before  the  family  went  to  bed. 

Good  housekeepers  did  not  let  their  fires  go  out.  A  few  years 
ago,  a  log  cabin  in  Missouri  was  torn  down,  and  a  fire  ex- 
tinguished on  a  hearth  where  it  was  alleged  to  have  burned  for 
eighty  years.  It  was  even  claimed  that  before  the  beginning  of 
that  eighty-year  period,  the  fire  had  been  transported  in  an  iron 
pot  by  day  hung  from  the  axle  of  a  wagon,  to  new  camps  night 
by  night,  all  the  way  from  Kentucky  where,  it  was  said,  it  had 
alternately  blazed  and  smouldered  as  occasion  required  ever  since 
it  was  brought  in  another  iron  pot  through  Cumberland  Gap 
from  old  Virginia  about  1790.  We  may  discount  such  a  story 
somewhat,  and  suspect  that  there  may  have  been  a  few  occasions 
in  the  century  and  more  when  it  had  been  necessary  to  borrow 
fire  from  a  neighbor ;  but  those  occasions  had  probably  been  in- 
frequent. 

There  was  doubtless  a  good  fire  in  the  cabin  on  February  12, 


THE  BIRTH  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  5 

1809,  when  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born.  It  was  the  season  for 
good  fires,  and  Thomas  Lincoln,  who  had  been  in  Elizabethtown 
at  court  during  a  part  of  the  week  preceding,  returned  home 
before  Sunday.  So  there  was  fuel  enough.  There  was  probably 
enough  of  everything  else,  as  judged  by  the  standards  of  the 
time,  but  the  equipment  of  the  cabin  was  meager. 

The  bed  where  Nancy  Lincoln  lay  with  her  baby  beside  her 
had  one  leg,  driven  in  the  earthen  floor,  with  a  side-rail  running 
to  the  wall  on  one  side,  and  a  foot-rail  running  at  right  angles 
to  the  other  wall.  There  may  have  been  a  bear-skin  on  the  floor 
where  little  two-year-old  Sarah  sat  and  played.  There  was 
probably  a  rough  table,  made  by  Thomas  Lincoln,  and  there 
may  have  been  two  or  three  stools  and  as  many  chairs. 

The  bed  was  probably  not  uncomfortable.  There  was  almost 
certainly  a  feather-bed  on  top  of  the  straw  or  husk  mattress,  and 
there  were  homespun  blankets  and  coverlets.  Thomas  and  Nancy 
Lincoln  owned  livestock  and  poultry,  and  there  was  presumably 
milk  for  Nancy  and  the  baby,  besides  the  simple  luxury  which 
may  have  been  afforded  by  fresh  eggs  and  fried  chicken.  There 
was  enough  to  eat  and  there  was  shelter  and  rude  comfort. 
People  who  have  never  slept  in  log  cabins  are  likely  either  to 
idealize  them  or  to  exaggerate  the  hardship  of  living  in  them. 
Life  in  a  log  cabin  lacks  much  of  luxury,  but  it  is  not  necessarily 
uncomfortable.  I  have  never  lived  in  a  cabin,  but  I  have  spent 
many  days  and  nights  in  them,  and  conditions  had  not  greatly 
changed  from  those  of  Lincoln's  childhood. 

Considering  the  unsanitary  conditions  under  which  the  great- 
er part  of  the  human  race  is  born,  it  is  remarkable  that  the  gen- 
erations continue  to  follow  one  another  with  unfailing  regularity, 
and  survive  to  produce  succeeding  generations.  The  Lincoln 
cabin  was  lacking  in  all  modern  conveniences  and  most  modern 
comforts.  Nancy  did  not  miss  them ;  she  had  never  known 
them.  It  would  have  astonished  her  to  know  that  the  rough 
logs  of  the  cabin  where  she  lay  would  one  day  be  enshrined  in 
an  imposing  granite  memorial;  she  never  dreamt  she  dwelt  in 


6  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

marble  halls.  But  she  smiled  a  wan  smile  when  she  was  told 
that  her  new  baby  was  a  boy.  Both  she  and  Thomas  wanted  a 
son,  and  their  first  child  had  been  a  girl.  They  could  not  give 
her  the  name  which  was  waiting  for  a  boy,  so  they  had  done  the 
next  best  thing  and  called  her  Sarah. 

Who  were  present  when  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born? 

If  you  are  to  believe  the  stories  that  are  told  you  in  and  about 
Hodgenville,  and  the  people  who  tell  them  intend  to  be  truthful, 
the  grandmothers  of  the  entire  present  population  of  Larue 
County  must  have  been  there,  with  a  number  from  counties  ad- 
jacent. If  all  the  people  who  are  believed  to  have  been  present 
had  actually  been  there,  they  would  have  packed  the  cabin  and 
the  front  yard. 

Nancy  Lincoln  had  two  aunts,  Polly  Friend  and  Elizabeth 
Sparrow,  living  near  by,  and  one  of  those  aunts  was  her  foster 
mother.  She  did  not  lack  for  the  attention  which  women  are 
able  to  give  to  each  other  at  such  times.  And  there  were  other 
women  in  the  neighborhood  who  were  ready  to  assist.  We  may 
discount,  therefore,  the  narratives  of  most  of  the  truthful  people 
who  assure  us  that  their  maternal  relatives  were  among  those 
present.  Of  one  thing  we  may  be  certain :  Abraham  Lincoln  had 
such  care  at  the  time  of  his  birth  as  was  deemed  requisite  in  the 
backwoods.  His  mother  was  not  neglected,  and  the  baby  was 
passed  around  among  an  adequate  group  of  well-intending 
women  who  were  present  to  welcome  him. 

Not  in  1809,  but  soon  afterward,  there  died  in  Elizabethtown, 
Doctor  Daniel  B.  Potter.  He  left  a  widow,  and  a  large  number 
of  accounts  due  him  from  people  to  whom  he  had  rendered  pro- 
fessional service.  I  have  ridden  many  miles  in  the  Kentucky 
mountains  side  by  side  with  a  doctor, f who  kept  his  forceps 
within  reach  so  that  he  did  not  need  to  dismount  for  so  simple 
a  matter  as  the  extraction  of  a  tooth,  and  who  was  ready  for  an 
emergency  caused  by  anything  from  child-birth  to  gun-shot 
wounds.  Doctor  Potter  was  one  of  those  hard-riding  physicians 
who  wore  his  life  out  in  his  fights  wTith  death,  and  who  wasted 


THE  BIRTH  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  7 

little  time  except  the  weary  waits  at  each  end  of  life — for  both 
birth  and  death  are  tedious  processes  to  hard-worked  physicians. 
He  left  debts  to  the  amount  of  $1,560.35^.  The  court  ap- 
pointed a  commission  to  collect  the  much  larger  sum  that  was 
due  him  from  those  who  had  been  his  patients,  to  pay  his  debts 
and  give  the  remainder  to  his  widow.  The  commissioners 
brought  into  court  their  final  report,  showing  that  they  had 
been  able  to  collect  a  total  of  $864.89^,  leaving  the  estate  still 
in  debt  $695.46^.  The  commissioners  reported  the  men  who 
had  paid,  and  among  them  was  the  name  of  Thomas  Lincoln. 
At  the  time  of  the  doctor's  death,  Thomas  Lincoln  owed  him  an 
unpaid  balance  of  $1.46.  It  is  a  simple  matter,  but  it  shows  that 
when  Nancy  needed  a  doctor,  she  had  one,  and  that  Thomas 
Lincoln  paid  the  bill. 

It  is  not  likely  that  Thomas  and  Nancy  depended  on  or 
called  a  physician  when  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born.  Physicians 
were  too  uncertain  for  dependence  at  such  times.  No  tradition 
that  I  have  been  able  to  discover  affirms  that  Doctor  Potter 
or  any  other  physician  attended  Nancy  at  the  birth  of  Abra- 
ham. A  local  mid-wife  was  there ;  they  called  her  "the  granny- 
woman."  Apparently,  she  did  the  few  simple  things  that  needed 
to  be  done,  and  Nancy's  two  aunts  and  the  neighbor  women  as- 
sisted. In  due  time  Thomas  Lincoln  stood  awkwardly  beside 
the  bed  of  Nancy,  and  looked  into  the  face  of  his  son.  Nancy 
also  looked.  The  new-born  babe  is  seldom  an  object  of  beauty 
save  as  affection  gives  prophetic  vision  of  qualities  that  lie  more 
than  skin-deep.     But  Thomas  and  Nancy  were  both  happy. 

When  I  first  visited  Hodgenville  and'  recorded  the  traditions 
that  were  then  obtainable,  I  gathered,  as  it  had  come  down  from 
the  women-folk  who  were  present  that  day  or  who  called  during 
the  days  that  followed,  that  Thomas  Lincoln  was  kind  to 
Nancy,  and  immensely  proud  of  his  boy.  Maternal  pride  is  not 
circumscribed  by  petty  considerations  of  pulchritude.  Abraham 
was  a  fine  baby ;  we  may  be  sure  that  all  the  women  said  so, 
and  no  one   disputed  the   fact.     Thomas  Lincoln  was  a   solid, 


8  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

rather  thick-set  man,  and  so  was  the  father  of  Thomas  Carlyle. 
The  two  fathers  were  somewhat  alike,  and  both  the  sons  were 
tall  and  angular.  We  have  no  recorded  word  of  Nancy  concern- 
ing her  first  impression  of  her  son,  but  there  has  been  preserved 
a  discriminating  comment  of  Janet  Carlyle.  She  said  of  her 
baby  what  Nancy  might  have  said  of  hers,  that  he  was  "a  lang, 
sprawling,  ill-put-together  thing."* 

There  was  no  discussion  about  the  baby's  name.  It  had  been 
waiting  for  him  ever  since  Sarah  was  born.  It  was  a  good  name, 
the  name  of  Thomas  Lincoln's  own  father.  A  few  years  later 
there  was  a  lawsuit  concerning  some  land  that  had  once  be- 
longed to  him,  and  the  question  hinged  upon  the  genuine- 
ness of  a  signature  alleged  to  have  been  that  of  the  father  of 
Thomas  Lincoln.  The  name  in  that  signature  was  incorrectly 
spelled,  and  followed  the  backwoods  pronunciation.  Thomas 
Lincoln,  an  uncle  of  the  president's  father,  was  summoned  from 
his  home  near  Lexington  to  Frankfort,  where  he  was  shown  the 
signature  in  the  Land  Office.  He  was  asked  whether  he  was 
familiar  with  the  handwriting  of  his  brother,  and  answered  that 
he  was  familiar  with  it. 

"How  did  he  spell  his  name?"  was  the  next  interrogatory. 

The  answer  under  oath  is  still  of  record : 

"He  spelled  it  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN." 


*Carlyle  Till  Marriage.    David  Alec  Wilson,  i,  p.  23. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    PARENTS    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Both  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  parents  were  born  in  Virginia, 
and  both  migrated  into  Kentucky  in  early  childhood.  When 
they  met  each  other  is  not  known.  The  story  that  they 
were  first  cousins  is  without  foundation.  It  is  likely  that  they 
were  not  acquainted  before  1804  or  1805.  The  families  from 
which  they  sprang  were  poor;  it  is  not  easy  to  say  how  poor 
without  making  them  seem  more  so  than  they  really  were.  They 
have  been  called  "poor  whites."  They  were  poor  and  they  were 
white,  but  they  were  not  poor  whites.  They  were  of  decent, 
average  American  stock.  They  were  sober,  honest,  virtuous, 
religious  and  not  quite  illiterate.  He  was  able  "bunglingly  to 
write  his  own  name"  and  she  is  believed  to  have  been  able  to 
read  and  write,  though  in  the  one  document  to  which  her  name 
is  signed,  she  made  her  mark.  There  was  nothing  in  either  of 
them  that  would  lead  us  to  expect  so  great  a  son;  neither  was 
there  apparent  any  marked  disqualification  for  such  high  honor. 
Of  each  of  their  families  account  will  be  given  in  succeeding 
chapters.  We  recite  here  the  important  facts  as  they  relate  to 
Thomas  Lincoln,  together  with  some  account  of  Nancy  Hanks; 
but  the  detailed  story  of  her  life  belongs  with  the  narrative  of 
her  family  in  a  later  chapter. 

Thomas  Lincoln,  son  of  Abraham  and  Bathsheba  Lincoln,  was 
born  on  Linville  Creek,  in  Rockingham  County,  Virginia,  Janu- 
ary 6,  1778.  This  date  we  accept  from  the  record  of  his  son, 
Abraham,  and  we  depart  here  from  the  chronology  of  Lea  and 
Hutchinson,  in  their  handsome  volume  on  The  Ancestry  of  Lin- 

9 


io  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

coin,  which  since  1909  has  furnished  most  biographers  with 
their  data.  Of  that  book  it  is  high  praise  to  say  that  it  is  not 
always  wrong.  It  will  be  cited  in  a  few  places  in  the  present 
work,  but  for  the  most  part  it  is  to  be  rejected.* 

The  journey  of  the  family  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  grand- 
father, from  Virginia  to  Kentucky,  occurred  in  1782,  when 
Thomas  was  four  years  old.  In  the  spring  of  1786,  the  pioneer 
Abraham  was  killed  by  an  Indian.  He  left  a  widow,  three  sons 
and  two  daughters. 

From  the  time  he  was  sixteen  until  he  left  Kentucky,  we  are 
able  to  account  for  Thomas  Lincoln  in  the  various  official 
records  of  the  two  Kentucky  counties  of  Washington  and 
Hardin. f 

In  1795  the  name  Thomas  Lincoln  appears  on  the  tax  lists  of 
Washington  County,  Kentucky,  as  a  minor  above  sixteen  years 
of  age,  and  also  on  May  16,  1796,  as  a  white  male  above  sixteen 
cUid  under  twenty-one.  In  1799  he  is  listed  for  the  first  time  as 
above  twenty-one.  If  he  was  above  sixteen  in  1795,  and  above 
twenty-one  in  1799,  he  must  have  been  born  between  1777  and 
1779,  which  accords  with  the  date  given  by  his  son,  Abraham 
Lincoln  the  President. 

There  was  fear  of  an  Indian  uprising  in  1795,  and  Thomas 
Lincoln,  then  a  boy  of  seventeen,  served  thirty  days  from  June 
eighth  to  July  seventh,  as  a  private  in  Captain  George  Ewing's 
Company  of  Washington  County  Militia,  under  command  of 
Brigadier  General  John  Caldwell. 

President  Lincoln  has  told  us  that  his  father  became  "a  wan- 
dering laboring  boy"  who  grew  up  "literally  without  educa- 
tion," and  that  "before  he  was  grown,  he  passed  one  year  as  a 
farm-hand  with  his  uncle  Isaac  on  Watauga."     That  year  of 


*That  book  furnished  the  material  for  the  inscriptions  upon  the  walls  of 
the  Memorial  at  Hodgenville,  and  those  inscriptions  are  sadly  inaccurate. 

fl  refer  to  my  Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  for  a  list  of  important 
dates,  arranged  particularly  to  account  for  his  movements  in  the  period  pre- 
ceding the  birth  of  Abraham.  Other  important  dates  are  now  given  here,  for 
the  first  time. 


THE  PARENTS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  n 

absence  must  have  been  1798.  There  are  authentic  and  indis- 
putable Kentucky  records  bearing  his  name  in  every  other  calen- 
dar year  from  1795  to  18 16. 

In  1800,  Thomas  Lincoln  was  taxed  as  a  resident  of  Wash- 
ington County,  above  twenty-one  years.  He  owned  a  horse. 
On  August  5,  1802,  he  was  listed  and  taxed  in  Washington 
County,  and  still  owned  one  horse.  Cattle  and  hogs  were  not 
usually  taxed  in  Washington  County  at  this  period,  so  we  do 
not  know  whether  he  had  any  other  property;  probably  one 
horse,  owned  before  the  boy  became  of  age,*  was  his  only  tax- 
able property.  After  1802  his  name  disappears  from  the  Wash- 
ington County  tax  lists. 

It  has  been  affirmed  by  many  writers  that  Mordecai,  the 
eldest  brother  of  Thomas  Lincoln,  inherited  the  whole  of  his 
father's  property ;  and  that  under  the  old  Virginia  law  of  pri- 
mogeniture, Thomas,  and  perhaps  with  him  the  middle  brother 
Josiah,  was  wronged  out  of  his  part  of  his  father's  estate. 

This  is  a  serious  charge  against  Mordecai,  by  some  authors 
extended  to  include  Josiah  also,  and  it  has  no  known  foundation. 
Indubitably  the  English  law  of  primogeniture,  which  was  the  law 
in  Virginia,  held  in  Kentucky.  As  Abraham  Lincoln  died  in- 
testate, and  all  his  children  were  minors,  the  court  appointed  ad- 
ministrators to  serve  until  the  eldest  boy  was  of  age.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  Mordecai,  either  alone  or  in  conspiracy 
with  Josiah,  was  otherwise  than  just  to  his  younger  brothers 
and  sisters.  We  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  in  this,  as  in 
all  else,  Mordecai  was  a  just  man  and  a  faithful  older  brother; 
and  we  have  reason  also  to  respect  his  brother  Josiah. 

Mordecai,  when  he  came  of  age,  accepted  his  inheritance  under 
the  law,  for  he,  only,  had  standing  in  court  as  the  heir-at-law 
of  his  deceased  father.  But  soon  after  Josiah  came  of  age,  we 
find  Mordecai  selling  part  of  his  father's  land,  and  Josiah  buying 
land  for  cash;  and,  in  1802,  we  find  Mordecai  selling  more  land, 


*He  probably  owned  a  horse  before  he  journeyed  into  East  Tennessee  to 
spend  a  year  working  on  the  farm  of  his  uncle. 


12  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  Thomas  buying  a  farm  and  paying  for  it  in  cash.  What 
Mordecai  did  with  the  money  he  received  from  the  two  sales  of 
land  is  not,  of  course,  a  matter  of  court  record ;  and  by  the  same 
token  there  is  no  record  showing  where  either  Josiah  or  Thomas 
obtained  money  with  which  to  buy  land.  But  the  inference*  is 
unmistakable.  Mordecai  acted  as  guardian  of  the  interests  of 
his  minor  brothers  and  sisters  and  dealt  honorably  with  them. 

Another  event  of  importance  occurred.  On  February  3,  1801, 
a  license  was  issued  for  the  marriage  of  Nancy  Lincoln,  the 
younger  of  the  two  sisters  of  Thomas,  to  William  Brumfield, 
and  the  marriage  was  duly  celebrated.f 

William  and  Nancy  Brumfield  removed  to  Mill  Creek  in 
Hardin  County,  and  there,  in  time,  Bathsheba,  the  widowed 
mother  of  the  Lincoln  family,  went  to  reside,  and  continued  to 
live  there  with  her  youngest  daughter  until  her  death  in  1836. 
This  was  probably  the  reason  why  Thomas  Lincoln  invested  his 
patrimony  in  a  farm  on  Mill  Creek. $ 

From  January,  1803,  until  October,  18 16,  we  have  numerous 
records  of  Thomas  Lincoln  as  resident  of  Hardin  County.  His 
name  appears  regularly  on  the  tax  lists  (and  he  paid  his  taxes), 
}n  jury-lists,  in  several  lawsuits  (in  which  he  uniformly  was  the 
winner  of  the  suit),  in  payments  for  guarding  prisoners  (for  he 
was  for  a  time  a  "patrolman"  or  sort  of  deputy  constable),  in 


*I  am  pleased  to  see  that  Miss  Tarbell  adopts  this  view  in  her  last  book, 
taking  her  information  from  my  address  before  the  Filson  Club  of  Louisville, 
Kentucky,  December  4,  1922,  on  The  Lincolns  in  Their  Old  Kentucky  Home. 
This  was,  as  I  suppose,  the  first  time  the  theory  was  propounded,  and  it  is 
so  reasonable  and  just,  I  am  confident  it  will  be  generally  adopted  henceforth. 
I  acknowledge  Miss  Tarbell's  courtesy  in  the  generous  credit  she  gives  me 
in  this  and  other  matters. 

fThe  date  of  the  bond  is  February  third,  and  the  marriage  return  is  dated 
January  13,  1801,  and  signed  by  Thomas  Kyle.  This  minister  was  of  the 
Disciples  Church,  and  he  signed  his  name  with  bold  flourish  to  each  of  his 
many  marriage  returns.  Whether  he  made  a  mistake  in  the  date  of  this 
return,  or  whether,  as  was  sometimes  the  case,  the  minister  himself  issued 
a  license,  we  may  not  know.  When  I  was  a  circuit-riding  preacher  in  the 
Tennessee  mountains  I  was  permitted  by  the  county  court  to  issue  licenses 
and  accept  bonds,  but  I  have  not  discovered  a  similar  practise  in  Kentucky. 
It  is  a  minor  discrepancy,  and  of  no  great  importance. 

^Concerning  this  farm,  see  my  The  Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  All 
previous  works  had  been  in  error  concerning  it. 


THE  PARENTS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  13 

auction  sales  of  estates  which  required  to  be  reported  to  the 
court,  and  in  other  records  which  have  survived  the  ravages  of 
time,  and  have  been  exhumed  in  the  course  of  research  for  this 
work.* 

These  records,  more  than  a  hundred  in  number,  are  common- 
place enough  taken  singly,  but  they  afford  us  what  is  to  all  in- 
tents and  purposes  a  documentary  chronology  of  the  life  of 
Thomas  Lincoln  from  the  time  he  was  sixteen  years  of  age  until 
he.  left  Kentucky.  He  bought  his  Mill  Creek  farm  in  Hardin 
County  from  Doctor  John  Toms  Slater,  September  2,  1803, 
having  already  become  a  resident  of  Hardin  County.  So  far 
as  we  know,  he  never  lived  on  this  farm.  He  did  not  sell  it  until 
October  27,  18 14,  but  neither  did  he  abandon  it.  He  paid  taxes 
upon  it,  and  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  he  rented  it  to  tenants, 
\  perhaps  to  the  Miltons  to  whom  he  later  conveyed  it.  He  prob- 
ably worked  this  farm  in  1804,  living  with  his  mother  and  sister, 
but  by  1805  he  was  in  Elizabethtown,  working  at  his  trade  of 
carpenter. 
•Recent  fiction,  published  as  biography,  tends  to  make  Nancy 


*When  I  began  work  on  this  book  hardly  a  single  correct  date  had  been 
discovered  by  Lincoln  biographers  concerning  Thomas  Lincoln,  save  only 
those  of  his  two  marriages  and  his  appointment  as  road  surveyor.  The  dates 
both  of  birth  and  death  were  uncertain,  and  not  one  of  the  tax  lists  or  court 
records  above  referred  to  was  known  to  exist.  I  am  indebted  to  a  number  of 
friends  for  assistance  in  this  matter.  Honorable  Joseph  Polin,  County  At- 
torney o-f  Washington  County,  assisted  me  in  the  discovery  of  the  Washing- 
ton County  lists,  and  it  was  he  who  helped  me  also  to  exhume  three  addi- 
tional lists  of  marriage  returns  by  Jesse  Head,  each  one  of  them  containing 
about  a  year's  marriages  performed  by  him.  Honorable  L.  S.  Pence,  of 
Lebanon,  Kentucky,  and  Honorable  George  Holbert,  of  Elizabethtown,  added 
important  data.  Mrs.  Cannon,  of  the  Kentucky  Historical  Society,  while  en- 
gaged in  search  for  me,  discovered  valuable  lists  in  a  lot  of  papers  that  had 
not  seen  the  light  of  day  for  many  years,  and  were  to  have  been  burned, 
these  adding  material  of  very  great  value.  But  most  important  of  all  my 
assistants  as  regards  Thomas  Lincoln  has  been  Reverend  Louis  A.  Warren. 
When  I  first  met  him,  he  was  pastor  at  Hodgenville,  and  later  removed  to 
Elizabethtown,  and  thence  to  Morganfield.  He  has  become  an  investigator 
of  unusual  skill  and  persistence,  and  is  soon  to  release  the  results  of  his  ex- 
tensive research  which  includes  the  copies  of  over  two  thousand  public  rec- 
ords. Much  of  this  unpublished  material  he  has  generously  permitted  me 
to  use.  To  Mr.  Warren  and  his  forthcoming  volume,  I  make  grateful 
reference.  His  work  will  be  invaluable  to  all  who  wish  to  possess  a  com- 
plete documentary  account  of   the   Lincolns    in   their   Kentucky   environment. 


14  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Hanks  a  blonde.  She  was  tall,  dark  and  sallow.  Her  hair  was 
dark  brown,  almost  black.  Her  eyes  were  small  and  gray.  She 
had  a  prominent  forehead,  a  feature  remarked  by  all  the  relatives 
who  have  given  account  of  her,  and  it  was  regarded  by  them 
as  an  indication  of  unusual  mental  ability.  She  was  above 
medium  height,  and  weighed  about  one  hundred  and  thirty 
pounds.  She  had  a  slight  stoop,  and  her  appearance  suggested 
a  tubercular  tendency.  Her  face  was  thin,  sharp  and  angular. 
Her  disposition  was  cheerful,  and  she  had  an  exuberant  spirit 
which  sometimes  broke  over  restraint  and  expressed  itself  in 
care-free  merriment ;  but  this  mood  alternated  with  one  of  melan- 
choly. All  who  knew  her  and  whose  reports  have  come  down 
to  us,  remark  the  habitual  sadness  of  her  features  in  repose. 
She  was  gentle,  capable  and  strong;  amiable,  friendly  and  kind. 
Nancy's  mother  could  write,  but  that  was  not  true  either  of  the 
Hankses  generally  or  of  the  Sparrows  among  whom  Nancy 
spent  her  girlhood.  She,  however,  received  some  education;  we 
do  not  know  how  much,  but  her  relations  thought  it  remarkable, 
and  considering  her  circumstances  it  may  be  so  regarded, 

When,  in  185 1,  Thomas  Lincoln  died,  Abraham  Lincoln  broke 
over  his  habitual  reserve,  and  spoke  somewhat  freely  to  his  part- 
ner, William  H.  Herndon,  of  his  father  and  also  of  his  mother: 

Mr.  Lincoln  himself  said  to  me  in  1851,  on  receiving  news  of 
his  father's  death,  that  whatever  might  be  said  of  his  parents, 
and  however  unpromising  the  early  surroundings  of  his  mother 
may  have  been,  she  was  highly  intellectual  by  nature,  had  a 
strong  memory,  acute  judgment,  and  was  cool  and  heroic* 

He  was  not  speaking  of  her  direct  influence  upon  him,  but 
of  qualities  which  he  believed  himself  to  have  inherited  from  her, 
when  he  used  the  much  quoted  expression  regarding  his  mother; 
but  we  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  had  she  lived  she  would 
have  had  a  potent  influence  for  good  upon  his  youth  and  young 


*Herndon's  Lincoln,  i,  p.  13.    All  references  to  Herndon's  Lincoln  are  to 
the  first  edition. 


THE  PARENTS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  15 

manhood.  With  still  better  reason  would  he  have  said,  "God 
bless  my  mother;  all  that  I  am  or  hope  to  be  I  owe  to  her." 

We  are  hardly  to  credit  the  story  that  Nancy  was  living  in 
the  home  of  her  uncle,  Joseph  Hanks,  in  Elizabethtown,  when 
she  became  engaged  to  marry  Thomas  Lincoln,  for  Joseph  was 
himself  unmarried  at  the  time.  In  May,  1806,  he  bought  a  farm 
with  livestock  and  household  goods,  on  Rough  Creek,  in  Gray- 
son County,  near  his  brother  William.  Yet  the  story  appears 
to  have  a  basis  of  truth.  Joseph  Hanks,  who  had  gone  back  to 
Virginia  after  the  death  of  his  father,  had  returned  to  Kentucky, 
and  was  working  with  Thomas  Lincoln  near  Elizabethtown. 
They  were  both  carpenters.  Joseph  had  two  married  sisters  liv- 
ing in  that  county,  and  with  one  of  them,  Elizabeth  Sparrow, 
Nancy  was  living.  It  is  therefore  probably  true  that  Thomas 
Lincoln's  association  as  a  fellow-craftsman  with  Joseph  led  to  his 
acquaintance  with  Nancy  Hanks. 

We  do  not  know  why  the  marriage  occurred  in  Washington 
County.  The  early  home  of  Thomas  was  there,  and  his  brothers 
resided  where  he  had  grown  up;  but  the  wedding  did  not  take 
place  in  either  of  their  houses.  The  bride's  home  had  never 
been  in  Washington,  nor  had  any  of  her  immediate  family  ever 
resided  there.  But  it  is  not  strange  that  the  wedding  should 
have  occurred  in  that  place. 

At  the  time  of  her  marriage,  June  12,  1806,  she  was  in 
Washington  County,  in  the  home  of  one  of  the  Berrys.  Thither 
Thomas  Lincoln  followed  her,  and,  his  own  mother  having  re- 
moved to  Hardin  County,  and  the  homes  of  his  two  brothers 
being  perhaps  less  suited  to  a  wedding  than  the  home  of  the 
Berrys,  they  were  married  there. 

Undue  reliance  has  been  placed  upon  an  account  of  the  be- 
havior of  "one  of  the  Hanks  girls"  at  a  camp-meeting  which 
J.  B.  Helm,  fifty-nine  years  afterward,  thought  he  remembered 
having  attended,  and  a  Minneapolis  lawyer,  a  Methodist,  sup- 
posing that  none  but  Methodists  held  camp-meetings,  has  ac- 
cepted this  story  as  proof  that  Nancy  Hanks  was  a  Methodist, 


i6  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  that,  honoring  his  mother  as  he  did,  Abraham  Lincoln  must 
have  been  of  the  same  denomination.*  But  old  men  do  not  re- 
call incidents  that  have  lain  buried  for  fifty-nine  years,  and  tell 
them  exactly  as  they  occurred;  and  Helm  did  not  pretend  to 
know  which  of  the  Hanks  girls  it  was  who  cavorted  at  the 
camp-meeting.  It  was  not  Nancy.  She  was  not  there.  And 
camp-meetings  were  not  held  in  corn-plowing  time.f 

The  Lincolns  were  Baptists,  and  so  were  the  Hankses.  Thom- 
as Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks  were  married  by  a  neighbor,  the 
Reverend  Jesse  Head,  who  was  a  Methodist.  This  minister  is 
an  important  part  of  the  story  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  but  his  de- 
nomination was  not  the  same  as  theirs, 

President  Lincoln  did  not  know  in  what  county  his  parents 
were  married.  When  he  was  nominated  for  the  presidency  in 
i860,  Samuel  Haycraft,  the  county  clerk  of  Hardin  County,  wrote 
to  him  asking  if  he  were  not  the  son  of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Sarah 
Bush,  and  Lincoln  replied  that  Thomas  Lincoln  was  his  father, 
but  by  an  earlier  marriage.  Haycraft  found  the  record  of  the 
marriage  of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Sarah  Bush,  but  could  not 
discover  any  record  of  Thomas  Lincoln's  marriage  to  Nancy 
Hanks.  Such  other  search  as  was  made  immediately  afterward 
yielded  no  satisfactory  results;  but,  in  1878,  through  the  efforts 
of  R.  M.  Thompson,  who  had  heard  the  story  from  an  old  man, 
William  Hardesty,  a  search  was  made  among  the  records  of 
Washington  County,  and  the  county  clerk,  W.  F.  Booker,  dis- 
covered the  marriage  bond  of  Thomas  Lincoln  for  his  marriage 
to  Nancy  Hanks,  together  with  the  marriage  return  of  Jesse 
Head,  as  deacon  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.     This  was 


*A  Defence  of  Lincoln's  Mother,  by  J.  M.  Martin.  It  is  based  on  Helm's 
story  in  Herndon,  i,  pp.  14-15. 

fMr.  Helm,  whose  memory  was  at  fault  in  other  matters  and  may  have 
been  in  this,  told  Herndon  that  the  young  woman  who  rode  with  him  to  the 
camp-meeting,  and  who  witnessed  this  performance  with  him,  and  identified 
the  leading  participants,  said  to  him  that  this  religiously  demonstrative  Hanks 
girl  and  the  young  man  who  shared  this  incident  with  her  were  to  be  mar- 
ried in  the  following  week.  This  makes  us  certain  that  the  girl  can  not  have 
been  Nancy  Hanks.  She  and  Thomas  Lincoln  were  married  June  twelfth, 
too  early  in  the  season  for  camp-meetings. 


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THE  PARENTS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  i7 

a  most  important  discover}',  and  it  started  inquiry  as  to  the  per- 
sonality of  Jesse  Head.  This  inquiry  established  the  fact  that 
Jesse  Head  spent  his  last  years  at  Harrodsburg,  but  facts  con- 
cerning him  appeared  to  be  meager.  In  1882,  Doctor  Christo- 
pher Columbus  Graham,  who  had  owned  the  Harrodsburg 
Springs  for  several  years  prior  to  1852,  related  his  recollections 
of  Jesse  Head,  whom  he  had  known  during  a  part  of  his  resi- 
dence in  Harrodsburg.  Doctor  Graham  was  then  ninety-eight 
years  old,  so  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  old  man  forgot  to 
tell  that  he  had  been  present  when  Jesse  Head  married  Doctor 
Graham  himself  to  Theresa  Sutton,  October  8,  1820.  Instead, 
he  fancied  that  he  had  been  present  at  the  marriage  of  Thomas 
and  Nancy  Lincoln.  The  more  he  was  interviewed,  the  more  he 
remembered.  His  affidavit  issued  in  his  one-hundredth  year 
elaborated  considerably  the  original  statement,  and  the  final 
form  of  his  story  was  that  he  had  been  present  at  the  marriage 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  himself.* 

If  Doctor  Graham  had  actually  been  present  at  the  marriage 
of  Thomas  and  Nancy  Lincoln,  there  was  a  period  of  several 
years  in  which  he  could  have  rendered  a  most  valuable  service 
by  telling  of  the  fact.  He  did  not  publish  it  then,  nor  until  his 
story  was  practically  valueless  as  evidence.  At  every  point  where 
he  attempted  to  enlarge  upon  the  information  which  the  records 
gave,  his  statement  was  untrue.  He  probably  never  saw  the 
Lincolns.  Miss  Tarbell  has  not  assisted  us  in  her  wide-spread 
publication  of  Doctor  Graham's  story.  He  was  an  old  man  in 
his  dotage,  in  the  hands  of  men  some  of  whom  had  their  own 
reasons  for  wanting  him  to  testify  as  he  did.  And  it  is  this 
man's  testimony  that  furnishes  much  of  the  information  in  the 
tablets  upon  the  walls  of  the  Lincoln  memorial  at  Hodgenville! 

It  is  discouraging  to  have  these  fabrications  wide-spread  by 
authors  who  intend  to  be  truthful,  and  then  accepted  by  a  public 
that  has  all  too  little  discrimination.     Doctor  Graham,  in  his'gar- 


*See  his  letter  to  Robert  T.  Lincoln  in  the  Durrett  Collection,  University 
of  Chicago. 


18  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

rulous  romancing,  told  that  Jesse  Head  was  an  ardent  abolition- 
ist, Graham  himself  being  a  slave-holder  and  a  southern  sym- 
pathizer; that  Thomas  Lincoln  and  both  his  wives  were  "chock- 
full  of  the  liberty-loving  principles"  which  Head  had  derived 
from  Thomas  Paine  and  others,  and  that  thus  Thomas  Lincoln 
became,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born,  an  abolitionist.  He 
further  said  that  Jesse  Head  could  have  afforded  slaves,  but 
did  not  own  them.  He  might  better  have  said  that  Jesse  Head 
could  not  afford  slaves,  but  did  own  them.  Both  in  Washing- 
ton and  Mercer  Counties,  Jesse  Head  was  a  slave-owner.  And, 
being  editor  of  a  newspaper,  he  had  no  scruples  against  adver- 
tising rewards  for  the  arrest  of  runaway  slaves,  and  their  lodg- 
ment in  jail  for  return  to  their  masters.  He  was  a  hard-hitting 
Democrat  of  the  old  school,  and  he  did  not  love  Henry  Clay,  but 
admired  Andrew  Jackson.* 

On  the  question  of  slavery,  Jesse  Head  was  neither  in  advance 
of  nor  behind  his  own  generation.  He  was  a  good  man,  a  worthy 
and  faithful  pioneer  preacher;  but  none  of  the  things  that  Chris- 
topher Columbus  Graham  tells  of  him  are  true.  Miss  Tarbell's 
friends  were  not  satisfied  with  Doctor  Graham's  story,  but  added 
a  forged  certificate  of  the  marriage  of  Thomas  and  Nancy  Lin- 
coln, separate  from  the  marriage  return.  She  was  imposed 
upon  by  people  whom  she  trusted,  f 

The  Kentucky  marriage  law  was  the  old  Virginia  law.  It 
required  that  before  the  clerk  of  the  court  issued  a  marriage 
license,  he  should  secure  a  bond  from  two  responsible  citizens, 
to  indemnify  him  against  the  possibility  of  issuing  a  license  for  a 
marriage  that  might  not  legally  be  performed.  The  law  did  not 
specify  what  citizens  should  sign  the  bond,  but  with  practical 
uniformity  the  first  signer  was  the  prospective  bridegroom;  and 


*In  the  Appendix  I  give  some  account  of  this  interesting  man — Jesse 
Head. 

fThis  fraudulent  certificate,  published  in  entire  good  faith,  appears  in 
Miss  Tarbell's  Early  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  31.  I  note  that  the  document  itself 
was  sold  in  a  New  York  book  auction  in  1921,  and  the  catalogue  called  at- 
tention to  the  questionable  nature  of  this  certificate. 


THE  PARENTS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  19 

usually  his  surety  was  the  bride's  father,  if  she  had  a  father,  or 
some  relative  or  friend  who  was  known  to  represent  her  inter- 
ests. This  ''guardian"  was  not  appointed  by  the  court,  but  was 
a  friend  who  assumed  a  guardianship  of  the  bride's  interest  for 
the  purposes  of  the  marriage  license.  Almost  any  bystander  in  a 
Kentucky  court-house  will  sign  a  marriage  bond;  and  in  all  the 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  during  which  they  have  been  issued 
the  Commonwealth  has  never  once  instituted  suit. 

Richard  Berry  signed  Thomas  Lincoln's  bond  as  "guardian" 
of  Nancy  Hanks,  she  being  then  twenty-three  years  old,  and 
sentimental  writers  have  imagined  that  she  must  have  been 
legally  adopted  by  her  "kind  Uncle  Richard  Berry."  Richard 
Berry,  Sr.,  died  in  1798;  and  the  signer  of  the  bond  was  Thomas 
Lincoln's  friend,  the  second  Richard  Berry,  whose  wife,  Polly 
Ewing,  was  a  friend  of  Nancy. 

The  bond  was  issued  June  10,  1806,  and  two  days  later. 
Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks  were  married. 

William  Hardesty,  born  in  1798,  and  living  less  than  a  half- 
mile  away,  professed  to  have  slipped  over  and  attended  the  wad- 
ding; and  so  far  forth  his  story  is  wholly  probable.  It  was 
largely  his  recollection  that  led  to  the  discovery  of  the  marriage 
bond,  and  for  it  he  deserves  credit.  But,  unfortunately,  like 
other  old  men  who  have  interesting  recollections,  when  he  began 
to  recall  the  part  he  remembered,  he  was  able  to  remember  also 
a  number  of  events  that  never  occurred,  as,  for  instance,  the 
birth  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  Washington  County,  and  his  hav- 
ing seen  the  little  lad,  Abraham,  playing  about  the  door  of  the 
house  which  he  believed  to  have  been  that  of  Thomas  Lincoln. 
But  William  Hardesty  might  easily  have  been  at  the  wedding, 
just  as  he  declared ;  and  his  evidence  is  much  better  than  that  of 
Doctor  Graham,  which  is  worthless. 

The  house  where  Thomas  and  Nancy  are  believed  to  have 
been  married  stood  near  an  excellent  spring,  not  far  from  Beech 
Fork  of  wSalt  River.  A  little  settlement  is  near,  sometimes  called 
Beechland  and  sometimes  Poortown.     The  latter  name  has  not 


20  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

been  satisfactorily  accounted  for;  the  inhabitants  were  not  poor- 
er than  their  neighbors ;  indeed,  the  community  was  rather  pros- 
perous than  otherwise. 

Weddings  in  the  backwoods  were  joyous  and  boisterous  af- 
fairs, with  plenty  to  eat  and  more  than  enough  to  drink.  In  all 
probability  there  was  a  fiddle  and  a  dance.  But  it  was  an  order- 
ly affair,  as  we  may  believe,  for  the  Berrys  and  their  neighbors 
were  men  and  women  of  standing  in  the  community,  and  the 
merriment  is  not  likely  to  have  exceeded  proper  bounds.  Be- 
sides, Thomas  and  Nancy  were  religious  people,  and  the  time 
was  one  of  religious  activity  in  that  locality. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  the  widow,  Bathsheba  Lincoln,  rode 
back  from  Mill  Creek  to  attend  the  wedding  of  her  youngest 
son.  Mordecai  and  Josiah,  with  their  wives,  were  doubtless  there 
to  see  their  brother  married;  Thomas's  older  sister,  Mary,  and 
her  husband,  Ralph  Crume,  may  have  been  there.  If  Bathsheba 
was  present,  so  also,  in  all  likelihood,  was  her  youngest  daughter, 
Nancy  Brumfield.    There  was  no  lack  of  Lincolns  in  attendance. 

But  who  of  the  Hanks  family  was  there  when  Nancy  was 
married?  None  of  them  lived  in  Washington  County.  Nancy's 
welcome  in  the  homes  of  that  locality  depended  upon  no  known 
tie  of  kinship,  nor  yet  of  any  friendly  interest  save  that  which 
she  herself  had  earned  or  some  member  of  the  Sparrow  family 
had  won  for  her.  It  is  not  likely  that  her  Aunt  Elizabeth  and 
her  Uncle  Thomas  Sparrow,  whom  she  called  father  and  mother, 
were  absent;  and  it  is  possible  that  her  Aunt  Polly  Friend  or 
even  her  Aunt  Nancy  Hall  was  there. 

But  I  have  not  been  able  to  stop  with  these  probabilities.  Only 
twenty  miles  away — I  have  measured  the  distance  with  a 
speedometer,  an  instrument  of  which  she  never  heard,  while  rid- 
ing in  a  vehicle  that  would  have  amazed  her — lived  another 
woman  who  was  called  her  aunt. 

I  wonder  if  she  was  there. 

I  wonder  if  she  could  keep  away. 


/  **/ 


*/£ 


s 


£/**■■<***  **         m  ,,        ?      | 


/. 


&*. 


\2  &7&>f  **>•***  7*W 


MARRIAGE  RETURN  OF  REVEREND  JESSE  HEAD 

Certifying  the  Marriage  of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Xancy  Hanks 

Photographed  for  this  work 


CHAPTER  III 


THE    LINCOLNS 


When  Abraham  Lincoln  wrote  his  autobiographical  sketch 
for  Jesse  W.  Fell,  in  December,  1859,  he  said  concerning  his 
ancestors  of  the  name  of  Lincoln : 

An  effort  to  identify  them  with  the  New  England  family  of 
the  same  name  ended  in  nothing  more  definite  than  a  similarity 
of  Christian  names  in  both  families,  such  as  Enoch,  Levi,  Mor- 
decai,  Solomon,  Abraham,  and  the  like. 

Subsequent  and  more  thorough  investigation,  however,  made 
the  identification  complete.  The  Lincolns  are  of  New  England 
origin.* 

Xot  only  are  the  American  Lincolns  of  New  England  extrac- 
tion, but  the  family  in  colonial  times  was  almost  wholly  restricted 
to  Massachusetts.  The  adjutant  general  of  the  United  States 
Army  has  searched  the  records  of  the  War  Department  and  finds 
not  a  single  Revolutionary  soldier  of  the  name  of  Lincoln  from 
Virginia  or  the  states  farther  South.  The  United  States  records 
show  soldiers  of  the  name  of  Lincoln,  Linkhorn  and  Linkon  as 
follows:  Maryland  1,  Pennsylvania  4,  New  York  1,  Rhode  Is- 
land 1,  New  Hampshire  7,  Connecticut  10  and  Massachusetts  44. 


*\Yaldo  Lincoln's  History  of  the  Lincoln  Family,  Worcester,  Massachu- 
setts, 1923,  will  stand,  I  judge,  as  the  authoritative  record  of  the  Lincolns  in 
America.  Marion  Dexter  Learned's  Abraham  Lincoln,  An  American  Migra- 
tion, Philadelphia,  1909,  written  to  disprove  the  thesis  of  Louis  P.  Hennig- 
hausen  that  the  Lincolns  were  of  German  origin,  clearly  makes  that  point 
and  in  addition  gives  a  good  account  of  the  migrations  of  the  Lincolns 
in  America.  Lea  and  Hutchinson,  in  their  Ancestry  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
appear  to  have  done  good  work  in  the  English  ancestry  of  the  Lincoln 
family,  but  not  to  have  established  its  connection  with  the  family  in  America; 
and  in  their  American  line  I  have  found  them  so  often  in  error  that  I  no 
longer  trust  them  in  any  matter  where  documentary  proof  is  not  available. 

21 


22  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

These  records,  of  course,  are  incomplete.  A  search  of  tht 
records  of  particular  states,  including  the  enrollments  of  militia 
which  may  duplicate  names,  increases  the  preponderance  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. Mr.  Charles  Z.  Lincoln,  in  an  address  at  Taunton, 
Massachusetts,  July  12,  1906,  said  that  he  had  made  careful 
search  among  the  state  records,  and  had  found  one  Revolutionary 
soldier  named  Lincoln  from  New  York,  one  from  Pennsylvania, 
and  three  from  New  Jersey — only  six  outside  of  New  England, 
and  only  fourteen  from  New  England  States  other  than  Massa- 
chusetts, while  Massachusetts  showed  on  her  various  muster 
rolls  not  less  than  335  men  named  Lincoln. 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  recall  that  Taunton  long  believed  it- 
self to  have  been  the  ancestral  home  of  the  forebears  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  At  the  time  of  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  an  im- 
portant branch  of  the  Lincoln  family  lived  in  that  city.  One 
of  the  sons,  named  Abraham,  born  November  9,  1761,  is  alleged 
to  have  had  a  violent  altercation  with  a  Tory,  as  a  result  of 
which  he  ran  away  from  home  and  settled  in  Pennsylvania, 
married  and  was  later  killed  by  the  Indians.  The  fact  that  the 
Taunton  Lincolns  were  iron-founders,  and  that  those  in  Pennsyl- 
vania were,  some  of  them,  of  the  same  craft,  lent  color  to  this 
belief.*     But  this  view  has  now  generally  been  abandoned. 

Concerning  the  spelling  of  the  name  and  its  alleged  origin  in 
other  forms,  as  Linkhorn,  and  its  supposed  evolution  into  Lin- 
coln^ little  present  comment  is  necessary. 

Norman  Hapgood,  in  his  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  Man  of  the 
People,  a  book  written  in  an  excellent  spirit  but  with  fine  disre- 
gard of  fact,  says  of  Thomas  Lincoln : 

He  was  a  Jackson  Democrat  who  couldn't  write  his  name  until 
his  first  wife  taught  him  to  scrawl  it,  the  farthest  reach  of  edu- 

*An  extended  and  apparently  conclusive  article  on  this  subject  by  James 
Minor  Lincoln,  of  New  York,  was  published  in  the  Taunton  Herald-News 
for  February  10,  1909. 

tSee  the  chapter  entitled  "Was  Abraham  Lincoln  a  German?"  in  the 
author's  The  Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Also  Abraham  Lincoln,  an 
American  Migration,  by  Marion  Dexter  Learned. 


THE  LINCOLNS  23 

cation  he  ever  acquired.  His  name  was,  under  the  circum- 
stances, unstable;  but  in  Indiana  it  showed  a  general  drift  toward 
Linkern,  away  from  the  favorite  Kentucky  form  of  Linckhorn, 
settling   in    its   present    spelling   many   years    later    in    Illinois. 

(PP.  4-5-) 

The  name  Lincoln,  in  common  with  all  other  names,  was  often 
misspelled  in  the  backwoods.  Pronunciations  showed  strange 
perversities,  and  spelling  varied  with  the  pronunciation.  But 
Thomas  Lincoln  invariably  signed  his  name  Lincoln,  and  so  did 
his  father  Abraham,  and  so  did  his  grandfather  John,  and  so  did 
his  great-grandfather  Mordecai,  and  so  did  the  original  Ameri- 
can ancestor  of  this  branch  of  the  Lincoln  family,  Samuel  Lin- 
coln, of  Hingham,  Massachusetts.  Moreover,  they  were  all  able 
to  write  their  names. 

The  misspelling  "Linkhorn"  and  the  other  Kentucky  variants 
are  of  no  significance  as  concerns  nationality  or  family  lineage 
James  M.  Lincoln,  of  Wareham,  Massachusetts,  in  a  newspaper 
article  published  and  copied  in  various  papers  in  New  England 
of  the  date  of  May  30,  19 10,  said  that  he  had  found  in  early 
Massachusetts  documents  the  following  variance  in  the  spelling 
of  the  name  Lincoln :  Linkon,  Linkhorn,  Lincol,  Linclon,  Lin- 
corn,  Linkoln,  Linkclon,  Linkord,  Linkhoom,  Lincon,  Linclin, 
Lancoln,  Lincham,  Lincolem,  Linkhon,  Linkton,  Lincolan,  Linch- 
orney,  Linckhorn,  Lenks,  Linchorn,  Lincolin,  Linkalon,  Linklon, 
Linckin,  Lincolon,  Linculor,  Linkhoren,  Lincott,  Linckhornew, 
Lincornew,  Lynklyn,  Linckomeal  and  Lincoln. 

If  they  do  such  things  in  the  green  tree,  what  may  be  expected 
in  the  dry?  If  Massachusetts  thus  misspelled  the  name  of  one  of 
her  best  colonial  families,  the  name  of  one  of  her  Revolutionary 
generals,  of  two  governors  and  of  many  judges  and  members  of 
her  Legislature,  there  can  be  little  wonder  that  on  the  frontier 
the  name  was  occasionally  misspelled.  Those  have  disquieted 
themselves  in  vain  who  have  striven  to  establish  theories  of  their 
own  based  upon  variant  spellings  of  the  name  of  the  president's 
ancestors. 


"24  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  name  Lincoln  is  first  a  place-name,  and  then,  by  its  appli- 
cation to  residents  in  that  place,  a  family  name.  It  goes  back 
to  the  days  of  Roman  occupation  of  England,  and  shares  with 
Cologne  on  the  Rhine  the  honor  of  being  one  of  the  two  names 
that  preserve  the  Latin  abbreviation  for  "colonia,"  or  colony. 
"Lind-colonia"  by  successive  abbreviations  became  Lincoln;  the 
silent  letter  /  is  reminiscent  of  this  derivation.  The  family  of 
Lincoln  presumably  originated  in  the  County  of  Lincoln,  but  that 
is  too  far  remote  for  any  accurate  knowledge. 

There  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  the  American  Lincolns 
are  descended  from  those  of  that  name  who,  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  lived  in  Hingham,  England;  and  in  the  faith  that  this 
was  true,  a  bust  of  Abraham  Lincoln  was  dedicated  in  the  old 
church  in  that  English  village  as  the  World  War  was  drawing 
to  a  close.  The  orator  who  represented  the  United  States  on  that 
occasion  was  no  other  than  the  American  ambassador  to  the 
court  of  St.  James,  the  Honorable  John  W.  Davis,  and  his  speech, 
as  printed  in  the  English  newspapers,  was  a  good  one.  The 
question  upon  which  the  connection  depends  is :  was  Samuel  Lin- 
coln, who  came  to  New  England  in  1637,  sailing  from  Yarmouth 
April  eighth,  arriving  in  Boston,  June  twentieth,  and  after  a  brief 
residence  with  his  employer  Francis  Lawes  in  Salem,  making  his 
home  in  Hingham,  Massachusetts,  the  same  Samuel  who  was 
baptized  in  Hingham,  Old  England,  Sunday,  August  24,  1622? 
If  so,  he  would  have  been  fifteen  years  of  age  when  he  reached 
New  England,  assuming  that  he  was  baptized  within  a  few  days 
after  his  birth.  But  Samuel  Lincoln  who  came  over  with  Francis 
Lawes  in  1637  gave  his  age  as  eighteen,  and  when  he  died  in 
1690  his  age  was  given  as  seventy-one.  We  can  not  very  well 
believe  that  his  baptism  was  postponed  four  years,  for  it  was  the 
custom  of  his  father,  Edward  Lincoln,  to  appear  at  somewhat 
regular  intervals  at  the  old  Hingham  church  with  a  baby  for  bap- 
tism, and  he  did  so  appear  on  March  28,  1619,  with  a  son  Daniel. 
This  practically  forbids  our  believing  that  Samuel  was  born  to 
the  same  parents  in  that  same  year. 


THE  LINCOLNS  25 

However,  there  is  one  possibility  that  must  be  reckoned  with. 
Samuel  Lincoln,  being  only  fifteen,  but  apprenticed  to  an  em- 
ployer who  wanted  to  take  him  to  America  and  Samuel  himself 
greatly  desiring  to  go,  may  have  marked  his  age  up  a  matter  of 
four  years  in  fear  lest  his  youth  should  cause  his  refusal,  or  in 
desire  that  he  might  earlier  reach  his  majority  in  the  freedom  of 
the  new  world.  1  should  like  to  accept  this  as  the  case ;  for  there 
is  considerable  reason  to  believe  that  the  Lincolns  of  Hingham 
in  the  new  world  came  from  Hingham  in  the  old  world.*  It  is 
but  fair  to  state,  however,  that  the  hypothesis  of  misrepresenta- 
tion of  his  own  age  by  Samuel  Lincoln  does  not  solve  the  dif- 
ficulty, which  involves  a  longer  genealogical  discussion  than  is 
here  practicable,  and  with  no  sure  answer  to  the  question. 

^'hatever  uncertainty  attaches  to  the  English  lineage,  the 
first  American  ancestor  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  the  male  line, 
was  Samuel  Lincoln.  He  was  born  in  England,  apprenticed  as  a 
weaver,  and  came  to  Salem,  Massachusetts,  June  20,  1637.  He 
died  in  Hingham,  Massachusetts,  May  26,  1690,  aged  seventy- 
one.  He  married  in  America,  before  1650,  Martha,  whose  sur- 
name is  unknown.  She  died  April  10,  1693.  Samuel  and 
Martha  Lincoln  became  the  parents  of  eleven  children,  of  whom 
eight  survived  them.  Their  fourth  child,  Mordecai,  was  born  at 
Hingham,  Massachusetts,  June  14,  1657,  and  died  November  8. 
1727,  aged  seventy. 

Mordecai  Lincoln  was  an  iron  founder.  He  married  Sarah 
Jones,  daughter  of  Abraham  Jones,  of  Hull.  She  died  before 
February  17,  170 1-2,  on  which  date  he  took  a  second  wife.  It 
is  probably  through  Sarah's  father  that  the  name  Abraham  be- 
came prominent  in  the  Lincoln  family. 

The  eldest  son  of  Mordecai  Lincoln  and  his  wife  Sarah  Jones 
was  Mordecai  Lincoln,  who    was    born    in    Hingham,    Massa- 

*Lea  and  Hutchinson,  in  their  Ancestry  of  Lincoln,  have  accepted  and 
made  popular  the  theory  of  the  rise  of  the  Lincoln  family  in  Hingham  in  Eng- 
land, and  it  is  upon  their  authority  that  the  bust  was  erected  in  19 19.  Waldo 
Lincoln,  in  his  new  History  of  the  Lincoln  Family,  is  skeptical  about  it.  I 
should  be  the  more  glad  to  believe  that  Lea  and  "Hutchinson  were  right  in 
this  particular,  because  I  have  found  them  wrong  in  so  many  other  matters. 


26  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

chusetts,  April  24,  1686,  and  removed  before  17 10  to  Monmouth 
County,  New  Jersey.  Like  his  father,  he  was  an  iron  founder. 
He  married  before  1714,  Hannah,  daughter  of  Richard  and 
Sarah  (Bowne)  Salter,  of  Freehold,  New  Jersey.  He  died  May 
12,  1736. 

The  eldest  son  of  Mordecai  and  Hannah  was  John  Lincoln, 
born  May  3,  1716.  He  was  a  weaver,  and  lived  in  Caernarvon, 
Lancaster  County,  and  subsequently  in  Berks  County,  Pennsyl- 
vania. He  removed  to  Virginia  about  1768.  On  July  5,  1743, 
he  married  Mrs.  Rebecca  (Flowers)  Morris.  Genealogists  call 
him  "Virginia  John,"  probably  to  distinguish  him  from  his 
nephew  John,  of  Uniontown,  Pennsylvania.  His  Virginia  home 
was  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  in  that  part  of  Augusta  which 
is  now  Rockingham  County,  eight  miles  north  of  the  present 
town  of  Harrisonburg.  President  Lincoln  believed  that  his 
great-grandfather  John  was  a  Quaker.  This  belief  was  based 
upon  a  "vague  tradition."  In  such  investigation  as  I  have  been 
able  to  make,  I  do  not  find  this  tradition  confirmed,  or  that  there 
were  any  Lincolns  who  were  Quakers,  except  as  members  of  the 
Lincoln  family  now  and  then  intermarried  with  Quakers,  none 
of  them  in  direct  line  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  John  Lincoln  was 
about  fifty-seven  years  of  age  when  he  removed  to*  Virginia 
He  and  his  wife  Rebecca  made  deeds  on  August  7,  1773.  The 
precise  years  of  their  deaths  have  but  recently  been  discovered. 
John  died  in  November,  1788,  on  Linville  Creek,  Virginia,  and 
is  there  buried.  His  will  was  probated  June  22,  1789.  His 
widow,  Rebecca,  died  July  20,  1806. 

The  eldest  son  of  John  and  Rebecca  Lincoln  was  Abraham 
Lincoln,  the  Kentucky  pioneer,  grandfather  of  the  president.  He 
was  born  in  Berks  County,  Pennsylvania,  May  13,  1744.  As 
a  young  man  he  accompanied  his  father  to  Virginia,  and  from 
him,  August  12,  1773,  obtained  a  grant  of  two  hundred  acres  of 
land  on  Linville  Creek,  in  Augusta,  now  Rockingham  County. 
He  was  a  captain  of  Virginia  Militia  during  the  Revolution,  but 
it  is  uncertain  whether  he  saw  active  military  service  in  that  war. 


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THE  LIXCOLXS  27 

I  find  no  record  of  the  church  membership  of  "Virginia  John" 
Lincoln,  or  of  his  son  Abraham ;  but  Abraham's  brother  John 
was  one  of  the  most  active  official  members  in  the  Linville  Bap- 
tist Church,  some  of  whose  services  were  held  in  the  home  of 
their  brother,  Jacob  Lincoln. 

The  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  wife  has  been  given  in  many 
books  as  Alan-  Shipley ;  and  this  name  having  been  suggested  to 
her  great-grandson,  Honorable  J.  L.  Nail,  he  somewhat  hesitat- 
ingly accepted  it  as  that  of  his  great-grandmother.  He  had  a 
dim  recollection  of  her,  she  having  died  in  1836,  in  the  home  of 
her  daughter,  his  grandmother,  Nancy  Brumfield.  Later  it  was 
discovered  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  licensed  to  marry,  Janu- 
ary 9.  1770.  the  name  of  the  bride  being  omitted.  Xicolay  and 
Hay  adopted  Mr.  Nail's  view  that  the  name  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln's wife  was  Man'  Shipley.* 

Subsequently  it  was  discovered  that  Abraham  Lincoln  had  a 
wife  living  in  1780  and  1781,  whose  name  was  Bathsheba.  One 
school  of  writers  thereafter  claimed  Mary  as  the  first  wife, 
mother  of  all  his  children  except  Thomas;  and  a  later  school, 
finding  this  position  untenable,  advanced  the  theory  that  Bath- 
sheba Herring  was  the  first  wife  and  Mary  Shipley  the  second. 
Both  were  in  error.  There  was  no  Mary  Shipley  Lincoln.  The 
children  of  Abraham  Lincoln  had  one  mother;  her  name  was 
Bathsheba,  probably  Bathsheba  Herring. 

In  July,  1776,  Daniel  Boone's  Survey  Book  entered  a  mem- 
orandum of  one  thousand  acres  of  land  in  the  name  of  "Lincoln." 
This  can  hardly  have  been  Abraham  Lincoln.  It  is  more  likely 
to  have  been  Hannaniah  Lincoln. 

On  March  4,  1780,  there  were  issued  to  Abraham  Lincoln 
three  land  warrants,  Numbers  3333,  3334  and  3335,  each  ac- 
knowledging receipt  of  one  hundred  sixty  pounds,  and  each 
calling  for  four  hundred  acres  of  land.t 


*  Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  i,  p.  5. 

fFor  information  concerning  the  Virginia  Lincolns  supplementing  my 
own  investigations  on  the  ground,  I  am  indebted  to  Professor  John  W.  Way- 
land  and  Honorable  John  T.  Harris,  both  of  Harrisonburg,  Virginia. 


28  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  Entry  Book  of  Jefferson  County  shows  these  two  entries  of 
1780: 

May  29,  1780.  Abraham  Linkhorn  enters  four  hundred  acres 
of  land  on  Treasury  Warrant  lying  on  Floyd's  Fork,  lying  about 
two  miles  above  Teice's  Fork,  beginning  at  a  sugar  tree  S.  B. 
thence  east  three  hundred  poles  thence  north  to  include  a  small 
improvement. 

June  7,  1780.  Abraham  Linkhorn  enters  eight  hundred  acres 
upon  Treasury  Warrant  about  six  miles  below  Green  River  Lick 
including  an  improvement  made  by  Jacob  Gum  and  Owen  Diver. 

On  October  12,  1784,  an  official  survey  was  made  of  his  eight 
hundred  acres  of  land  on  Green  River,  in  which  survey  he  as- 
sisted, and  for  which  he  deposited  his  two  Treasury  Warrants 
3333  and  3335.  His  patent  was  issued  May  17,  1787,  signed  by 
Beverly  Randolph,  Lieutenant  Governor  of  Virginia.* 

A  special  interest  attaches  to  the  land  patented  under  Treasury 
Warrant  3334.  The  original  warrant  is  preserved,  and  is  in  the 
Durrett  Collection  in  the  University  of  Chicago,  and  there  also 
is  full  record  of  the  official  survey.  This  was  made  May  7, 
1785,  and  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  president's  grandfather,  was 
present  and  assisted  as  a  marker.  This  land  is  about  fifteen  miles 
from  Louisville.  It  is  located  on  Long  Run  of  Floyd's  Fork,  and 
lies  north  and  east  of  the  little  village  of  Boston.  Most  of  the 
farm  is  situated  in  Jefferson  County,  but  its  eastern  end  is  in 
Shelby.f 


*This  record  is  in  the  Land  Office  in  Frankfort,  from  which  I  have 
certified  copy. 

fl  am  indebted  to  Mr.  R.  C.  Ballard-Thruston,  of  the  Filson  Club  of 
Louisville,  for  a  painstaking  search  of  documentary  material  which,  with 
careful  -examination  of  the  ground,  enabled  us  to  identify  beyond  question 
the  Lincoln  farm,  and  also  the  site  of  Hughes  Station.  The  latter  is  on  the 
patent  of  Morgan  Hughes,  surveyed  on  the  same  day  as  that  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  adjoins  it  upon  the  north.  Colonel  R.  C.  Durrett  located 
Hughes'  Station  at  the  mouth  of  Long  Run,  and  in  this  was  mistaken.  We 
were  accompanied  on  this  expedition  by  Mr.  Hardin  Helm  Herr,  a  nephew 
of  Mrs.  Abraham  Lincoln.  Mr.  Ballard-Thruston  and  I  have  gone  over  the 
ground  again,  gathering  up  additional  data  which  leaves  no  doubt  of  the 
correctness  of  our  conclusions.  On  a  subsequent  visit  we  were  accompanied 
by  Reverend  Louis  A.  Warren,  and  Mr.  Thomas  C.  Fisher. 


THE  LIXCOLNS  29 

Abraham  Lincoln's  first  journey  into  Kentucky  appears  to  have 
been  in  the  summer  of  1780.  He  returned  to  Virginia,  and  later 
came  again  into  Kentucky  with  his  family.  On  December  11, 
1780,  he  entered  five  hundred  additional  acres.  For  some  reason 
the  estate  of  Abraham  Lincoln  presented  to  the  Xelson  County 
court  contained  only  a  list  of  personal  property.  The  admin- 
istrators were  men  of  probity,  and  the  land-holdings  must  have 
been  otherwise  accounted  for.  For  some  reason,  also,  the  lands 
that  had  belonged  to  Abraham  Lincoln  before  his  death  were  not 
accounted  for  in  the  earlier  tax  lists  of  Mordecai  Lincoln.  He 
paid  taxes  on  the  hundred-acre  tract  on  Beech  Fork  in  Washing- 
ton County,  but  this  was  not  an  original  Lincoln  entry;  it  was 
purchased  apparently  by  Bathsheba,  the  original  entry  having 
been  made  by  Matthew  Walton.  This  was  all  the  land  on  which 
Mordecai  paid  taxes  in  his  own  name  in  1792  and  1795.  In  1796 
he  began  paying  taxes  on  five  additional  tracts  of  land : 

400  acres  on  Floyd's  Fork  in  Jefferson  Count}-,  entered  in  the 
name  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

11 34/4  acres  on  Green  River  in  Hardin  County,  entered  in  the 
name  of  John  Reed. 

800  acres  on  Green  River,  Lincoln  County,  entered  in  the 
name  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

1000  acres  on  Kentucky  River,  Lincoln  County,  entered  in  the 
name  of  Abraham  Bird. 

1000  acres  on  Kentucky  River,  Lincoln  County,  entered  in  the 
name  of  Abraham  Bird. 

This  makes  a  total  of  4,334^4  acres. 

In  the  1799  list,  the  Jefferson  County  tract  is  not  listed, 
though  Mordecai  did  not  deed  that  land  to  Benjamin  Bridges 
till  1822.  Doubtless  the  reason  was  that  the  land  was  already 
sold  to  Bridges  under  contract,  as  was  the  frequent  custom,  and 
that  Bridges  paid  the  taxes  during  the  interval.  The  Jefferson 
County  tax  lists  have  been  burned. 

It  should  be  noted  that  of  the  land  listed  by  Mordecai  in  1796, 
two  thousand   acres  in    Lincoln    County,    entered    by    Abraham 


3o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Bird,  probably  had  not  belonged  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  We  are 
able  to  account  for  the  four  hundred  acres  on  Floyd's  Fork  and 
the  eight  hundred  on  Green  River,  and  the  John  Reed  land  is  that 
about  which  the  lawsuit  occurred  some  years  later. 

The  total  land  holdings  of  Captain  Abraham  Lincoln,  there- 
fore, would  appear  to  have  been  2,33434  acres.* 

The  narrative  of  the  death  of  the  pioneer  Lincoln  was  often  re- 
hearsed by  his  son  Thomas  in  the  presence  of  his  own  son  Abra- 
ham, whose  account  of  it  is  thus  preserved  for  us  by  his  associate : 

The  story  of  his  death  in  the  sight  of  his  youngest  son  Thomas, 
then  only  six  vears  old,  is  by  no  means  a  new  one  to  the  world. 
In  fact  I  have  often  heard  the  president  describe  the  tragedy  as 
he  had  inherited  the  story  from  his  father.  The  dead  pioneer  had 
three  sons,  Mordecai,  Josiah  and  Thomas,  in  the  order  named. 
When  the  father  fell,  Mordecai,  having  hastily  sent  Josiah  to  the 
neighboring  fort  after  assistance,  ran  into  the  cabin,  and  pointing 
his  rifle  through  a  crack  between  the  logs,  prepared  for  defense. 
Presently  an  Indian  came  stealing  up  to  the  dead  father's  body. 
Beside  the  latter  sat  the  little  boy  Thomas.  Mordecai  took  de- 
liberate aim  at  a  silver  crescent  which  hung  suspended  from  the 
Indian's  breast,  and  brought  him  to  the  ground.  Josiah  returned 
from  the  fort  with  the  desired  relief,  and  the  savages  were  easily 
dispersed,  leaving  behind  one  dead  and  one  wounded.f 

It  is  of  interest  to  inquire,  where  did  this  tragedy  occur?  Both 
Washington  and  Jefferson  Counties  claim  the  site  of  Captain 
Abraham  Lincoln's  death.  Washington  County  advances  as  its 
proof  the  fact  that  the  family  are  found  living  there  very  soon 
after  the  pioneer's  death,  and  also  that  his  estate  was  administered 
in  Nelson  County,  from  which  Washington  was  subsequently 
formed.  But  the  Nelson  and  Washington  County  records  contain 
no  evidence  that  Abraham  ever  owned  land  or  lived  in  that  coun- 

*Mr  Warren  thinks  that  Abraham  Lincoln  died  possessed  of  5,468  acres 
including  the  Abraham  Bird  land.  His  conclusions  are  usually  correct,  but  1 
have  not  found  so  large  a  total.  In  any  event,  the  five  thousand  pounds  of 
depreciated  Virginia  currency  proved  adequate  for  the  purchase  of  a  vast 
amount  of  Kentucky  land,  which  was  then  almost  incredibly  cheap. 

fHerndon's  Lincoln,  1st  ed.,  i:  pp.  9,  10. 


THE  LINCOLNS  31 

ty.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  certain  that  he  owned  land  on  Long 
Run,  with  an  improvement,  which  was  almost  certainly  a  cabin. 
There  is  not  known  to  have  been  any  fort  near  enough  to  the  land 
subsequently  owned  by  the  Lincolns  in  Washington  County  to 
have  met  the  requirements  of  the  situation. 

I  have  been  shown  two  additional  alleged  sites  of  the  death  of 
the  pioneer  Lincoln,  one  in  Hardin  County,  which  may  be  dis- 
missed without  comment,  and  the  other  in  the  heart  of  the  city 
of  Louisville.  The  latter  calls  for  a  moment's  attention,  because 
it  appears  to  rest  on  good  authority.  It  comes  direct  from  Hon- 
orable J.  L.  Nail,  of  Carthage,  Missouri,  grandson  of  Nancy 
Lincoln  and  William  Brumfield,  and  was  first  published  over  his 
signature  in  1881.  The  account  which  he  gave  was  specific  and 
detailed,  and  claimed  to  have  been  derived  from  what  he  had  heard 
from  his  mother  through  her  grandmother,  the  widow  of  the 
pioneer  Abraham  Lincoln.  But  Mr.  Nail  was  incorrect  in  this 
and  in  very  much  besides.  Captain  Abraham  Lincoln  was  not 
killed  within  the  corporate  limits  of  Louisville. 

Among  the  papers  of  Colonel  Durrett  is  a  sketch  of  Hughes' 
Station  made  by  George  Rogers  Clark,  and  bearing  this  note  in 
pencil  in  Durrett's  handwriting: 

Bland  W.  Ballard  states  that  the  station  was  erected  by  Morgan 
Hughes  in  1780;  that  it  stood  on  Long  Run  in  Jefferson  County 
not  far  from  the  Baptist  meeting-house ;  that  it  consisted  of  eight 
cabins  and  four  block-houses  at  the  four  corners,  and  that  it  was 
a  weak  fort,  poorly  built.  In  1786  a  man  was  killed  here  by  an 
Indian  while  he  was  coming  to  the  Station  from  his  land  near  by 
on  Long  Run  where  he  had  been  putting  in  a  crop.  His  family 
resided  in  the  station,  and  soon  after  his  death  the  widow  and 
children  moved  into  Nelson  County. 

Colonel  Durrett  added  to  this  note  a  penciled  query  whether 
this  man  killed  might  have  been  the  president's  grandfather,  but 
subsequently  erased  it,  thinking  that  that  event  could  not  have 
occurred  at  so  late  a  date  as  1786,  since  the  death  of  Lincoln 
seemed  to  have  been  fixed  two  years  earlier. 


32  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Major  Bland  W.  Ballard  relating  his  narration  before  the 
name  of  Lincoln  had  become  noted  or  seemed  significant,  and 
thinking  it  unimportant  even  to  learn  the  name  of  the  man 
killed,  or  to  record  it  if  he  knew,  as  he  probably  did,  tells  the  story 
of  the  death  of  this  unnamed  man  almost  exactly  as  we  know 
from  other  sources  the  story  of  the  death  of  Captain  Lincoln. 
It  occurred  in  the  spring,  when  he  was  putting  in  his  crop; 
it  was  near  the  fort;  his  family  removed  to  Nelson  County, 
in  which  was  included  the  present  county  of  Washington.  It  is 
no  wonder  Colonel  Durrett  raised  the  question  whether  it  was  not 
the  president's  grandfather  whose  death  is  thus  described.  But 
Colonel  Durrett  believed  that  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln  oc- 
curred in  1784,  and  Major  Ballard  was  explicit  in  his  affirma- 
tion that  this  murder  occurred  in  1786.  If  we  knew  that  the  date 
1786  was  not  impossible,  we  should  have  no  doubt  that  this  de- 
scription by  Major  Ballard,  together  with  the  testimony  of  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  fixed  the  place  and  also  gave  the  date  of  the 
tragedy. 

The  survey  of  the  Long  Run  tract  of  May  7,  1785,  showed  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  certainly  alive  a  full  year  later  than  the 
Lincoln  family  tradition  affirmed.  These  facts,  and  a  careful 
survey  of  the  several  alleged  sites  of  the  tragedy,  had  convinced 
me  that  the  real  date  of  the  murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  the 
pioneer,  was  1786,  when  Reverend  Louis  A.  Warren  discovered 
a  further  confirmation  in  a  suit  of  Mordecai,  as  heir-at-law  of 
his  father,  in  which  Mordecai  made  oath  that  his  father,  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  died  intestate,  in  May,  1786.  The  day  of  the  month 
is  not  stated. 

One  other  interesting  and  highly  important  document  may  be 
cited  here  completing  the  proof  of  the  location  of  the  home  of  the 
pioneer  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  the  place  of  his  residence  at  the 
time  of  his  death.  It  is  a  subscription  list,  dated  September  18, 
1786,  signed  by  Bland  W.  Ballard,  Morgan  Hughes  and  the  other 
neighbors  in  the  vicinity  of  Long  Run,  to  arm  and  equip  an  ex- 
pedition against  the  Indians,  the  expedition  to  be  commanded  by 


THE  LINCOLNS  33 

George  Rogers  Clark.  Most  of  the  subscriptions  are  in  kind, 
horses,  cows,  blankets  and  provisions.  Half-way  down  the  list  is 
a  gun,  appraised  at  eight  pounds,  the  gift  of  "the  Widow  Lin- 
coln" !  This  document  is  in  the  Library  of  the  University  of 
Chicago,  and  it  adds  the  last  essential  argument  to  the  proof  al- 
ready cited.  We  now  know  where  the  Lincolns  made  their  first 
home  on  the  western  side  of  the  mountains,  and  where  the  tragedy 
occurred  which  President  Lincoln  was  accustomed  to  say  im- 
pressed him  more  than  any  tale  he  heard  during  his  boyhood. 
''The  Widow  Lincoln"  did  not  remove  to  Washington  County, 
where  she  had  relatives,  until  she  had  harvested  the  pathetic  crop 
which  her  husband  was  sowing  when  he  was  killed ;  she  was  still 
living  on  Long  Run  in  September,  1786. 

Further  investigations  in  the  Hughes'  Station  neighborhood 
have  resulted  in  a  practical  establishment  of  the  site  of  the  Lin- 
coln home  upon  this  Long  Run  farm,  and  also  of  the  spring  which 
supplied  the  water  for  the  family.  Unexpectedly,  I  have  discov- 
ered also  a  considerable  body  of  local  tradition,  which  the  records 
of  the  Long  Run  Church  tend  to  confirm,  as  to  the  probable  situ- 
ation of  the  grave  of  the  pioneer,  Captain  Abraham  Lincoln. 

That  he  was  buried  upon  his  own  farm  appears  almost  cer- 
tain, and  that  the  land  now  within  the  enclosure  of  the  Long  Run 
Baptist  Church,  located  on  that  farm,  was  the  community  bury- 
ing-ground  from  the  beginning  of  the  settlement,  appears  equally 
evident.  The  church  was  organized  in  1797,  but  the  place  was 
used  for  worship  at  a  date  still  earlier.  The  tradition,  which  is 
unusually  clear  and  consistent,  is  to  the  effect  that  several  of  the 
oldest  graves,  five  at  least,  were  covered  by  the  brick  church 
edifice,  on  its  enlargement  in  i860,  and  that  one  of  these  was 
the  grave  of  Captain  Lincoln.  It  is  rather  more  than  probable 
that  the  brick  building  still  in  use  as  a  place  of  regular  worship 
by  the  Long  Run  Church  covers  the  mortal  remains  of  Captain 
Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  discovery  that  Bathsheba  Herring  was  the  wife  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  the  pioneer,  June  17,  1780,  when  they  signed  a  deed 


34  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  their  Virginia  land,  and  September  8,  1781,  when  she  relin- 
quished her  dower-rights,  was  first  published  by  John  T.  Harris, 
Jr.,  of  Harrisonburg,  Virginia,  in  an  Open  Letter  to  the  Cen- 
tury Magazine,  for  March,  1887,  (pp.  810-81 1).  The  fact  that 
Abraham's  wife  was  then  Bathsheba  was  accepted  by  Professor 
Learned  and  also  by  Lea  and  Hutchinson  as  affording  indubi- 
table evidence  that  the  pioneer  Abraham  Lincoln  was  twice  mar- 
ried, and  they  assumed  that  Bathsheba  was  his  second  wife,  his 
first  being  Mary  Shipley.  Others,  of  whom  the  foremost  was 
Waldo  Lincoln,  relying  upon  the  Nail  tradition  that  the  pioneer 
left  a  widow  whose  name  was  believed  to  have  been  Mary,  held 
that  there  were  indeed  two  marriages  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  one 
to  Mary  Shipley  and  the  other  to  Bathsheba  Herring,  but  that 
the  order  was  reversed ;  that  Bathsheba,  ill  ever  since  the  birth  of 
her  last  child  in  1780,  died  as  her  husband  was  about  to  remove 
to  Kentucky,  and  that  he,  needing  a  mother  for  his  family  of 
small  children,  quickly  married  Mary  Shipley. 

In  the  summer  of  1922,  during  a  search  for  material  for  the 
present  work,  a  large  quantity  of  musty  papers  discovered  in  the 
basement  of  the  old  capitol  in  Frankfort,  Kentucky,  was  ordered 
destroyed,  but  was  saved  through  the  intervention  of  Mrs.  Can- 
non, Secretary  of  the  Kentucky  State  Historical  Society.  Among 
other  documents  was  found  a  tax  list  of  Washington  County  for 
1792,  in  which  appeared  the  name  of  Bathsheba  Lincoln.  She 
was  assessed  on  the  same  day  and  next  in  order  to  Mordecai 
Lincoln,  and  the  land  stood  in  his  name,  as  did  one  of  the  horses; 
but  another  horse  and  ten  cattle  were  listed  as  hers.  Hers  also 
was  a  son  above  sixteen,  and  under  twenty-one,  who  must  have 
been  Josiah,  for  Thomas  was  not  then  sixteen. 

The  lists  for  1793  have  not  been  discovered,  but  as  this  book 
goes  to  press,  Mrs.  Cannon  discovers  at  Frankfort,  in  the  pile  of 
old  records,  the  list  of  1794.  Therein  Bathsheba  still  is  taxed  in 
Washington  County  for  one  horse  and  ten  cattle.  She  is  re- 
corded as  having  two  sons  above  sixteen  and  under  twenty-one, 
who  can  be  no  other  than  Josiah  and  Thomas.     Thomas,  who 


THE  LINCOLNS  35 

first  appears  on  record  under  his  own  name  as  over  sixteen  in 
1795,  and  appears  again  in  that  class  in  1796,  disappears  in  1797 
and  1798,  when  he  must  have  been  in  Tennessee,  and  reappears 
as  above  twenty-one  in  1799.  This  gives  us  one  more  record  of 
Bathsheba,  and  narrows  down  by  a  year  at  either  end  the  birth- 
year  of  Thomas  Lincoln.  He  was  above  sixteen  in  1794  and 
above  twenty-one  in  1799;  these  dates  with  those  that  appear 
elsewhere  confirm  the  year  of  his  birth  already  arrived  at,  as 
1778.  Bathsheba  was  still  living  on  Beech  Fork,  Washington 
County,  and  apparently  with  her  eldest  son  Mordecai,  until  after 
February  3,  1801,  when  she  signed  her  authorization  for  the 
marriage  of  her  daughter  Nancy  or  Ann  to  William  Brum- 
field,  Mordecai  signing  the  bond  with  the  prospective  bride- 
groom. Xot  long  afterward  she  removed  to  Hardin  County  to 
live  with  her  daughter  Nancy. 

I  am  indebted  to  the  Honorable  L.  S.  Pence  for  another  inter- 
esting item.  In  1797  a  Washington  County  road  is  officially 
described  as  running  from  the  home  of  the  Widow  Lincoln  and 
down  the  same  bank,  to  the  Beech  Fork. 

These  discoveries  completely  revolutionize  all  theories  hitherto 
held  concerning  the  alleged  two  marriages  of  the  pioneer  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  No  vestige  of  proof  has  been  found  that  his  mar- 
riage in  1770  was  not  to  Bathsheba.  She  was  Abraham's  wife 
in  1780  and  1782  and  accompanied  him  to  Kentucky.  She  it  was 
who  wept  over  his  murdered  body,  and  buried  it  at  Long  Run,  and 
brought  up  her  fatherless  children  in  Washington  County.  She 
it  was  whom  the  grandchildren  remembered  as  living  to  a  great 
age,  though  not  as  great  as  her  grandchildren  believed,  and  who 
died  in  1836,  and  is  buried  in  Mill  Creek  Cemetery  in  Hardin 
County,  where  she  had  spent  her  last  years  in  the  home  of  her 
daughter,  Nancy  Brumfield. 

The  children  of  Abraham  and  Bathsheba  (Herring)  Lincoln 
were : 

(1)  Mordecai  Lincoln,  born  about  1771.  He  married  Mary, 
daughter  of  Luke  Mudd.     The  certificate  of  their  marriage  is  at 


36  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Bardstown,  Kentucky.  The  ceremony  was  performed  by  Rev- 
erend William  de  Rohan,  a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  and  a  consid- 
erable number  of  their  descendants  have  been  and  are  of  that 
faith.  They  had  three  sons,  Abraham,  James  and  Mordecai,  and 
three  daughters,  Elizabeth,  Mary  Rowena  and  Martha.  Mor- 
decai, the  father,  served  as  sheriff  of  Washington  County,  and 
it  is  said  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  Legislature,  but  this  is 
not  true.  He  removed  to  Hancock  County,  Illinois,  and  died  in 
1830. 

(2)  Josiah  Lincoln,  born  about  1773.  He  married,  Febru- 
ary 28,  1801,  "Caty"  or  Catherine,  daughter  of  Christopher  and 
Barbara  Barlow.  From  Kentucky  he  moved  to  Indiana  and 
died  in  1836,  leaving  two  sons,  Thomas  Lincoln,  of  Milltown, 
Indiana,  and  Jacob,  who  moved  to  Missouri,  and  four  daughters. 

(3)  Mary  Lincoln,  born  in  1775  or  1776,  who  married  Ralph 
Crume  of  Nelson  County,  Kentucky. 

(4)  Thomas  Lincoln,  born  January  6,  1778,  and  died  January 
17,  1851.  He  married  Nancy  Hanks,  June  12,  1806.  They  be- 
came the  parents  of  Sarah,  Abraham  and  Thomas.  The  last 
named  died  in  infancy;  the  first  lived  to  young  womanhood, 
married  and  died  at  the  birth  of  her  first  child.  The  second 
child  of  Thomas  and  Nancy  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of 
the  United  States. 

(5)  Nancy  Lincoln,  born  March  25,  1780;  married  January 
12,  1801,  William  Brumfield  of  Washington  County,  Kentucky, 
died  in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky,  October  7,  1843,  or  October 

9>  1845- 

It  was  an  honest,  virtuous  family.     In  it  are  to  be  discovered 

few  brilliant  men ;  but  the  record  is  an  honorable  one  all  the  way 
from  Hingham  in  New  England,  and  quite  possibly  from  Hing- 
ham  in  Old  England,  down  to  Nolin  Creek  where  the  most  il- 
lustrious member  of  the  family  was  born. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    HANKSES   AND   SPARROWS 

It  was  affirmed  by  Herndon  and  other  of  Lincoln's  associates 
that  the  president  was  always  reticent  about  his  mother's  family. 
Herndon  held  them  in  little  esteem,  and  said,  in  an  unpublished 
letter,  that  the  Hanks  family  must  have  been  about  the  lowest 
family  on  earth.  This  was  an  extreme  and  harsh  judgment. 
The  Hanks  family  was  not  of  the  same  social  standing  as  the 
Lincolns,  but  it  was  not  a  vicious  family.  It  had  many  respect- 
able members,  and  was.  on  the  whole,  virtuous  and  law-abiding, 
though  generally  shiftless. 

Airs.  Caroline  Hanks  Hitchcock,  in  a  little  book  entitled  Nancy 
Hanks,  accords  this  humble  family  nothing  less  than  apotheosis. 
She  derived  the  name  from  the  Egyptian  "Ankh,"  which  means 
"living  image,"  or  as  she  prefers  it,  "soul."  If  the  tomb  of  Tut- 
Ankh-Amen  had  been  discovered  when  she  wrote,  she  must 
surely  have  acclaimed  his  middle  name  as  proof  of  his  distin- 
guished right  to  a  place  among  her  progenitors.  She  traced  the 
triumphal  march  of  this  regal  clan  along  the  Roman  roads  to 
Stonehenge,  in  Druid  England,  and  so  to  Plymouth  Rock  and 
then  through  Virginia  into  Kentucky. 

The  truth  is  that  the  Hanks  family  was  not  nearly  so  bad  as 
Herndon  affirmed,  and  not  nearly  so  illustrious  as  Airs.  Hitch- 
cock declared.  The  Kentucky  branch  of  it  was  a  poor,  thrift- 
less, generally  illiterate  and  highly  migratory  family,  such  as  con- 
stituted a  large  proportion  of  the  population  of  the  backwoods 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Benjamin  Hanks  and  his  wife  Abigail  sailed  from  London 
about  1699.  an<3  landed  at  Plymouth,  Massachusetts.  Later 
they  settled  at  Pembroke,  and  there  eleven  of  their  twelve  chil- 
dren were  born.     Benjamin's  wife,  Abigail,  died  in  1725,  and  he 

37 


38  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

married  Mary  Ripley,  of  Bridgewater,  and  moved  to  Easton, 
where  his  twelfth  child,  Jacob,  was  born. 

The  third  child  and  second  son  of  Benjamin  and  Abigail 
Hanks  was  William,  born  February  n,  1704.  All  the  other 
children  are  later  accounted  for.  They  lived  in  New  England 
and  their  marriages  are  of  record.  William  may  have  died  in 
youth  or  moved  in  any  direction.  Mrs.  Hitchcock  believed,  on 
what  reason  does  not  appear,  that  he  sailed  to  Virginia  and 
settled  near  the  mouth  of  the  Rappahannock.  There,  she  be- 
lieved, he  became  the  father  of  five  sons,  Abraham,  Richard, 
James,  John  and  Joseph.  "All  these  sons  with  the  exception  of 
John,  moved  to  Amelia  County,  where  they  bought  large  plan- 
tations near  each  other."  Of  these  sons,  as  she  affirmed,  the 
youngest,  Joseph,  was  the  father  of  Nancy  Hanks,  mother  of  the 
president.  He  was  born,  as  she  believed,  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Rappahannock,  married  in  Amelia  where  Nancy  was  said  to  have 
been  born,  removed  to  Kentucky  and  died  in  Nelson  County  in 
1793.  Thus  in  four  generations  from  Plymouth  to  the  woods 
of  Kentucky,  she  traced  the  lineage  of  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln. 

With  four  generations,  it  is  possible  to  be  mistaken  in  only 
three  transitions,  and  Mrs.  Hitchcock  was  in  error  in  every  one 
of  the  three.  There  was  a  William  Hanks  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Rappahannock,  though  her  book  did  not  discover  him,  and  he 
had  a  son  William;  neither  of  these  two  Williams  was  the  son 
of  Benjamin  Hanks  of  Plymouth.  The  alleged  Joseph  Hanks 
who  sold  land  in  Amelia  County  in  1747  was  not  the  Joseph 
who  died  in  Nelson  County  in  1793.  The  Joseph  Hanks  who 
died  in  1793  was  not  the  father  of  Nancy  Hanks,  the  mother  of 
the  president. 

This  was  not  the  full  extent  of  Mrs.  Hitchcock's  creative 
genius.  The  Hankses  in  Amelia  County,  she  affirmed,  were 
friends  of  the  Berrys,  the  Mitchells,  the  Thompsons  and  the 
Lincolns ;  and  each  of  these  families  had  a  marriageable  son.  In 
Lunenburg,  the  second  county  south,  was  Robert  Shipley,  who, 
as  Mrs.  Hitchcock  for  some  reason  believed,  had  five  marriage- 
able daughters.     A  son  of  each  of  these  five  families  as  she  de- 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  39 

clared,  rode  past  the  homes  of  all  the  girls  residing  in  nearer 
neighborhoods  and  each  made  love  to  a  daughter  of  Richard 
Shipley,  who  distributed  his  female  children  among  these  five 
notable  families.  Then,  as  she  affirmed,  all  these  five  families, 
the  Lincolns,  Hankses,  Thompsons,  Mitchells  and  Berrys, 
moved  together  into  Kentucky  where  in  due  time  Thomas  Lin- 
coln married  his  first  cousin,  Xancy  Hanks,  then  resident  in  the 
home  of  her  kind  Uncle  Richard  Berry. 

Mr.  Shipley  may  have  had  five  daughters,  or  even  ten,  five 
of  them  wise  and  five  amateur  genealogists,  but  thus  far  not  a 
scrap  of  evidence  has  been  adduced  to  prove  that  he  had  even 
one  little  ewe  lamb  of  a  daughter.  The  Thompsons  and 
Mitchells  were  indeed  residents  of  Amelia  County,  but  they  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  Amelia  County  is  a  little  south  of 
the  middle  of  Virginia.  The  Hankses  were  in  the  extreme  north- 
west corner  of  the  state ;  the  Berrys,  later  of  Washington 
County,  Kentucky,  were  in  the  extreme  south  portion  close  to 
the  Xorth  Carolina  line,  and  the  Lincolns,  coming  across  the 
pan-handle  of  Maryland  from  Pennsylvania,  had  followed  up 
the  Shenandoah  and  were  walled  in  on  both  sides  by  high  moun- 
tain ranges  and  separated  by  long  distance  from  both  the 
Hankses  and  the  Berrys.  The  United  States  Census  for  1790, 
including  enumerations  in  1782  and  1785,  contains  no  name  of 
Lincoln,  Berry  or  Hanks  as  living  in  Amelia  County.  It  was 
vital  to  Mrs.  Hitchcock's  story  that  at  least  the  Hankses  should 
have  been  resident  in  that  county,  but  when  she  got  there,  the 
record  was  bare.  Fortune  favored  her.  There  were  in  Amelia 
County  three  families  of  the  name  of  Hawks,  a  name  which, 
when  carelessly  written  or  dimmed  by  processes  of  time,  re- 
sembles that  of  Hanks.  All  was  fish  that  came  to  her  net.  She 
was  able  of  these  stones  to  raise  up  children  unto  the  Hanks  fam- 
ily of  Massachusetts  of  which  she  was  a  member. 

The  Hanks  family  in  Virginia  has  been  the  despair  of  genealo- 
gists. The  family  kept  no  records;  generations  overlap  and 
names  are  often  repeated.  Many  of  the  ordinary  sources  fail. 
Xo  record  has  been  discovered  of  a  Hanks  holding  office  in  the 


4o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

militia  or  in  civil  life  in  Colonial  Virginia.  No  Hanks  is  on 
record  as  receiving  land  for  service  in  the  Revolution  or  the 
French  and  Indian  War.  We  still  are  uncertain  of  the  original 
immigrant,  but  this  is  certain,  that  he  was  not  a  descendant  of 
Benjamin  Hanks,  of  Plymouth;  the  Hankses  were  in  Virginia 
before  Benjamin  arrived  in  Massachusetts.  The  original  immi- 
grant was  not  the  John  Hanks  shown  in  the  General  Index  of  the 
Land  Office  in  Richmond  as  obtaining  a  grant  in  1767;  he  was 
John  Hucks.  The  progenitor  of  the  president's  family  may  have 
been  Thomas  Hancks,  who  came  over  as  an  indentured  servant 
of  Thomas  Fowke,  of  Westmoreland.  He  secured  a  patent  for 
his  free  hundred  acres  in  Gloucester  County,  February  16,  1 653, 
and  ten  years  later  obtained  two  grants  of  five  hundred  and 
thirty  and  five  hundred  and  twenty-seven  acres  in  New  Kent 
County.  He  may  be  presumed  to  have  been  the  same  who,  as 
Thomas  Hankes,  on  October  8,  1667,  obtained  three  hundred 
additional  acres.  Thus  far  we  have  discovered  no  other  Hanks 
who  obtained  land  at  so  early  a  date.  If  he  lived  and  left  a  son, 
that  son  was  probably  William,  of  whom  we  shall  presently  hear. 
We  have  no  record  of  William's  immigration,  and  if  he  was  born 
in  Virginia  we  do  not  know  at  this  date  any  other  Hanks  than 
Thomas,  who  might  have  been  his  father.  However,  later  dis- 
coveries may  disprove  this  conjectural  relationship. 

I  am  able  to  give,  however,  and  for  the  first  time,  the  true 
story  of  that  branch  of  the  Hanks  family  from  which  President 
Lincoln  descended,  beginning  the  documentary  history  on  Saint 
Valentine's  Day  in  1679,  when  William  Hanks,  who  may  have 
been  a  son  of  the  aforementioned  Thomas,  became  the  father  of 
a  son,  also  named  William.  The  wife  of  the  elder  William  was 
Sarah,  who  had  been  a  widow  named  White.  She  and  William 
Hanks,  Sr.,  were  married  about  June,  1678.  They  lived  in  Rap- 
pahannock County,  and  in  that  part  which  in  1692  became  Rich- 
mond County — not  the  county  in  which  the  city  of  Richmond 
is  located,  but  a  rural  county,  north  of  the  Rappahannock  and 
toward  the  Potomac.  In  1695,  William  Hanks,  Sr.,  bought  from 
William  Woodbridge  one  hundred  acres  of  land  called  "the  In- 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  41 

dian  Town  branch,"  located  in  the  North   Farnham   Parish,  the 

first  certain  home  of  the  president's  Hanks  ancestors  in  America. 
There  they  lived  for  three  generations.  William  Hanks  bought 
some  fourteen  additional  pieces  of  land  as  years  went  by.  He 
and  Sarah  had  three  sons,  besides  Richard  White,  son  of  Sarah 
by  her  previous  marriage.  The  eldest  son  William  married,  July, 
171 1.  Hester  Mills,  and  had  seven  children.  The  second  son 
Luke  married  about  1718,  and  his  wife  Elizabeth  bore  him  three 
children.  Some  of  their  descendants  are  found  later  in  Western 
North  Carolina,  where  they  form  the  basis  of  a  stupid  story 
connecting  the  name  of  John  C.  Calhoun  with  the  Lincoln  family, 
and  where  a  monument,  based  on  this  foolish  myth  was  erected 
in  1923  to  mark  the  alleged  birthplace  of  Nancy  Hanks,  the 
mother  of  President  Lincoln.* 

John  Hanks,  youngest  son  of  William  and  Sarah,  married, 
about  June,  17 14.  He  and  his  wife  Katherine  had  nine  children. 
She  survived  her  husband  and  died  apparently  in  January,  1779. 
Her  second  son  Joseph  was  appointed,  February  first,  adminis- 
trator of  her  rather  good  estate. 

Joseph  Hanks,  son  of  John  and  Katherine,  and  great-grand- 
father of  Abraham  Lincoln,  was  born  in  Xorth  Farnham  Parish, 
December  20,  1725.  His  wife's  name  was  Ann,  and  he  called 
her  Xannie.  Her  maiden  name  has  not  been  discovered.  Their 
five  sons  and  four  daughters  were  probably  all  born  in  Richmond 
County,  but  the  only  date  discovered  is  the  birth  of  one  daughter 
Betty,  March  4,  1771. 

The  final  papers  in  the  estate  of  Katherine  Hanks  were  filed 
in  1782.  Joseph  Hanks  probably  was  there  for  the  final  account- 
ing, but  some  time  in  1781,  apparently,  he  collected  a  portion  of 
the  money  due  him  and  followed  up  the  valley  of  the  Potomac  to 
Patterson's  Creek  in  the  county  of  Hampshire,  which  is  now  in 
West  Virginia.  The  L'nited  States  Census  of  1790  shows  Joseph 
Hanks  resident  there  in  1782  with  a  family  of  eleven,  all  white. 
This  is  preciselv  the  size   of  his   family   at  that  time,   and  the 


*For  a   complete  discussion  of   this  tradition,    see  my    The   Paternity  of 
Abraham  Lincoln. 


42  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

census  enumerations  of  all  the  thirteen  colonies  having  been 
diligently  searched,  it  is  found  that  not  only  does  this  family 
precisely  meet  the  numerical  requirements,  but  there  was  not,  so 
far  as  the  census  shows,  any  other  Hanks  family  that  approxi- 
mated this  result. 

The  Patterson  Creek  Valley  was  reasonably  fertile,  and  the 
region  still  was  sparsely  settled,  the  neighborhood  of  this  creek 
showing  in  1782  only  thirty-two  families,  much  the  smallest 
of  the  fifteen  lists  in  Hampshire  County.  Joseph  Hanks  was 
not  crowded  out.  On  March  9,  1784,  Joseph  Hanks  mortgaged 
his  farm  of  one  hundred  eighty  acres  to  Peter  Putnam,  a  resi- 
dent of  Hampshire  County,  but  not  a  near  neighbor,  for  twenty- 
one  pounds,  nine  shillings.  This  was  a  pitiful  sum.  The  Lin- 
colns  sold  their  farm  for  five  thousand  pounds.  To  be  sure, 
Virginia  money  was  not  quite  so  badly  depreciated  in  1784  as  in 
1780;  but  why  did  the  Hanks  family  mortgage  their  home  for  a 
paltry  amount  of  ready  cash,  abandon  it  without  further  deed, 
and  leave  Virginia?  They  had  lived  there  less  than  three  years. 
They  left  in  1784.     That  was  the  year  of  Nancy's  birth. 

The  family  of  Joseph  Hanks  disappears  from  Hampshire 
County  records  with  his  mortgage  in  1784.  The  very  next  year 
we  find  his  family  in  Nelson  County,  Kentucky,  and  there  he 
resided  until  his  "death  in  1793. 

The  will  of  Joseph  Hanks  has  attained  to  a  distinction  which 
that  humble  but  honest  citizen  could  never  have  imagined.  It 
has  become  the  corner-stone  of  a  considerable  body  of  literature, 
and  must  be  quoted  in  full.  It  is  preserved  at  Bardstown, 
Kentucky : 

In  the  name  of  God,  Amen,  I  Joseph  Hanks  of  Nelson  County 
State  of  Kentucky  being  of  sound  Mind  and  Memory,  but  weak 
in  body  and  calling  to  Mind  the  frailty  of  all  Human  Nature  do 
make  and  Devise  this  my  last  Will  and  Testament  in  the  Manner 
and  Form  following  To  Wit 
Item  I  Give  and  bequeath  unto  my   Son  Thomas   one   Sorrel 

Horse  called  Major. 
Item  I  Give  and  bequeath  unto  my  son  Joshua  one  Grey  Mare 
called  Bonney. 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  43 

Item  I  Give  and  bequeath  unto  my  son  William  one  Grey  Horse 
called  Gilbert. 

Item  1  Give  and  bequeath  unto  my  Son  Charles  one  Roan  Horse 
called  Dove. 

Item  I  Give  and  bequeath  unto  my  Son  Joseph  one  Sorrel  Horse 
called  Bald.  Also  the  Land  whereon  I  now  live  containing 
one  hundred  and  fifty  Acres. 

Item  I  Give  and  bequeath  unto  my  Daughter  Elizabeth  one 
Heifer  Yearling  called  Gentle. 

Item  I  Give  and  bequeath  unto  my  Daughter  Polly  one  Heifer 
Yearling  called  Lady. 

Item  I  give  and  bequeath  unto  my  daughter  Nancy  one  Heifei 
Yearling  called  Peidy. 

Item  I  Give  and  bequeath  unto  my  Wife  Nanny  all  and  Singular 
my  whole  Estate  during  her  life,  afterwards  to  be  equally 
divided  between  all  my  Children.  It  is  my  Will  and  Desire 
that  the  whole  of  the  Property  above  bequeathed  should  be 
the  property  of  my  Wife  during  her  Life.  And  lastly  I 
constitute  ordain  and  appoint  my  Wife  Nanny  and  my  Son 
William  as  Executrix  and  Executor  to  this  my  last  Will  and 
Testament. 

Signed  Sealed  and  Delivered 

In  Presence  of  Us  this  eighth  his 

day  January  one  thousand  seven  Joseph     x     Hanks 

hundred  and  ninety  three.  mark         (Seal) 

Isaac  Lansdale 

John  Davis 

Peter  Atherton 

At  a  Court  begun  and  held  for  Nelson  County  on  Tuesday 
the  fourteenth  day  of  May  1793. 

This  last  Will  and  Testament  of  Joseph  Hanks  ded 
was  produced  in  Court  and  sworn  to  by  William  Hanks 
one  of  the  Excutors  therein  named  and  was  pro 
ved  by  the  Oaths  of  Isaac  Lansdale  and  John  Davis 
subscribing  witnesses  thereto  and  Ordered  to  be  Recorded. 
Teste 

Ben  Grayson  Co.  Ck. 

Of  the  Hanks  brothers  we  need  only  remind  ourselves  that 
Joseph  established  himself  for  a  time  in  Elizabethtown  and 
worked  as  a  carpenter  with  Thomas  Lincoln,  and  that  William 


44  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

became  the  father  of  John  Hanks,  who  later  split  rails  with  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  We  have  much  more  concern  with  the  Hanks  sis- 
ters, and  with  the  family  into  which  two  of  them  married.* 

Where  was  this  first  Kentucky  home  of  little  Nancy  Hanks? 
Not  in  Washington  County,  certainly,  where  the  Hankses  never 
lived,  but  in  Nelson,  an  immense  county,  which  since  has  been 
diminished  in  area  by  the  erection  of  several  other  counties. 
Joseph's  will  was  probated  in  Nelson  County;  and  it  was  within 
Nelson  County,  even  within  its  present  restricted  borders,  though 
just  across  from  Larue,  that  Joseph  Hanks  died  and  little  Nancy 
shed  tears,  alas,  not  the  first  bitter  tears  of  her  childhood,  beside 
his  grave. 

The  Joseph  Hanks  farm  was  part  of  an  entry  of  one  thousand 
acres  by  Joseph  Barnett,  October  3,  1783.  This  passed  to  John 
Lee,  who,  on  February  28,  1787,  made  a  contract  to  sell  one  hun- 
dred fifty  acres  of  it  to  Joseph  Hanks  "as  soon  as  deed  can  be 
obtained  from  Joseph  Barnett."  Apparently  the  deed  was  never 
made.  A  year  after  the  death  of  the  elder  Joseph  Hanks,  his  son 
and  namesake  assigned  his  interests  to  his  brother  William,  and 
went  back  to  Virginia.  William  Hanks  traded  it  to  Joseph  Nevett. 
William  is  the  only  Hanks  who  had  land  on  a  Virginia  patent,  his 
entry  being  June  12,  1784,  for  one  thousand  acres  of  land  on 
Rough  Creek  in  Grayson  County,  which  he  paid  for  in  whole  or 
in  part  by  an  exchange  of  his  interest  in  the  land  which  his 
father  had  held  by  a  precarious  title  on  Rolling  Fork.  Some  years 
afterward,  Joseph  Hanks  having  returned  from  Virginia,  and  his 
assignment  to  William  being  of  doubtful  legality,  he  quit-claimed 
his  title  to  the  farm  "for  a  chunk  of  an  old  horse  that  would  of 
traded  for  about  $15."     This  is  the  lordly  domain  about  which 

*Miss  Tarbell  in  her  recent  book,  Following  the  Footsteps  of  the 
Lincoln*  gives  111  some  detail,  and  in  entire  good  faith,  the  methods  bv 
which  Mrs.  Hitchcock  is  supposed  to  have  obtained  information  of  the  Hanks 
family  through  two  of  its  Illinois  branches,  the  descendants  of  Joseph  in 
Adams  County  and  the  descendants  of  William  in  Macon  County  I  also 
am  acquainted  with  representatives  of  these  two  branches  of  the  Hanks 
iarnily,  and  they  are  very  good  people.  I  will  venture  the  opinion  that  in 
matters   relating  to   their    family   history   back  of   the  third   generation    thev 

^rra^leTgive'tXr1011   ^  ^  *******  SUch  *S  *  ™>  ^  *<* 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  45 

Mrs.  Hitchcock  writes,  where  the  Hankses  and  their  illustrious 
cousins  went  merrily  hunting  and  fishing  and  hawking  in  right 
royal  fashion. 

In  the  rotunda  of  the  new  capitol  building  at  Frankfort  stands 
a  fine  bronze  statue  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  One  day  a  Kentucky 
farmer  entered  the  building  and  regarded  the  statue  with  particu- 
lar interest.  The  custodian  spoke  to  him,  and  the  visitor  said  that 
Lincoln  was  a  cousin  of  his :  he  gave  his  own  name  as  Sparrow. 
A  reporter  for  a  Frankfort  paper,  short  of  material  for  his  column 
of  political  and  legislative  gossip,  made  note  of  the  incident.  I 
was  in  Frankfort  a  few  days  later,  doing  research  work  in  the 
library  of  the  Kentucky  Historical  Society,  and  my  attention  was 
called  to  the  paragraph  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Society.  I  had 
visited  Kentucky  many  times,  and  had  traversed  repeatedly  the 
area  inhabited  by  the  Lincoln  family,  and  had  never  encountered 
a  Sparrow.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  other  Lincoln  biographer 
had  ever  interviewed  one  of  Lincoln's  relatives  of  that  name.* 

But  there  was  something  of  deeper  interest  in  the  incident. 
This  man  knew  himself  to  be  related  to  Lincoln.  How  did  he 
know  it?  Through  what  connection  did  he  trace  his  own  more 
or  less  remote  cousinship  ?  Was  it  possible  that  the  Sparrows 
had  any  considerable  body  of  consistent  tradition,  any  possible 
record,  bearing  on  the  life-story  of  Abraham  Lincoln?  Where 
were  these  Sparrows?  How  had  they  managed  to  keep  them- 
selves so  long  in  hiding? 


*For  invaluable  assistance  in  the  making  of  this  chapter,  I  am  indebted 
to  Mrs.  Jouett  Taylor  Cannon,  Secretary  of  the  Kentucky  State  Historical 
Society;  to  Honorable  William  H.  Townsend  of  Lexington,  whose  birth- 
place was  in  Anderson  County,  and  who  visited  his  old  neighbors,  the  Spar- 
rows, on  my  behalf,  and  subsequently  took  me  there  and  introduced  me  to 
them;  and  to  the  Misses  Mary  and  Martha  Stephenson,  of  Harrodsburg. 
Miss  Mary  has  dug  deep  in  old  records  of  Mercer  County,  recovering  for 
me  the  marriage  bonds  and  other  records  of  the  entire  first  generation  of 
the  Sparrows,  and  her  sister.  Miss  Martha,  like  Mary,  has  chosen  the  good 
part.  Records  that  had  not  seen  the  light  for  a  century  have  been  discov- 
ered. By  the  courtesy  of  Honorable  Ben  Casey  Allin,  County  Judge,  I  have 
been  permitted  to  reproduce  these  records  in  photostat.  I  was  able  subse- 
quently to  visit  the  Sparrow  family  in  person,  and  later  to  make  still  another 
journey  to  the  region  of  their  first  settlement   in  Kentucky. 


46  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  answer  proved  a  simple  one,  the  Sparrows  had  hidden 
from  the  biographers  by  staying  where  they  were.  Less  migra- 
tory than  the  Lincolns  and  the  Hankses,  the  Sparrows  still  culti- 
vate the  soil  which  the  pioneers  of  their  name  wrested  from  the 
wilderness.  A  virtuous  legislature,  bent  upon  making  two  Demo- 
cratic counties  where  formerly  there  was  one,  cut  off  that  portion 
of  Washington  which  adjoined  Anderson  and  contained  a  heavy 
Republican  population  that  occasionally  enabled  the  entire  county 
to  go  Republican.  This  section  had  originally  belonged  to  Mer- 
cer, and  was  that  in  which  the  Sparrows  resided.  The  Republi- 
can vote  of  this  section  was  easily  absorbed  by  the  heavy  Demo- 
cratic majority  of  Anderson,  where  it  is  never  considered  worth 
while  to  nominate  a  Republican  ticket.  The  happy  result  is  that 
both  counties  are  now  "safe  for  Democracy."  That  part  of  An- 
derson County  is  known  as  the  "cut-off."  It  is  remote  from  the 
railroads,  and  is  a  picturesque  and  reasonably  fertile  section  of 
Kentucky. 

If  it  were  determined  to  gather  in  one  place  as  many  as  possi- 
ble of  the  blood  relations  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  shortest  pos- 
sible time,  the  place  of  their  most  expeditious  assembly  would  be 
the  old  New  Liberty  Church,  formerly  known  as  the  Sparrow 
Union.  On  the  Sunday  observed  as  Memorial  Day  in  1923  and 
again  in  1924,  perhaps  a  thousand  people  gathered  there  for  the 
decoration  of  the  graves  of  the  soldiers,  a  majority  of  them  Con- 
federate, but  a  number  of  them  Union,  buried  in  the  adjacent 
burial-ground.*  Of  those  one  thousand  people,  some  of  them 
inside  the  old  but  well-preserved,  weatherboarded,  log  meeting- 
house, and  the  rest  under  the  spreading  oak  trees,  perhaps  five 
hundred  were  related  to  Abraham  Lincoln. 

When,  in  that  part  of  the  county,  a  man  named  Sparrow  is 
arrested,  a  matter  of  infrequent  occurrence,  for  the  Sparrows 
generally  are  law-abiding,  religious  people,  it  is  impossible  to  se- 
cure a  jury  not  related  to  the  defendant;  a  change  of  venue  is 

*In  the  South,  Decoration  Day  is  celebrated  on  Sunday ;  and  other  graves 
than   those  of   soldiers  receive  this   beautiful  annual  tribute. 


THE  HANKSES  AXD  SPARROWS  47 

therefore  taken  to  some  part  of  the  county  where  the  Sparrows 
have  nested  less  abundantly,  and  a  man  of  that  name  can  be  tried 
before  a  jury  not  composed  of  his  own  cousins. 

The  Sparrow  neighborhood  is  at  least  sixteen  miles  from  the 
county-seat,  Lawrenceburg,  and  has  its  own  local  column  in  the 
county  paper,  the  Anderson  News.  I  have  seen  copies  of  this  in- 
teresting periodical,  containing  a  half  column  or  more  of  local 
news,  births,  marriages,  and  week-end  visits,  and  most  of  them 
related  to  the  doings  of  one  family.  One  such  issue  contained 
twenty  items,  and  every  one  of  the  twenty  named  one  or  more 
members  of  the  Sparrow  family. 

These  Sparrows  are  intelligent,  honest  and  capable  people,  liv- 
ing on  their  own  farms,  and  living  reasonably  well.  They  are 
much  inbred,  and  show,  as  far  as  I  have  noted,  no  signs  of  physi- 
cal or  intellectual  deterioration.  I  have  met  one  strong,  erect 
young  man  of  twenty-one  who  is  descended  by  four  distinct  lines 
from  the  grandmother  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  have  met  also  a 
husband  and  wife,  both  of  them  first  cousins  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

These  people  have  read  few  if  any  books  about  Lincoln.  They 
know  nothing  about  any  controversies  concerning  his  parentage. 
They  have  not  seen  or  communicated  with  the  Hankses  for  a 
hundred  years.  They  have  never  been  interviewed,  except  for 
this  work.  But  as  soon  as  they  are  asked  about  their  family 
connections,  they  tell  their  direct  and  consistent  story;  they  all 
know  themselves  to  be  related  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  they 
know  how  that  relationship  exists.  If  they  produce  a  shoe-box 
full  of  family  portraits,  there  is  a  picture  of  Lincoln  among  them. 
It  belongs  there;  he  is  of  their  kin. 

The  family  Bibles  of  these  people  go  back  to  where  they  join 
to  official  records  in  Anderson  and  Mercer  Counties,  and  the 
records  confirm  the  traditions. 

Here  is  an  invaluable  body  of  testimony,  never  before  dis- 
covered. 

The  Hankses  and  the  Sparrows  were  intimately  related,  and 
Nancy  Hanks,  the  president's  mother,  was  oftener  called  Sparrow 


48  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

than  Hanks.  A  knowledge  of  the  Sparrows  is  necessary  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  Hankses  and  the  Lincolns.  What  is  there  to  be 
known  about  them?  The  records  are  surprisingly  clear,  and  of 
considerable  importance. 

With  much  labor  I  have  discovered  the  nest  of  the  Sparrows 
in  Mecklenburg  County,  Virginia,  and,  as  has  often  been  the  case, 
I  have  found  an  embarrassment  of  riches.  For  I  wanted  one 
James  Sparrow,  and  I  found  a  James  Sparrow  and  a  James  R. 
Sparrow  and  a  James  B.  Sparrow  and  a  James  Bowling  Sparrow 
and  a  James  Bowling  and  a  James  W.  Sparrow.  There  were  two 
families  of  these  Sparrows,  James  Wright  Sparrow  and  James 
Bowling'  Sparrow,  cousins,  being  the  respective  fathers.  James 
Wright  Sparrow's  middle  name,  Wright  or  Right,  or  initial  W. 
or  R.,  as  the  spelling  might  be  preferred,  appears  not  to  have  been 
used  except  when  necessary  to  distinguish  between  him  and  James 
Bowling  Sparrow.  The  census  of  1790  gives  us  James  B.  Spar- 
row with  a  family  of  eight  and  James  R.  Sparrow  with  a  family 
of  ten,  all  white.  Either  family  is  large  enough  for  our  require- 
ments, but  the  one  that  chiefly  concerns  us  is  James  Wright  Spar- 
row. The  two  families  are  both  missing  from  Virginia  after 
1 788,  and  almost  immediately  we  find  them  both  in  Mercer  Coun- 
ty, Kentucky.  At  first  their  home  was  in  the  extreme  southern 
part  of  Mercer  County  as  it  then  was  constituted,  in  what  is  now 
Boyle  County.  Their  land  was  on  the  waters  of  Chaplain's  Fork, 
toward  Doctor's  Fork,  and  not  very  far  from  the  battle-field  of 
Perryville. 

James  Sparrow  died  in  Mercer  County,  Kentucky,  in  1789. 
His  will  is  of  record  thus : 

The  noncupative  will  of  James  Sparrow,  Deed.,  was  produced 
in  Court,  Oct.  27,  1789,  in  the  words  and  figures  following: 

In  the  name  of  God,  Amen,  I  james  Sparrow  of  Mercer  Coun- 
ty, Caintucky,  and  province  of  Virginia,  being  of  perfect  mind 
and  memory,  do  make  this  my  last  Will  Testament  and  dispose 
of  what  little  afects  God  has  blessed  me  with  in  Mercer  following, 
that  is  to  say  lawful  Debts  to  be  paid  faithfully  discharged  out 


THE  HANKSES  AXD  SPARROWS  49 

of  mv  personal  estate  to  my  well  beloved  wife.  I  leave  the  rest 
of  my  personal  estate  to  rease  the  childering  and  support  herself 
and  my  land  is  to  be  divided  first  One  hundred  for  my  eldest  son 
hendrv,  then  the  other  three  hundred  to  be  divided  equally  to  the 
other  fore  sons,  Thomas,  James,  Peter  and  Dinny  Sparrow.  This 
is  my  last  will  and  Testament  here  given  under  my  hand  this 
1 8th  day  of  May  1789. 

And  the  same  was  proved  by  the  oaths  of  Josiah  Campbell, 
Henry  Sparrow,  and  Judith  Sparrow  and  Susannah  Campbell  to 
be  the  noncupative  will  of  the  said  James  Sparrow  Deceased  and 
ordered  to  be  recorded. 

This  James  Sparrow  who  died  in  1789  in  Mercer  County  was 
James  W.  or  James  R.  Sparrow,  formerly  of  Mecklenburg  Coun- 
ty. Virginia,  where  the  parents  of  Henry  Sparrow  were  living 
when  the  latter  was  born  in  1765,  and  where  Henry  was  living 
when  he  enlisted  in  the  Revolutionary  War  in  the  spring  of  1781. 
Henry  was  twenty-four  years  of  age  when  his  father  died,  and,  as 
the  will  affirms,  he  was  the  eldest  son.  On  his  father's  death, 
Henry  became  the  head  of  the  family,  and  when  Biddy,  or 
Bridget,  was  married  to  John  Daniel,  by  the  Reverend  John 
Bailey,  March  5,  1790  (bond  March  2,  1790)  Henry  signed  as 
"Guardian."  His  mother's  name  was  Mary,  and  she  lived  for 
some  years  after  the  death  of  her  husband.  The  son,  James,  died, 
and  it  must  have  been  his  wife,  "Nancy  Sparrow,  widow,"  who  in 
1800  married  John  Elliott.  We  are  chiefly  concerned  with  Henry 
and  Thomas. 

In  1872,  Ward  Hill  Lamon,  in  his  Life  of  Lincoln,  gave  the 
first  real  information  concerning  the  antecedents  of  Xancy  Hanks. 
He  gave  it  bluntly,  and  .unsympathetically,  but  he  did  it  truth- 
fully : 

Xancy  Hanks  was  the  daughter  of  Lucy  Hanks.  Her  mother 
was  one  of  four  sisters — Lucy,  Betsy,  Polly  and  Nancy.  Betsy 
married  Thomas  Sparrow ;  Polly  married  Jesse  Friend,  and 
Xancy,  Levi  Hall.  Lucy  became  the  wife  of  Henry  Sparrow, 
and  the  mother  of  eight  children.  Nancy  the  younger  was  early 
sent  to  live  with  her  uncle  and  aunt,  Thomas  and  Betsy  Sparrow. 


5o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Nancy,  another  of  the  four  sisters,  was  the  mother  of  that  Dennis 
F.  Hanks  whose  name  will  be  frequently  met  with  in  the  course 
of  this  history.  He  also  was  brought  up,  or  permitted  to  come 
up,  in  the  family  of  Thomas  Sparrow,  where  Nancy  found  a 
shelter.* 

Lamon  was  not  loved  for  this  statement,  but  no  one  was  pre- 
pared to  deny  it.  When  it  was  known  that  John  G.  Nicolay  and 
John  Hay,  former  secretaries  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  were  engaged 
upon  a  Life  of  Lincoln,  not  a  few  readers  waited  with  keen  inter- 
est for  their  version  of  this  story.  The  work  which  they  pro- 
duced ran  for  several  years  through  the  pages  of  the  Century 
magazine,  and  was  then  published  in  ten  thick  volumes.  It  is  a 
work  which  will  be  of  permanent  value  to  the  Lincoln  student. 
But  it  suffers  marked  limitations,  one  of  which  is  the  fact  that 
it  was  written  under  the  blue-pencil  of  Robert  Todd  Lincoln.  He 
furnished  his  father's  two  secretaries  with  his  father's  official  and 
private  papers  on  condition  that  he  should  see  and  approve  what- 
ever they  were  to  print.  After  some  years  of  hard  labor,  the  first 
part  of  the  work  was  sent  to  Mr.  Lincoln  with  this  letter  from 
John  Hay,  which  is  eloquent  as  to  the  feeling  under  which  the  two 
secretaries  had  done  their  work : 

Cleveland,  Ohio,  January  27,  1885. 
Dear  Bob: — 

Nicolay  tells  me  he  has  laid  before  you  or  is  about  to  do  so, 
the  first  volumes  of  our  history,  containing  the  chapters  in  which 
I  have  described  the  first  forty  years  of  your  father's  life.  I 
need  not  tell  you  that  every  line  has  been  written  in  a  spirit  of 
reverence  and  regard.  Still  you  may  find  here  and  there  words 
and  sentences  which  do  not  suit  you.  I  write  now  to  request 
that  you  will  read  with  a  pencil  in  your  hand,  and  strike  out 
everything  to  which  you  object.  I  will  adopt  your  view  in  all 
cases,  whether  I  agree  with  it  or  not.f 

That  Robert  T.  Lincoln  made  corrections,  the  later  letters 
show,  but  even  if  he  never  made  any,  the  work  was  produced 


*Lamon :  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  12. 

fLife  and  Letters  of  John  Hay,  by  William  Roscoe  Thayer,  ii,  pp.  24-25. 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  51 

under  the  possibility  of  his  doing"  so,  and  the  authors  had  this 
fact  constantly  in  mind. 

What  did  Nicolay  and  Hay  say  on  this  delicate  subject,  know- 
ing that  for  every  idle  word  they  would  have  to  give  account 
to  Robert  T.  Lincoln? 

They  repeated  the  Lamon  statement,  but  with  less  of  detail. 
They  named  Nancy  Hanks'  mother,  Lucy,  and  in  the  same  sen- 
tence named  her  sisters  and  her  sisters'  husbands,  grouping  the 
sisters  first  and  the  husbands  in  a  following  clause.  The  para- 
graph so  ended  that  the  casual  reader  might  hardly  be  expected 
to  sort  out  and  pair  off  the  sisters  and  their  husbands,  or  to 
notice  that  nothing  was  said  of  Lucy's  husband,  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  no  critic  could  charge  the  authors  with  evading,  or 
misrepresenting  the  unpleasant  fact.  Seldom  in  all  his  career 
did  John  Hay  better  illustrate  his  diplomatic  skill,  while  pre- 
serving his  complete  regard  for  the  truth : 

Mrs.  Lincoln's  mother  was  named  Lucy  Hanks ;  her  sisters 
were  Betty,  Polly  and  Nancy,  who  married  Thomas  Sparrow, 
Jesse  Friend  and  Levi  Hall.  The  childhood  of  Nancy  was 
passed  with  the  Sparrows,  and  she  was  oftener  called  by  their 
name  than  her  own.  The  whole  family  connection  was  com- 
posed of  people  so  little  given  to  letters  that  it  is  hard  to  de- 
termine the  proper  names  and  relationships  of  the  younger  mem- 
bers amid  the  tangle  of  traditional  cousinships.* 

We  may  assure  ourselves  that  no  paragraph  in  the  entire  ten 
volumes  cost  John  Hay  more  thought  than  this  one,  or  was 
reviewed  with  more  care  by  John  G.  Nicolay.  Nor  can  there 
have  been  any  paragraph  over  which  the  newly  sharpened  pencil 
of  Robert  T.  Lincoln  was  longer  or  more  thoughtfully  poised. 

But  it  was  approved  by  him  in  January,  1885,  and  it  was 
published  in  the  Century  in  November,  1886;  and  when  the  ten 
volumes  appeared,  it  was  not  changed.  It  is  certainly  to  the 
credit  of  John  Hay,  as  it  is  also  to  that  of  Robert  T.  Lincoln, 


*  Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  i,  p.  24, 


52  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  no  attempt  was  made  to  disguise  this  unpleasant  truth.  They 
were  disposed  not  to  make  it  prominent,  but  they  were  both  too 
honorable  to  deny  or  omit  it. 

No  one  can  imagine  that  Robert  T.  Lincoln  enjoyed  that 
paragraph,  but  it  was  true,  and  he  knew  it,  and  it  was  stated  as 
delicately,  perhaps  as  vaguely,  as  so  bald  a  fact  could  be  stated. 

And  that  is  where  it  ought  to  have  been  left.  I  did  not  covet 
the  task  which  has  been  thrust  upon  me  by  those  who,  some  of 
them  having  a  zeal  without  knowledge  and  concerning  others 
of  whom  something  not  so  gentle  would  need  to  be  said,  have 
undertaken  to  establish  a  wholly  different  story. 

That  story  is  based  upon  the  fact  that  Joseph  Hanks,  in  his 
will,  names  three  of  these  sisters  but  does  not  mention  a  daugh- 
ter Lucy;  and  even  Waldo  Lincoln,  in  his  new  History  of  the 
Lincoln  Family  affirms  that  her  existence  has  not  been  proved.* 
It  is  necessary  now  to  prove  it. 

The  simple  question  involved,  is,  was  Nancy  Hanks,  the  presi- 
dent's mother,  the  daughter  or  the  granddaughter  of  Joseph 
Hanks?  President  Lincoln  answered  this  question  in  his  cam- 
paign biography  furnished  to  John  Locke  Scripps  in  i860. 
Writing  of  his  flat-boat  journey  to  New  Orleans  in  183 1,  with 
John  Hanks,  he  said : 

He  is  the  same  John  Hanks  who  now  engineers  the  "rail  en- 
terprise," at  Decatur,  and  is  a  first  cousin  of  Abraham's  mother. 

John  Hanks  was  born  February  9,  1802,  and  died  July  12, 
1890,  being  the  son  of  William  and  Elizabeth  (Hall)  Hanks  and 
the  grandson  of  Joseph  and  Ann  Hanks.f  If  the  president's 
mother  had  been  a  daughter  of  Joseph  Hanks,  she  would  have 
been  John  Hanks's  aunt,  and  not  his  first  cousin. 

Again  brief  reference  must  be  made  to  a  little  book  entitled 
Nancy  Hanks,  by  Mrs.  Caroline  Hanks  Hitchcock.     That  book 


^History  of  the  Lincoln  Family,  p.  340. 

tElizabeth  Hall,  who  married  William  Hanks,  was  a  sister  of  Levi  Hall 
who  married  Nancy  Hanks.  Their  father  was  James  Hall,  and  when  he 
died  their  mother  married   Caleb   Hazel,  Lincoln's  teacher. 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  53 

announced  that  its  author  had  prepared  a  complete  genealogy  of 
the  Hanks  family,  which  was  soon  to  appear.  That  was  twenty- 
five  years  ago.  The  genealogy  has  not  appeared,  and  Mrs.  Hitch- 
cock did  not  possess  in  1899,  and  does  not  possess,  material  for  a 
complete  and  trustworthy  work  of  that  character.  Miss  Ida  M. 
Tarbell  furnished  the  Introduction  to  Mrs.  Hitchcock's  book, 
and  proclaimed  that  Airs.  Hitchcock  had  forever  removed  the 
stain  which  wicked  men  had  cast  upon  the  lineage  of  Lincoln's 
mother. 

Ten  years  went  by,  and  James  Henry  Lea  had  ready  for  pub- 
lication the  results  of  J.  R.  Hutchinson's  investigations  into  Lin- 
coln's English  lineage,  and  his  own  inquiries  into  the  American 
line.  But  of  the  Hankses  he  knew  little,  if  anything,  except  what 
he  learned  from  Mrs.  Hitchcock.  Some  of  her  conclusions  stag- 
gered him,  but  he  had  no  other  source  of  information,  so  he  ac- 
cepted all  he  could,  then  shut  his  eyes  and  accepted  some  more. 
The  results  of  his  attempt  to  combine  truth  and  Mrs.  Hitchcock's 
story  are  painfully  evident,  as  he  is  now  and  then  driven  to 
bigamy. 

Laying  to  one  side  Mrs.  Hitchcock's  little  book,  let  us  find  our 
material  in  the  more  formal  work  of  Lea  and  Hutchinson : 

Robert  Shipley,  an  Englishman,  is  said  on  the  authority  of 
Mrs.  C.  H.  Hitchcock,  to  have  come  to  America  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  eighteenth  century  and  to  have  settled  in  Lunenburg 
County,  Virginia.  He  was  probably  the  father  of  two  sons, 
Robert  Shipley,  Jr.,  and  Edward  Shipley.  There  were  also  five 
daughters,  who  do  not  appear  in  the  Virginia  records.  .  .  . 

Alary  Shipley  married  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Rockingham 
County,  Virginia,  before  1763,  and  died  in  Virginia  before 
J/79.  .  .  . 

Lucy  Shipley  married  Richard  Berry,  of  Rockingham  County, 
Virginia,  who  removed  to  Kentucky  about  1789,  and  lived  at 
Beechland,  near  Springfield,  Washington  County.  They  were' 
the  foster  parents  of  the  orphaned  Nancy  Hanks,  whose  legal 
guardian  Richard  Berry  became,  and  from  whose  home  she 
v.  as  married  to  Thomas  Lincoln,  he  becoming  the  surety  on  the 
marriage  bond.     It  is  this  Aunt  Lucy — Berry,  not  Hanks — who 


54  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

was  mistaken  by  the  first  hasty  historians  as  the  mother,  Lucy 
Hanks,  and  so  helped  to  give  credence  to  the  foul  fable  of  false 
birth  so  industriously  fomented  by  the  enemies  of  the  presi- 
dent. .  .  . 

Sarah  Shipley  married  Robert  Mitchell,  who  removed  to  Ken- 
tucky in  1789.  .  .  . 

Elizabeth  Shipley  married  Thomas  Sparrow.  They  removed 
with  the  rest  of  the  family  to  Kentucky  and  settled  in  Washing- 
ton County.  In  181 7  they  rejoined  Thomas  and  Nancy  (Hanks) 
Lincoln  at  Gentryville,  Indiana,  where  both  parents  succumbed 
to  a  fatal  malarial  epidemic  in  October,  181 8,  having  had  a 
daughter  Nancy  Sparrow  (confused  with  Nancy  Hanks  by  some 
of  the  earlier  biographers)  who  married  Charles  Friend,  brother 
of  Jesse  Friend,  who  married  Polly  Hanks,  daughter  of  Joseph. 
Charles  and  Nancy  (Sparrow)  Friend  were  the  parents  of  the 
irresponsible  and  unreliable  Dennis  Friend,  one  of  the  Presi- 
dent's youthful  associates,  who,  assuming  the  name  of  Dennis 
Hanks,  did  much  to  complicate  the  already  difficult  problem  of 
the  Hanks  genealogy,  which  the  mendacity  of  his  declining 
years  still  further  confused.* 

There  is  at  least  one  true  statement  in  the  foregoing,  which  is 
that  the  five  daughters  of  Robert  Shipley  do  not  appear  in  the 
Virginia  records.  There  is  also  another  true  statement,  which  is 
that  Polly  Hanks  married  Jesse  Friend.  She  is  the  only  one  of 
the  four  Hanks  sisters  who  has  been  permitted  to  live  with  her 
own  lawful  wedded  husband  in  the  biography  cf  the  last  twenty- 
five  years.  Polly,  or  Mary,  Hanks  and  Jesse  Friend  were  mar- 
ried in  Hardin  County,  December  10,  1795,  by  Reverend  Josiah 
Dodge,  and  no  one  disputes  that  date. 

We  have  no  concern  with  the  Mitchell  family,  who  think 
they  trace  a  Shipley  ancestry  through  a  middle  letter  "S"  in  one 
of  their  family  names,  and  who  may  or  may  not  be  correct  in 
their  conjecture  that  their  ancestor  Robert  Mitchell  married  a 
woman  named  Shipley. 

All  the  rest  of  the  foregoing  genealogy  so  far  as  it  relates  to 
Lincoln,    is    false,   and   the  original   inventors  of   it  must   have 


*The  Ancestry  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  pp.  105-108,  passim. 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  55 

known  that  it  was  false.  Mary  Shipley,  if  there  was  any  such 
woman,  did  not  marry  Abraham  Lincoln.  Lucy  Shipley  did  not 
marry  the  Richard  Berry  of  this  genealogy;  his  wife  was  Ra- 
chel. That  same  Richard  Berry  did  not  sign  Thomas  Lincoln's 
marriage  bond ;  he  had  been  dead  eight  years.  It  was  his  son 
who  signed  the  bond,  and*  his  wife  was  not  Lucy  Shipley  but 
Polly  Ewing.  Elizabeth  Shipley  did  not  marry  Thomas  Spar- 
row, and  Thomas  Sparrow  and  his  wife  did  not  have  any  chil- 
dren, and  the  mother  of  Dennis  Hanks  was  not  Xancy  Sparrow 
Eriend.  But  just  here  we  find  one  other  true  statement :  Den- 
nis Hanks  was  the  son,  albeit  the  illegitimate  son,  of  Charles 
Eriend ;  and  he  concealed  the  name  of  his  father  from  even  the 
close  cross-questioning  of  William  H.  Herndon,  who  thus  wrote 
concerning  him : 

Dennis  Hanks,  still  living  (1889)  at  the  age  of  ninety  years 
in  Illinois,  was  the  son  of  another  Xancy  Hanks — the  aunt  of 
the  president's  mother.  I  haA'e  his  written  statement  that  he 
came  into  the  world  through  nature's  back  door.  He  never 
stated,  if  he  knew  it,  who  his  father  was.* 

The  people  who  invented  this  Shipley  genealogy  for  the  glori- 
fication of  the  Hanks  family  found  out  who  Dennis  Hanks's 
lather  was,  and  learned  the  truth.  I  have  a  signed  and  sworn 
statement  from  Charles  Friend,  grandson  of  the  original  Charles 
Friend,  attesting  tins  relationship,  and  I  have  similar  documents 
from  grandsons  of  Dennis  Hanks,  and  a  further  affidavit,  made 
in  1892  by  the  Hall  family  when  they  sold  the  Lincoln  cabin  at 
Farmington  for  exhibit  at  the  World's  Fair,  which  shows  their 
relationship  to  the  family;  for  this  Nancy  Hanks,  the  daughter 
of  Joseph,  after  the  birth  of  Dennis,  married  Levi  Hall.  We 
have  this  relationship  trebly  attested  by  the  Hankses,  the  Friends 
and  the  Halls.  And  now  the  question  arises,  how  did  the  origi- 
nators of  this  piece  of  fiction  learn  who  was  the  father  of  Dennis 
Hanks  and  not  learn  who  was  his  mother?  The  answer  is  that 
they  did  learn,  and  that  they  deliberately  invented  another  moth- 


:Herndon's  Lincoln,  i,  13. 


56  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

er,  and  another  grandmother,  and  a  false  marriage  to  conceal 
the  truth. 

Both  Lea  and  Hutchinson  and  Miss  Tarbell  are  guiltless  of  in- 
tentional wrong  in  this  matter,  though  they  erred  sadly  in  broad- 
casting misinformation  which  they  had  not  investigated;  and  I 
do  not  think  Mrs.  Hitchcock  invented  it.  I  do  not  know  who 
was  the  original  and  responsible  prevaricator,  though  I  might 
possibly  entertain  a  conjecture  concerning  persons  no  longer 
living;  but  this  I  know,  and  the  knowledge  has  cost  me  much 
labor,  that  this  fabric  of  falsehoods  could  not  have  originated 
innocently. 

There  is  not  room  in  this  chapter  for  the  laborious  and  com- 
plicated investigation  which  I  have  been  compelled  to  make.  This 
is  the  sum  of  it : 

Joseph  Hanks  had  four  daughters,  one  more  than  was  men- 
tioned in  his  will. 

The  Nancy  who  was  therein  named  was  not  the  president's 
mother,  but  her  aunt,  who  on  May  15,  1799,  gave  birth  to  Den- 
nis Hanks,  the  father  being  Charles  Friend.* 

She  subsequently  married  Levi  Hall  and  became  the  mother 
of  a  family  still  resident  partly  in  Illinois  and  partly  in  Missouri. 
Levi  and  Nancy  Hall  migrated  to  Indiana  just  in  time  to  be  car- 
ried off  by  the  same  epidemic  that  took  away  Nancy  Hanks  Lin- 
coln and  her  other  aunt  and  uncle,  Thomas  and  Elizabeth  Hanks 
Sparrow.f 

It  was  regarded  as  highly  important  for  the  purposes  of  the 
inventors  of  this  genealogy  to  discredit  Dennis  Hanks,  and  rid 


*Charles  Friend  was  responsible  for  the  sorrow  also  of  a  Nancy  Riley, 
who  on  February  8,  1803,  caused  his  arrest  for  the  paternity  of  her  bastard 
son,  born  November  7,  1802.  He  later  married  (November  19,  1804)  Sallie 
Huss,  daughter  of  Edward  Huss,  and  joined  the  Little  Mount  Baptist 
Church,  and  there  is  buried. 

fThere  are  five  graves  in  the  enclosure  with  the  Nancy  Hanks  monu- 
ment in  the  State  Park  ne?r  Lincoln  City.  They  were  identified  on  the 
testimony  of  Dennis  Hanks.  He  was  not  taken  to  the  spot,  but  described  it 
with  quite  remarkable  accuracy,  saying  that  his  mother  and  her  husband, 
Nancy  and  Levi  Hall,  his  foster-parents,  Thomas  and  Elizabeth  Sparrow, 
and  his  cousin,  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln,  were  buried  in  a  group  of  five  graves 
apart   from  the  others   in   the   little  cemetery. 


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THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  57 

the  noble  Hanks  family  of  so  troublesome  a  member.  Even 
Waldo  Lincoln  in  his  recent  book  tells  us  that  "Dennis  Hanks 
appears  to  have  gone  out  of  his  way  to  calumniate  both  Nancy 
and  her  husband."*  I  find  no  evidence  of  this.  Dennis  could 
lie  a  little  when  necessary,  but  as  a  liar  he  was  not  in  the  same 
class  with  the  people  who  gave  to  Mrs.  Hitchcock  her  ready-to- 
wear  genealogy. 

These  gifted  inventors  could  not  stop  with  the  results  above 
cited.  They  must  at  all  hazards  get  rid  of  the  Nancy  Hanks  who 
was  named  in  Joseph  Hanks's  will  in  order  to  short-circuit  one 
generation  and  move  the  president's  mother  into  that  place  as 
the  heiress  of  the  pied  heifer.  Their  first  step  was  to  create  a 
new  mother  for  Dennis  Hanks ;  their  next  was  to  provide  a  new 
wife  for  Levi  Hall : 

Elizabeth  Hanks  (Betsy)  married  Levi  Hall,  brother  of  Eliz- 
abeth Hall,  wife  of  William  Hanks,  removed  to  Spencer  County, 
Indiana,  soon  after  her  brothers  and  sister,  Nancy  Lincoln,  and 
died  shortly  and  buried  beside  them.  They  had  three  children: 
1.  Squire  Hall,  married  Matilda  Johnson,  daughter  of  Daniel 
and  Sarah  (Bush)  Johnston,  and  had  nine  children;  2.  William 
Hall,  married  Mary  Ann  Hanks,  daughter  of  Joseph  and  Mary 
(Young)  Hanks;  3.  James  Hall,  marriecl  Caroline  Hanks,  sister 
of  the  last  named. f 

It  is  difficult  to  carry  through  so  elaborate  a  scheme  of  in- 
vention and  not  collide  with  a  fact ;  and  it  is  not  strange  that  six 
pages  later  this  record  is  contradicted,  and  Elizabeth  appears 
wedded  to  her  own  proper  husband,  a  clear  case  of  literary  big- 
amy. The  Hitchcock  story  breaks  down  of  its  own  weight.  We 
will  dwell  no  longer  on  Nancy,  the  wife  of  Levi  Hall,  but  pass  on 
to  discover  the  true  husband  of  Elizabeth. 

Deep  down  in  the  dust  of  old  records  in  Mercer  County  we 
have  the  proof  we  seek.    The  marriage  bond  of  Thomas  Sparrow 

*  History   of   the   Lincoln   Family,   p.   338. 
tThe  Ancestry   of  Abraham   Lincoln,   p.    122. 


58  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  Elizabeth  Hanks  bears  date  of  October  17,  1796.  And  that 
disposes  of  several  falsehoods. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  crux  of  the  whole  matter,  the  ex- 
istence and  character  and  life  history  of  Lucy  Hanks.  There  was 
such  a  woman,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Joseph  Hanks,  the  mother 
of  Nancy  Hanks,  the  mother  of  President  Lincoln.  The  reason 
she  is  not  named  in  her  father's  will  is  that  he  disinherited  her. 
But  was  the  moral  standard  of  the  Hanks  family  so  high  that 
Joseph  Hanks,  an  old  man  on  the  verge  of  eternity,  should  have 
refused  to  forgive  his  eldest  daughter  for  an  offense  committed 
many  years  before  ?  For  Lucy  Hanks  gave  birth  to  her  daughter 
Nancy  in  1784,  and  Nancy  was  nine  years  old  when  her  grand- 
father died  in  1793. 

No ;  the  standard  of  the  Hanks  family  was  not  so  high  as 
that;  and  no  family  should  have  a  standard  of  that  character. 
But  the  birth  of  Nancy  was  not  the  last  time  that  Lucy  caused 
her  parents  anxiety ;  and  though  she  had  been  married  two  years, 
and  was  behaving  like  a  perfect  lady  in  1793  when  her  father 
died,  and  though  her  brothers  and  sisters  had  become  reconciled 
to  her  and  continued  on  terms  of  friendship  becoming  their  re- 
lation, Joseph  Hanks  did  not  forget  the  sorrows  of  those  seven 
years  between  the  birth  of  Nancy  and  the  marriage  of  Lucy. 
Only  three  daughters  are  named  in  the  will  of  Joseph  Hanks. 
Joseph  Hanks  did  not  forget  her.  To  each  of  his  other  daugh- 
ters he  gave  a  heifer ;  but  he  did  not  mention  Lucy. 

Lucy  Hanks  was  born  in  Virginia  about  1765,  and  came  to 
young  womanhood  in  the  period  of  license  and  revolt  that  ac- 
companied the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War.  When  she  was 
about  nineteen,  she  became  the  mother  of  a  child,  named  Nancy. 
The  name  of  the  child's  father  is  unknown,  but  President  Lin- 
coln believed  him  to  have  been  a  planter  of  standing  and  unusual 
ability.* 

Lucy  must  have  continued  to  reside  in  the  home  of  her  parents 


*The  story  is  told  in  the  much  discussed  buggy-ride  narrative  in  Hern- 
don,   '1:3. 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  59 

after  the  birth  of  her  little  girl,  and  until  some  time  after  the  re- 
moval to  Kentucky.  But  long  before  the  death  of  her  father  and 
mother  she  had  left  home.  Whether  her  parents  turned  her  out 
or  she  left  against  their  will  we  do  not  know.  But  we  do  know 
that  she  continued  her  wayward  life. 

The  early  Kentuckians  were  highly  litigious,  but  most  of  their 
litigation  was  in  civil  suits  or  was  concerned  with  minor  cases 
of  assault  and  battery  or  slander.  The  Grand  Jury  that  met  at 
the  quarterly  courts,  in  which  the  county  magistrates  sat  en  banc, 
were  often  hard  put  to  it  to  earn  their  per  diem  and  mileage,  and 
usually  finished  their  work  in  a  fraction  of  a  day.  There  was 
one  matter  which  could  always  be  relied  upon  to  furnish  them 
occupation  :  the  indictment  of  the  road-surveyors.  Everv  grand 
juror  knew  that  the  supervisor  of  the  road  over  which  he  had 
ridden  to  the  court-house  deserved  anything:  short  of  hansrinsr. 
Having  been  familiar  with  those  roads  for  the  past  forty  years. 
I  vote  to  sustain  the  indictments  against  the  road-surveyors.  At 
one  session  of  the  Grand  Jury  there  would  have  been  nothing 
else  than  the  roads  to  occupy  its  attention  save  for  the  misbe- 
havior of  Lucy  Hanks :  and  I  am  reluctant  to  tell  about  it.  But 
it  is  necessary  that  this  story  be  so  told  that  it  shall  not  have  to 
be  told  again. 

The  record  reads : 

Mercer  Court  of  Quarter  Sessions,  November  24,  1789.  Lewis 
Homes,  Joseph  Davis,  John  Berry,  David  Prewett,  James  Har-  ' 
rod,  John  Haggin.  John  Mahan,  Geo.  Bohannan,  John  Robinson, 
Henry  French  and  Parmeneas  Briscoe  were  sworn  a  Grand  Jury 
of  inquest  for  this  county,  and  having  received  their  charge,  re- 
tired  out  of  court  to  consult  what  presentments  they  could  make. 

The  Grand  Jury  returned  into  court,  and  made  the  following 
presentments,  viz  : 

The  surveyor  of  the  road  from  Harrodsburg  to  George  Buck- 
hannon's. 

Lucy  Hanks  for  fornication. 

the  overseer  of  the  road  from  the  county  line  to  Chaplin's 
Fork. 


60  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

And  having  nothing  further  to  present  were  discharged. 
Ordered  that  the  Clerk  issue  summonses  against  these  persons 
this  day  presented  by  the  Grand  Jury.* 

There  is  no  record  that  the  sheriff  served  the  summons  upon 
Lucy.  On  March  twenty-third,  she  not  having  appeared  in  court, 
an  alias  summons  was  ordered  to  be  issued. 

Still  she  did  not  appear.  Neither  Lucy  nor  the  county  offi- 
cials could  ignore  the  matter  much  longer.  By  the  May  term 
of  court,  Lucy  must  have  appeared  and  been  publicly  branded 
with  an  unpleasant  name. 

And  then—  • 

We  have  reached  an  exciting  moment  in  this  drama,  and  we 
have  no  orchestra  to  strike  the  cymbals  or  blow  the  bugles.  But 
there  enters  quietly  upon  the  stage  at  this  juncture  a  new  and 
important  character,  almost  a  hero. 

Henry  Sparrow  was  born  in  Mecklenberg  County,  Virginia, 
October  9,  1765,  and  was  half-way  between  twenty-three  and 
twenty-four  when  Lucy  Hanks  came  into  unpleasant  publicity. 
He  had  been  a  soldier  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  serving  in  Cap- 
tain Thomas  Shipp's  company  of  Colonel  William  Mumford's 
regiment.  He  had  come  with  his  parents,  James  W.  and  Mary 
Sparrow,  from  Virginia  to  Kentucky,  and  since  the  death  of  his 
father,  May  18,  1789,  six  months  before  the  indictment  of 
Lucy  Hanks,  had  been  caring  for  his  widowed  mother,  his  sister 
and  younger  brother. 

He  believed  in  Lucy,  and  offered  to  marry  her. 


*Order  Book  No.  1,  p.  415.  I  have  already  referred  to  the  affirmation 
of  my  friend,  Mr.  Waldo  Lincoln,  that  no  proof  has  yet  been  adduced  that 
such  a  person  as  Lucy  Hanks  existed.  Miss  Tarbell,  in  her  delightful  book, 
Following  the  Footsteps  of  the  Lincolns,  issues  this  friendly  challenge :  "If 
now  Doctor  Barton  can  establish  beyond  dispute  the  place  of  Nancy  Hanks 
in  her  family,  he  will  have  relieved  future  Lincoln  biographers  of  much  be- 
wilderment and  disgust — but  his  chain  must  be  faultless."  (p.  88).  It  is 
partly  because  of  the  natural  reluctance  of  these  and  other  friends  to  give  up 
the  Hitchcock  story,  and  because  I  am  warned  that  nothing  short  of  positive 
proof  will  be  accepted,  that  I  am  compelled  to  adduce  this  evidence,  which 
under  some  circumstances  it  might  not  be  necessary  to  print. 


THE  HANKSES  AXD  SPARROWS  61 

On  April  26,  1790,  Henry  Sparrow  and  his  brother-in-law, 
John  Daniel,  husband  of  Biddy  Sparrow,  rode  to  the  court-house 
and  gave  bond  for  a  license  of  marriage  between  Henry  Sparrow 
and  Lucy  Hanks. 

Xo  one  appeared  as  Lucy's  "guardian"  nor  was  that  formality 
required.     John  Daniel  certified  that  she  was  of  legal  age. 

But  Lucy  herself  furnished  a  certificate. 

It  is  her  sole  literary  monument,  on  a  bit  of  paper  about  four 
bv  five  inches : 


I  do 

sertify  that  I  am  of  age  and  give  my  approba- 

tion 

freely    for  henry   Sparrow   to   git   out   Lisons 

this  or  ennv  other  day. 

given  under  my  hand  this  day 

Apriel  26th,   1790. 

Lucev  Hanks 

Test: 

Robert  Michel 

John  bery. 

Do  not  judge  her  spelling  uncharitably.  She  stumbled  over 
the  word  "approbation,"  beginning  to  spell  the  last  syllable  with 
an  j-  but  changing  it  properly  to  a  t.  The  wonder  is  not  that  she 
spelled  so  badly  but  that  she  could  do  so  well.  Her  father  and 
her  brothers  could  not  write,  and  neither  could  her  husband  or 
any  of  her  husband's  brothers;  but  she  wrote  with  a  flourish. 

And  so  the  license  was  duly  issued  for  the  marriage  of  Henry 
Sparrow  and  Lucy  Hanks. 

When,  therefore,  the  County  Court  of  Quarter  Sessions  assem- 
bled for  its  May  term,  the  following  entry  was  made : 

The  Commonwealth  plaintiff,  against  Lucy  Hanks,  deft. 
L'pon  a  presentment. 

For  reason  appearing  to  the  court  the  suit  is  ordered  to  be 
discontinued. 


62  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  should  like  to  know,  for  I  do  not  know,  why  John  Berry  was 
witness  to  Lucy's  consent  to  the  marriage,  and  why  his  brother, 
Richard,  sixteen  years  later,  was  surety  when  Lucy's  daughter 
Nancy  married  Thomas  Lincoln.  John  Berry,  who  lived  and 
died  on  Doctor's  Fork,  in  Mercer  County,  was  on  the  Grand 
Jury  that  indicted  Lucy,  and  was  evidently  concerned  that  she 
should  not  be  prosecuted.  I  do  not  know  why  this  family  was 
interested  in  the  matter ;  I  know  only  what  the  records  show. 

Now  follows  an  interesting  little  bit  of  unwritten  history,  and 
lie  who  knows  what  should  be  written  may  write  it.  Henry  and 
Lucy  were  not  married  for  nearly  a  year. 

I  can  imagine  Henry's  saying  to  Lucy  that,  while  he  had  faith 
in  her,  it  would  be  well  under  all  the  circumstances  if  she  should 
prove  to  the  community  that  she  could  live  a  single  and  virtuous 
life.  I  can  imagine  that  Lucy  herself  preferred  the  postpone- 
ment, saying  that  she  deeply  appreciated  the  knightly  offer  of 
Henry  Sparrow,  and  his  act  that  resulted  in  the  quashing  of  the 
indictment  against  her,  but  that  she  wanted  to  prove  to  the 
world  that  she  was  worthy  of  his  confidence  and  to  marry  as  a 
woman  of  established  and  virtuous  reputation.  I  leave  it  to  others 
to  write  in  this  missing  page  of  history.  All  that  I  venture  to  re- 
cord is  that  the  license  was  issued  April  26,  1790;  that  the  case 
against  Lucy  was  dismissed  on  the  opening  day  of  the  May  term 
of  court  in  the  same  year,  and  that,  on  April  3,  1791,  after  almost 
a  year  of  probation  in  which  we  have  good  reason  to  believe  that 
Lucy  remained  true,  Henry  Sparrow  and  Lucy  Hanks  were  duly 
married  by  the  Reverend  John  Bailey,  a  well-known  Baptist 
preacher. 

This  is  not  as  pretty  a  story  as  that  told  by  Mrs.  Hitchcock 
and  the  rest;  but  now  we  come  to  the  part  that  is  finely  well 
worth  telling.  Henry  Sparrow,  who  sheltered  Lucy  behind  the 
protection  of  his  honest  name,  lived  to  be  assured  of  the  wisdom 
cf  his  course.  Lucy  Hanks  was  a  young  woman  of  superior  in- 
telligence and  unusual  strength  of  character,  and  she  made  him 
a  good  wife.     They  became  the  parents  of  eight  children,  James, 


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ABRAHAM  LINCOLN'S  LOST  GRANDMOTHER 
Her  one   existing  autograph.     Discovered  by   the   author 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  63 

Thomas,  Henry,  George,  Elizabeth,  Lucy,  Peggy  and  Polly.  All 
these  lived  to  maturity  and  married  and  bore  children,  and  their 
seed  are  mighty  in  the  earth.  They  all  know  that  their  great- 
or  great-great-  or  great-great-great-grandfather  married  Lucy 
Hanks  and  that  she  had  a  daughter  Nancy  Hanks,  but  they  have 
never  heard  that  there  was  a  scandal  about  it ;  they  suppose  that 
Lucy  had  been  married  before.  In  the  days  of  the  Civil  War, 
some  of  their  descendants  entered  the  southern  army,  but  some 
of  them,  and  among  them  Henry's  son  Henry,  voted  and  talked 
and  prayed  for  the  L^nion  and  for  Henry's  nephew,  Abraham 
Lincoln ;  and  Henry  was  in  a  position  to  influence  his  neighbor- 
hood, for  he  was  minister  of  the  Sparrow  Union  Church. 

And  this  is  the  happy  and  rather  fine  ending  of  a  somber 
story.  Elizabeth  Sparrow  made  a  true  mother  to  Nancy,  and 
when  there  were  visits  back  and  forth,  as  there  were,  Elizabeth 
stood  in  the  relation  of  mother  to  Nancy,  while  Lucy  was  known 
as  her  aunt.  Lucy  soon  had  her  arms  full  of  other  children,  and 
she  made  them  a  good  mother.  She  brought  up  her  children  in 
honesty  and  simple  virtue.  They  are  industrious,  law-abiding, 
God-fearing  people  unto  this  day. 

Henry  and  Lucy  lived  together  as  husband  and  wife  about 
thirty-four  years.  She  died  apparently  in  1825,  aged  about  sixty. 
He  again  married,  on  bond  issued  July  31,  1827,  Rhoda,  sister 
of  Jacob  Johnston,  and  appears  to  have  survived  her.  In  his 
later  years  he  drew  a  pension  as  a  Revolutionary  soldier,  and  his 
last  voucher  was  signed  by  mark,  September  17,  1840. 

And  Lucy  lived  so  worthily  and  well  that  every  trace  of  scan- 
dal against  her  disappeared,  and  her  children  rose  and  her  chil- 
dren's children's  children  still  rise,  and  call  her  blessed.  All  her 
children  grew  up  worthily,  and  two  of  them,  Henry  and  James, 
became  ministers  of  the  Gospel. 

Let  him  who  has  done  more  for  posterity  than  Lucy  Hanks, 
cast  the  first  stone. 

Now  we  are  able  to  tell  the  true  story  of  the  life  of  Nancy 


64  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Hanks.  She  was  born  in  1784  on  Mike's  Run,  a  small  tributary 
(the  mortgage  calls  it  a  "drean"  or  drain)  of  Patterson's  Creek, 
in  what  is  now  Mineral  County,  West  Virginia.  Her  family 
removed  in  the  very  year  of  her  birth  and  settled  in  Nelson 
County  on  Rolling  Fork  of  Salt  River,  about  two  miles  up- 
stream from  the  present  village  of  Athertonville,  and  on  the  op- 
posite side  from  where  in  after  years  she  lived,  the  wife  of 
Thomas  Lincoln,  on  Knob  Creek.  There  is  every  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  in  the  early  part  of  the  family's  residence  in  Kentucky, 
she  and  her  mother  lived  with  Nancy's  grandparents,  Joseph  and 
Ann  Hanks.  Joseph  Hanks,  as  we  know,  died  in  1793.  When,  in 
the  following  year,  Joseph  Hanks,  Jr.,  to  whom  the  farm  had 
been  left  in  his  father's  will,  subject  to  a  life  use  by  Ann,  the 
widow  of  Joseph,  conveyed  his  interest  to  his  brother  William, 
two  names  were  signed  (with  mark,  of  course)  to  the  deed. 
Both  signatures  bear  the  name  Hanks,  but  the  first  part  of  the 
name  below  that  of  Joseph  is  illegible.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted 
that  it  is  the  name  of  Ann  Hanks,  the  mother.  Apparently  she 
did  not  die  on  Rolling  Fork,  but,  grief-stricken  and  perhaps  with 
deeper  sorrow,  went  back  to  Virginia  and  died  among  her  old 
neighbors,  some  of  whom  may  have  been  relatives.  In  that  year 
as  we  know,  Joseph  went  back  to  Virginia,  and  after  a  few 
years  returned  to  Kentucky.  By  that  time  his  mother  probably 
was  dead. 

As  Nancy's  Uncle  William  and  Aunt  Elizabeth  (Hall)  Hanks 
came  into  immediate  possession  of  the  farm,  it  is  probable  that 
for  a  time  Nancy  lived  with  this  aunt  and  uncle ;  and  then  it  ap- 
pears almost  certain  that  she  went  for  a  few  months  to  her  own 
mother,  Lucy,  who  had  married  Henry  Sparrow.  But  this  was 
not  an  ideal  arrangement,  and  when  Thomas  Sparrow  married 
Elizabeth  Hanks  in  1796,  she  went  to  live  with  them. 

Nancy  was  not  less  than  twelve  years  of  age  when  she  went  to 
live  with  this  uncle  and  aunt.  As  the  years  passed,  and  no  chil- 
dren were  born  to  them,  they  clung  to  her  with  a  closer  affection. 
Her  own  name  of  Hanks,  which  had  begun  to  fall  away  from 


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MARRIAGE  BOND  OF  HENRY  SPARROW  AND  LUCY  HANKS 
Discovered  at  Harrodsburg,  Kentucky,  by  the  Misses  Mary  A.  and  Martha 

Steohenson 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  65 

her  while  she  lived  in  the  home  of  her  mother  Lucy  Sparrow, 
dropped  farther  out  of  sight.  As  Nicolay  and  Hay  tell  us,  she 
was  oftener  called  Sparrow  than  Hanks.  In  after  years,  when 
she  had  come  to  fame  as  the  mother  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  her 
Hanks  cousins  united  in  declaring-  that  Henry  Sparrow  was  her 
father,  and  that  her  name  was  not  Hanks.  Dennis  has  been 
held  up  to  scorn  as  a  man  devoid  of  honor,  and  even  Waldo  Lin- 
coln accuses  him  of  going  out  of  his  way  to  calumniate  the 
mother  of  the  president.  On  the  very  contrary,  Dennis  Hanks, 
sorrowfully  admitting  that  he  was  "base-born,"  lied  like  a  gentle- 
man to  protect  his  cousin  from  like  reproach. 

Nancy  was  in  the  home  of  Thomas  and  Elizabeth  Sparrow 
when  they  learned  of  the  misfortune  that  had  befallen  Eliza- 
beth's youngest  sister,  Nancy.  The  tax  lists  show  that  Thomas 
Sparrow  was  living  in  Mercer  County  in  1797,  1798  and  1799- 
In  1 80 1  Thomas  and  Elizabeth,  with  Nancy,  moved  to  Nolin 
Creek,  and  then,  if  not  earlier,  took  the  little  waif,  Dennis,  as 
their  son.  In  1803  they  moved  back  to  Mercer  and  remained  till 
1805.*  In  May,  1806,  Thomas  Sparrow  bought  land  on  the 
South  Fork  of  Nolin,  apparently  the  same  farm  he  had  pre- 
viously rented  in  Hardin  County.  His  name  appears  on  the 
Hardin  County  tax  lists  regularly  from  1806  until  181 7  when 
lie  and  Elizabeth,  and  Dennis  Hanks  their  foster  son,  removed  to 
Indiana  to  be  near  their  foster  daughter,  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln ; 
and  there  in  a  very  few  months  Thomas  and  Elizabeth  died. 

Although  neither  Thomas  nor  Elizabeth  could  read,  they  sent 
Dennis  to  school  in  the  old  Baptist  meeting-house  on  Nolin,  and 
he  became,  according  to  the  standards  of  the  Hanks  family  and 


*My  clue  to  a  residence  of  Nancy  Hanks  in  Mercer  County  came  through 
an  autobiographical  letter  of  Dennis  Hanks,  which  is  quoted  in  the  ap- 
pendix to  this  volume,  stating  that  Thomas  and  Elizabeth  Sparrow,  who 
reared  him  as  a  foster  son  and  Xancy  Hanks  as  a  daughter,  removed  from 
Nolin  Creek  in  Hardin  County  and  spent  three  years  in  Mercer,  returning 
afterward  to  the  same  farm  in  Hardin  County.  Most  biographers  openly 
flout  Dennis  Hanks,  but  in  so  doing  leap  out  of  the  frying-pan  to  more  in- 
accurate authorities,  but  I  have  found  him  usually  truthful.  Following  this 
clue.  I  found  the  information  correct,  and  it  led  to  important  discoveries  in 
Mercer  County,  which  has  not  hitherto  been  explored   for   Lincoln   material. 


66  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  neighborhood,  a  well  educated  man.  He  was  by  far  the 
most  literate  of  the  Hankses  of  his  generation.  His  spelling  was 
erratic,  as  was  the  spelling  of  nearly  every  one  else,  and  his  gram- 
mar displayed  strong  individuality,  but  he  expressed  himself  in 
good,  forcible  and  intelligible  language.  These  foster  parents 
gave  to  Nancy  educational  advantages  quite  superior  to  their 
own.  They  sheltered  her  and  brought  her  up  virtuously  and 
religiously.  To  her  relatives  she  seemed  a  young  woman  of 
liberal  education ;  her  attainments  in  knowledge  and  character  are 
greatly  to  her  credit,  and  to  the  credit  of  these  foster  parents. 

When  Thomas  and  Elizabeth  Sparrow,  accompanied  by  their 
two  foster  children,  returned  to  Mercer  County  in  1803,  Nancy 
had  become  a  young  woman,  capable  of  earning  her  own  living. 
She  was  a  skilled  seamstress,  and  sometimes  assisting  her  aunts 
and  at  other  times  working  for  neighbors  and  friends,  she  left 
wherever  she  lived  a  tradition  of  industry,  intelligence  and 
virtue.  Cruel  aspersions  on  her  character  were  circulated  after 
her  son  became  famous,  but  not  one  of  these  originated  in  any 
place  where  she  had  ever  lived,  nor  can  any  tradition  be  dis- 
covered, taking  its  rise  among  those  who  knew  her,  save  those 
that  proclaim  her  a  young  woman  of  marked  ability  and  of  high 
moral  character,  a  woman  fitted  in  mind  and  heart  to  be  the 
mother  of  her  illustrious  son. 

The  wedding  company  is  assembling  at  the  Berry  house  on 
Beech  Fork.  Some  friends  have  come  in  ox- wagons,  but  most 
of  them  on  horseback.  The  horses  from  a  distance  have  been 
turned  into  the  pasture  lot,  but  those  that  have  come  no  farther 
than  from  Springfield,  a  matter  of  seven  miles,  have  been  re- 
lieved of  their  saddles  and  are  tethered  by  their  bridle-reins  to 
the  swinging  limbs  of  the  beech  trees.  They  stamp  their  feet, 
and  switch  their  tails,  for  it  is  fly-time,  but  they  seldom  break 
loose,  and  if  one  should,  he  would  not  wander  from  the  others. 

Let  us  join  the  company,  and  attend  the  wedding,  never  doubt- 
ing our  welcome,  whether  friend  or  stranger. 


THE  HANKSES  AND  SPARROWS  67 

The  wedding'  will  occur  about  sunset,  and  the  feast  will  be 
served  by  early  candle-light.  As  we  approach  the  house,  we 
meet  groups  of  men,  lounging,  discussing  the  "craps,"  talking 
about  the  corn  and  wondering  whether  it  will  be  "knee  high  by 
the  fourth  of  July,"  as  by  rhyme  and  reason  it  ought  to  be.  The 
men  are  dressed  mostly  in  hunting  shirts  and  buckskin  breeches, 
but  here  and  there  is  one  fashionably  clad  in  jeans. 

The  woman  are  gathering  in  the  house  and  on  the  porch.  Some 
of  them  wear  the  fabrics  Ann  McGinty  taught  them  to  spin,  of 
nettle-lint  and  buffalo-wool,  but  others  are  dressed  in  linsey- 
woolsey,  for  there  are  areas  where  a  liberal  bounty  for  scalps  has 
made  these  neighborhoods  nearly  free  from  wolves  and  so  avail- 
able for  sheep.  There  are  fields  that  regularly  are  sown  with  the 
blue-blossoming  flax.  Scratchy  garments  it  makes,  for  the  means 
of  ridding  the  thread  from  fiber  are  only  partly  effective;  but 
there  is  evident  advance  in  the  matter  of  clothing,  and  even  some 
approach  to  what  seems  luxury  of  attire. 

From  the  cook-house  come  appetizing  odors.  The  sun  shines 
bright  in  the  old  Kentucky  home;  'tis  summer,  the  darkies  are 
gay.  Around  behind  the  shed  the  musician  is  testing  his  home- 
made cat-gut  with  strains  of  Turkey  in  the  Straw,  the  Money* 
musk  and  Hey,  Betty  Martin,  tip-toe,  tip-toe.  The  sawed  floor 
(no  puncheons)  of  the  Berrys  will  resound  with  merry  footfalls 
to-night.  Even  the  Reverend  Jesse  Head  will  not  find  it  easv  to 
keep  his  feet  still. 

Yonder  comes  the  parson.  A  few  years  later,  he  owned  at 
one  time  two  or  three  horses;  for  a  circuit-riding  preacher  had 
need  to  be  a  good  judge  of  horse-flesh,  and  on  occasion  capable 
of  driving  a  profitable  trade.  But  at  this  time  he  owned  only  an 
old  gray  mare,  easily  recognized  at  a  considerable  distance. 
There  is  a  little  hush  in  the  conversation  as  he  approaches,  and 
one  of  the  Berry  brothers  goes  to  the  fence  to  meet  him.  and  take 
his  horse.  The  preacher  'lights  and  lifts  his  saddle,  looking  well 
to  the  back  of  his  beast,  to  see  that  it  does  not  scald  in  this  hot 
weather.     This  done,  he  moves  toward  the  house,  walking  with 


68  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

authoritative  step.  He  is  tall,  lean,  wiry,  with  strong  Roman 
nose,  high  cheek-bones  and  red  hair.  He  is  said  to  fear  God,  but 
he  fears  no  Calvinist,  or  any  other  man.  He  greets  his  neigh- 
bors with  cheerful  and  unaffected  interest  in  their  concerns.  He 
is  a  man  some  people  do  not  love,  but  whom  every  one  respects, 
a  hard-hitting,  devil-fighting  circuit-riding  parson,  striving 
mightily  to  save  the  wilderness  from  godlessness  and  savagery. 
AYell  may  this  company  rise  up  and  do  him  honor.  It  is  the 
twelfth  of  June,  1806;  Jesse  Head  was  thirty-eight  years  old  day 
before  yesterday.  He  has  been  preaching  now  since  he  became 
a  man,  and  he  is  to  preach  for  many  years  to  come.  He  has  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  this  wedding  which  he  has  come  to  sol- 
emnize is  to  be  any  different  from  those  to  which  he  is  accus- 
tomed; but  the  great  events  of  life  do  not  come  to  us  labeled. 

The  sun  nears  the  horizon,  and  the  company  moves  in  a  little 
nearer  to  the  house.  It  is  almost  time  for  the  ceremony.  As  the 
guests  converge,  they  meet  and  greet  the  relatives  of  the  bride 
and  groom.  The  Lincolns  are  fairly  well  known,  for  Mordecai 
and  Josiah  live  near  by,  and  Mary  and  Nancy,  though  married 
and  living  some  distance  away,  are  not  forgotten.  Not  so  the 
aunts  and  uncles  of  the  bride.  They  are  strangers  to  nearly  all 
the  company,  and  must  be  introduced. 

And  now  I  wonder  if  I  do  not  see  two  other  guests,  approach- 
ing the  ford  from  the  other  side,  and  preparing  to  cross  Beech 
Fork.  Their  horses  dip  their  feet  in  the  water  and  splash  cheer- 
fully, for  the  day  has  been  warm  and  the  water  is  pleasant.  They 
pause  as  they  enter  the  stream,  and  the  horses  drink  and  are 
refreshed.  The  man  and  woman  talk  together  in  a  rather  low 
tone,  a  tone  of  eager  anticipation  tinged  with  a  little  solicitude  on 
her  part,  and  one  of  calm  assurance  on  his.  They  cross  the 
stream  and  ride  up  to  the  fence.  They  heed  the  invitation  to 
"light  and  lift  their  saddles.  They  dismount  and  the  woman  goes 
to  the  house,  while  the  man,  accompanied  by  one  of  the  hosts, 
leads  the  horses  out  to  the  pasture  lot,  and  turns  them  loose  for  a 
roll  and  a  feast  of  grass.     Then  he  washes  his  face  at  the  spring, 


THE  HANKSES  AXD  SPARROWS  69 

makes  a  proper  toilet,  and  mingles  for  a  time  with  the  men,  and 
in  due  season  joins  his  wife. 

They  are  there  during  the  ceremony — I  am  almost  sure  of  it — 
and  they  have  good  right  to  be  there.  Have  they  not  ridden 
twenty  miles  to  be  present? 

They  are  a  well-looking  couple,  each  about  forty-two,  he 
substantial  and  reliable,  she  of  rather  unusual  vivacity  and  charm, 
holding  her  youth  well  into  middle  life.  After  the  ceremony,  we 
shall  meet  them. 

They  are  introduced  as  another  uncle  and  aunt  of  the  bride, 
from  over  in  Mercer  County,  Air.  and  Mrs.  Henry  Sparrow'. 
Yes,  they  have  good  right  to  be  present. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   CHILDHOOD   OF    LINCOLN 

Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln  sat  in  her  splint-bottomed  chair  in  the 
cabin  on  the  Sinking  Spring  farm,  and  rocked  her  baby  with 
quiet  satisfaction  The  chair  was  without  rockers,  and  its  front 
legs  came  down  hard  upon  the  earthen  floor,  but  the  baby  ap- 
peared to  enjoy  it.  As  she  rocked,  she  sang.  She  knew  the 
old  ballads  which  had  come  down  by  tradition  in  the  literature  of 
the  illiterate.  Some  of  them  harked  back  to  Old  England.  There 
was  a  ballad  of  Lord  Bateman  and  the  Turkish  Lady,  and  another 
of  the  Cruelty  of  Barbara  Allen.  There  was  the  song  of  Fair 
Eleanor  (Nancy  pronounced  the  name  "Ellender")  and  the 
Brown  Girl.  The  hero  loved  Fair  Eleanor,  but  the  Brown  Girl 
she  had  lands  and  gold,  Fair  Eleanor  she  had  none,  so  he  riddled 
his  riddle  on  maternal  advice,  and  brought  the  Brown  Girl  home. 
He  was  bold  about  it,  and  he  rode  past  Fair  Eleanor's  abode,  and 
"he  tingled  at  the  ring,"  and  invited  Fair  Eleanor  to  the  wedding. 
She  braved  all  the  peril  and  the  gossip,  and  she  went.  "Is  this 
your  bride?"  Fair  Eleanor  said.  "She  seemeth  me  plagued 
brown;  and  you  might  have  had  as  fair  a  maid  as  ever  the  sun 
shone  on."  The  Brown  Girl  did  not  enjoy  this  comment  on  her 
personal  appearance.  She  had  come  prepared  to  defend  herself 
against  any  such  aspersion.  The  Brown  Girl  she  had  a  little  slim 
knife,  and  it  was  keen  and  sharp ;  she  reached  around  the  corner 
of  the  table,  and  pierced  Fair  Eleanor's  heart.  When  the  hero 
saw  Fair  Eleanor  dead,  he  drew  his  sword,  cut  off  the  Brown 
Girl's  head  "and  slung  it  ag'in  the  wall."  Then  he  stabbed  him- 
self to  death.  Those  old  songs  were  based  upon  the  theory  that 
two's  company  and  three's  a  crowd.     They  were  good  and  gory 

70 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  71 

and  had  abundance  of  melodrama,  and  they  thrilled  the  hearts  of 
shrill-voiced  maidens  all  the  way  from  Merry  England  to  Vir- 
ginia and  over  the  mountains  to  Kentucky.  They  were  better 
than  many  of  the  modern  triangles,  for  at  the  end  all  three  of 
the  characters  were  decently  dead,  and  the  funeral  may  be  pre- 
sumed to  have  been  conducted  in  accordance  with  the  hero's  dying 
instructions : 

And  bury  Fair  Eleanor  in  my  arms, 
And  the  Brown  Girl  at  my  feet. 

Also  she  sang  of  the  Romish  lady,  brought  up  in  Poperie,  and 
this  was  one  of  the  songs  which  Abraham  remembered  and  tried, 
though  not  very  successfully,  to  sing. 

She  sang  religious  songs,  such  as  abounded  in  the  country. 
Many  of  them  were  "family  songs"  in  which  the  successive 
stanzas  varied  only  in  the  substitution  of  the  words  " fathers," 
"mothers,"  "preachers,"  and  so  on: 

Brothers,  bear  your  cross ; 

It  will  onlye  make  you  richer, 
For  to  enter  in  that  bri-ight  kingdom  by  and  by. 

In  singing  songs  containing  such  words  as  "only"  the  second 
syllable  pronounced  the  "y"  with  the  long  sound,  just  as  the  high- 
priced  soprano  pronounces  "wind,"  meaning  the  atmosphere  in 
motion,  to  rhyme  with  "mind."  They  had  their  conventions  in 
singing  in  Nancy's  day,  just  as  they  have  them  now.  The  word 
"bright"  had  a  curious  syncopation  that  came  in  the  middle  of 
the  word ;  you  could  see  the  brightness  increase  as  the  word  was 
carried  over  the  beat : 

For  to  enter  in  that  bri-ight  kingdom  by  and  by. 

There  was  another  hymn  wThose  syncopation  had  a  lift  that 
was  almost  physical : 


72  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

You  may  bury  me  in  the  east, 
You  may  bury  me  in  the  west, 

And  we'll  all  vi-isc  together  in  that  morning. 

There  was  another  which  Mr.  Sankey  heard,  and  spoiled  it  by 
making  its  minor  over  into  the  major  mode  and  giving  it  the 
tempo  of  a  jig: 

Jesus  is  a  rock  in  a  wearye  land, 

A  wearye  land,  a  wearye  land; 
Jesus  is  a  rock  in  a  wearye  land, 

A  shelter  in  a  time  of  storm. 

As  Nancy  sang  it,  you  could  feel  the  weariness  of  the  journey 
till  your  very  bones  ached,  and  you  felt  also  the  security  of  the 
shelter. 

Sometimes  Nancy  sang  long  religious  ballads,  such  as  Wicked 
Polly.  She'd  go  to  parties,  dance  and  play,  in  spite  of  all  her 
parents  would  say:  "I'll  turn  to  God  when  I  get  old,  and  He  will 
then  receive  my  soul."  But  it  did  not  happen  that  way.  Stricken 
down  in  the  midst  of  her  frivolity,  she  called  her  mother  to  her 
bed,  her  eyes  were  rolling  in  her  head:  "When  I  am  dead,  remem- 
ber well,  your  wicked  Polly  screams  in  hell." 

Nancy  sang  such  songs  as  these.  Americans  are  said  to  take 
their  pleasures  sadly;  the  people  of  Nancy's  locality  and  genera- 
tion may  be  adjudged  to  have  taken  their  religion  in  that  fashion ; 
but  if  they  got  more  joy  out  of  it  in  that  way,  who  shall  deny 
them  the  comfort  of  their  lugubrious  satisfaction?  And  who 
shall  blame  them  if  in  times  of  religious  excitement  they  went  to 
the  other  extreme?  A  distant  and  superficial  judgment  might  be 
that  such  a  religion  was  worse  than  none;  but  that  is  not  the 
judgment  of  one  who  has  observed  that  type  of  religion  in  all 
its  variant  moods. 

The  baby  slept,  and  Nancy  laid  him  down  and  prepared  supper 
for  her  husband  and  little  Sarah.  "Hog  and  hominy"  had  come 
to  replace  the  primitive  dependence  upon  game,  and  there  was 
corn  bread,  and  very  rarely  any  other. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  73 

You  should  have  seen  Nancy  hake  bread.  She  stirred  the  meal 
an  a  wooden  bowl,  putting  in  nothing  in  addition  to  the  meal  but 
water  and  a  pinch  of  salt.  She  scooped  out  a  handful  of  the 
mush,  turned  it  over  and  over  in  her  palms,  and  put  it  into  the 
open-hearth  oven  with  a  good  cast  of  her  hand  and  fingers  on 
the  top  of  each  pone.  Five  or  six  of  these  pones  made  an  oven- 
ful,  and  they  were  good. 

While  the  pones  were  baking,  you  might  have  seen  Nancy  at 
her  spinning-wheel.  Of  all  arts  ever  invented  to  display  the 
grace  of  the  female  form,  in  step  and  gesture  and  skill  of  eye 
and  hand,  there  never  has  been  anything  to  compare  with  spin- 
ning. It  would  be  worth  a  journey  to  Xolin  Creek  just  to  see 
Nancy  spin. 

You  watch  Nancy  as  she  goes  to  her  cupboard,  and  you  won- 
der with  what  dishes  she  will  set  her  table,  and  whether,  indeed, 
she  has  any  dishes  except  perhaps  wooden  ones  that  Thomas  has 
made  for  her.  But  I  will  tell  you  what  she  had,  or  part  of  it ; 
for  in  addition  to  whatever  she  may  previously  have  owned,  her 
stock  had  been  increased  before  the  birth  of  Abraham  and  since 
the  death  of  Thomas  Mclntire.  Thomas  Lincoln  attended  the 
auction  sale  of  Mclntire's  personal  property  and  made  two  rath- 
er large  purchases.  He  bought  a  "Dish  and  Plates''  for  $2.68 ; 
and  a  "Bason  and  Spoons"  for  S3. 34.  These  were  not  trivial 
sums  in  1807.  Nancy's  cupboard  was  fairly  well  supplied  with 
crockery  and  pewter. 

Nancy  was  nothing  less  than  proud  of  her  table- wear  when  the 
preacher  spent  the  night  with  them.  The  Severns  Valley  Bap- 
tist Church  in  Elizabethtown  is  the  oldest  church  of  that  com- 
munion in  the  State  of  Kentucky.  Hodgenville  was  a  Baptist 
settlement  also,  one  of  its  founders  being  a  Baptist  preacher.  For 
him  Xolin  Creek  is  supposed  to  have  been  named ;  for  he  wan- 
dered away  and  is  supposed  to  have  been  killed  by  the  Indians ; 
and  when  the  hunting  party  came  back,  they  sadly  said,  "No 
Lynn."  So  you  must  not  accent  the  name  "Xolin"  on  the  first 
syllable;  that  is  not  the  proper  way.     Say  "Xo-lin"  just  as  if  you 


74  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

were  saying  "No  Lynn."  They  often  spell  it  that  way.  In  1803, 
the  Severns  Valley  Church  established  a  branch  on  Nolin.  Rev- 
erend Josiah  Dodge  preached  there  once  a  month,  which  was  as 
often  as  any  Baptist  preacher  was  expected  to  preach  in  any  one 
place  in  that  day.  When  Brother  Dodge  rode  over  to  Nolin  or 
to  the  nearer  church  on  South  Fork  and  having  preached  a  matter 
of  two  hours,  spent  the  night  with  Brother  and  Sister  Lincoln,  he 
1  iay  have  had  hog  and  hominy  for  supper.  But  in  the  morning, 
he  was  wakened  by  a  smothered  squawk,  and  the  flutter  of 
feathers  pulled  down  through  leafy  boughs,  and  the  sharp  stroke 
of  an  ax  against  the  block.  When  he  rose  and  went  down  to  the 
Sinking  Spring  to  wash  his  face,  he  saw  a  rooster's  head  at  the 
block,  and  knew  what  he  was  to  have  for  breakfast. 

Nancy  did  not  sit  down  at  the  table  with  the  men.  She  at- 
tended to  the  processes  under  way  on  the  hearth,  and  from  time 
to  time  brought  on  more  pone  or  bacon  and  whatever  else  there 
was  to  eat.  Little  Sarah  did  not  have  a  high  chair.  She  stood 
in  a  chair  that  was  placed  with  its  back  to  the  table.  With  one 
hand  she  held  to  a  chair-post  and  in  the  other  she  brandished  one 
of  the  spoons  from  the  Mclntire  sale. 

The  Sinking  Spring  farm  had  one  picturesque  feature,  the 
spring.  It  was  in  a  cave.  Behind  it  the  hill  made  a  low  bluff.  In 
front  the  ground  was  nearly  level,  and  the  spring  was  reached  by 
climbing  down  several  steps.  The  water  did  not  rise  to  the 
surface  of  the  ground,  but  flowed  away  through  a  subterranean 
channel. 

The  site  was  pleasant  and  the  water  was  good,  but  the  soil  was 
not  fertile.  It  was  hard  to  make  a  living  there.  Thomas  Lincoln 
had  paid  two  hundred  dollars  for  the  farm,  and  was  to  have 
made  a  small  additional  payment  when  the  deed  was  delivered; 
but  the  deed  was  not  delivered,  and  the  suit  followed.  Thomas 
won  his  suit,  but  probably  could  not  collect  the  money  he  had 
paid  nor  be  sure  of  getting  a  good  title.  The  land  was  sold,  and 
bought  in  by  Mather  who  paid  seventy-eight  dollars  for  it.  Why 
Thomas,  who  had  already  invested  much  more  than  that  in  the 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  75 

farm,  did  not  raise  the  bid  and  get  a  court-title  to  the  farm  we 
do  not  know. 

Three  crop  seasons  and  two  winters  the  Lincolns  lived  on 
Nolin  Creek,  and  then  removed  to  the  Knob  Creek  farm,  where 
Abraham  stayed  from  the  time  he  was  three  until  he  was  seven. 

The  birthplace  of  Lincoln,  the  cabin  on  the  South  Fork  of 
Nolin  Creek,  has  an  interest  which  belongs  to  no  other  home  of 
the  future  president;  but  the  home  of  his  earliest  memories  was 
that  on  Knob  Creek. 

Thomas  Lincoln  appears  to  have  owned  or  occupied  five  houses 
in  what  was  then  Hardin  County.  The  first  of  these,  purchased 
before  his  marriage  and  not  occupied  by  him  afterward,  was  lo- 
cated on  Mill  Creek.*  This  farm  consisted  of  238  acres,  and 
was  purchased  by  Thomas  Lincoln  from  Doctor  John  Toms 
Slater,  September  2,  1803.  It  was  paid  for  in  cash,  or  its 
equivalent,  the  consideration  being  one  hundred  and  eighteen 
pounds.  The  same  farm,  measured  at  two  hundred  acres,  was 
sold  by  Thomas  and  Nancy  Lincoln  to  Charles  Milton,  October 
27,  1814. 


*Until  the  publication  of  The  Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  these  trans- 
actions were  confused  by  all  authors  who  wrote  of  them.  Lamon  assumed 
that  this  was  the  Knob  Creek  farm,  and  so  did  Herndon.  Other  authors  as- 
sumed that  this  was  the  Nolin  Creek  farm,  and  that  Thomas  Lincoln  had 
been  improving  it  for  three  years  before  his  marriage,  and  that  during  his 
residence,  with  Nancy,  in  Elizabethtown,  he  was  building  the  house  where 
Abraham  was  to  be  born.  A  complete  record  of  Thomas  Lincoln's  owner- 
ship of  this  property  is  given  in  The  Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Miss 
Tarbell,  who  thought  her  finding  of  the  Slater  sale  to  Lincoln  to  have  been 
an  original  discovery,  supposed  this  to  have  been  the  farm  where  Lincoln  was 
born.  She  tells  us  that  Thomas  Lincoln  "moved  to  the  farm  he  had  bought 
in  1803  on  the  South  Fork  of  Nolin  Creek,  in  Hardin  County,  now  Larue 
County,  three  miles  from  Hodgenville,  and  about  fourteen  miles  from  Eliza- 
bethtown. Here  he  was  living  when,  on  February  12,  1809,  his  second  child, 
a  boy,  was  born.  The  little  new  comer  was  called  Abraham."  (Vol.  i,  p.  14.) 
Most  authorities  have  followed  either  Lamon  in  assuming  that  the  farm  pur- 
chased by  Thomas  Lincoln  and  sold  to  Milton  was  the  Knob  Creek  farm,  or 
Miss  Tarbell  in  assuming  that  it  was  the  Nolin  Creek  farm.  All  are  wrong 
The  Mill  Creek  farm  has  been  identified,  and  it  is  many  miles  from  either 
of  the  others.  Nancy  Hanks  never  lived  upon  it.  Thomas  Lincoln  may  have 
lived  here  for  a  time  before  his  marriage,  or  he  may  have  worked  it  in  des- 
ultory fashion  in  1803  and  1804,  while  boarding  with  his  sister  Nancy  Brum- 
field.  For  further  information  reference  may  be  made  to  my  address  before 
the  Filson  Club  of  Louisville  on  The  Lincolns  in  Their  Old  Kentucky  Home. 


76  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  next  home  of  Thomas  Lincoln  in  Hardin  County  was  the 
cabin  in  Elizabethtown,  which  in  1865  and  subsequent  years  was 
shown  in  steel  engravings  and  other  reproductions  as  the  birth- 
place of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Of  this  cabin  Lamon  wrote  in  1872, 
basing  his  statements  on  Herndon's  visit  to  Kentucky  in  1866: 

Lincoln  took  Nancy  to  live  in  a  shed  in  one  of  the  alleys  in 
Elizabethtown.  It  was  a  very  sorry  building,  and  nearly  bare  of 
furniture.  It  stands  yet,  or  did  in  1866,  to  witness  for  itself  the 
wretched  poverty  of  its  early  inmates.  It  is  about  fourteen  feet 
square,  has  been  three  times  removed,  twice  used  as  a  slaughter 
house  and  once  as  a  stable.  Here  a  daughter  was  born  on  the 
tenth  of  February,  1807,  who  was  called  Nancy  during  the  life  of 
her  mother,  and  after  her  death,  Sarah.* 

The  foregoing  is  correct,  except  that  the  little  girl  was  Sarah, 
and  never  called  Nancy,  and  that  the  occupancy  of  a  cabin  four- 
teen feet  square  is  no  certain  proof  of  wretchedness.  The  house 
is  no  longer  standing.  Its  site  is  disputed ;  but  has  been  identi- 
fied with  reasonable  certainty. f 

In  the  spring  or  early  summer  of  1808,  Thomas  and  Nancy 
Lincoln,  with  little  Sarah,  moved  from  Elizabethtown,  and  are 
believed  to  have  lived  for  a  few  months  on  the  farm  of  George 
Brownfield,  near  Buffalo,  in  what  is  now  Larue  County.  The 
site  of  their  cabin  has  been  identified.  It  is  in  the  "plumb-or- 
chard," a  grove  of  wild  crab-apples. % 

*Life  of  Lincoln,  pp.  12-13. 

tHere  again,  as  in  very  much  that  relates  to  matters  in  Hardin  County, 
I  acknowledge  my  debt  to  Reverend  Louis  A.  Warren,  in  company  with 
whom  1  have  visited,  and  in  some  instances  repeatedly,  these  and  all  other 
sites  relating  to  Lincoln  in   Hardin   County. 

JThe  discovery  of  this  home  was  made  in  the  search  for  information  at 
the  time  the  government  took  over  the  Lincoln  farm.  I  have  given  the 
facts,  as  that  investigation  appeared  to  establish  them,  and  as  I  received 
them  from  Honorable  L.  B.  Handley,  attorney  for  the  Lincoln  Farm  As- 
sociation. The  spot  was  identified  for  me  by  Honorable  Richard  Creel, 
Judge  of  Larue  County.  For  the  affidavits  concerning  this  and  kindred  mat- 
ters, I  refer  the  reader  to  the  appendices  of  The  Paternity  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  I  am  endeavoring  to  repeat  in  this  volume  only  what  is  essential 
to  a  continuous  narrative.  The  Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  The  Soul 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  both  contain  important  matter  which  I  must  not  under- 
take to  duplicate  here. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  y7 

In  this  cabin  they  were  tenants  while  Thomas  Lincoln  worked 
as  carpenter  and  farm  laborer  for  the  man  who  owned  the  cabin. 
When  they  moved  from  here,  in  the  autumn  or  early  winter  of 
1808,  it  was  to  the  humble  home  near  the  Rock  Spring  or  Sink- 
ing Spring,  which  the  birth  of  their  son  in  the  following  winter 
made  forever  illustrious.* 

The  removal  of  Thomas  Lincoln  from  Nolin  Creek  to  Knob 
Creek  appears  upon  the  face  of  it  an  unimportant  shifting-  of  a 
migratory  family  from  one  farm  to  another  in  the  same  county. 
Mewed  only  as  a  removal  of  twelve  miles,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  its  significance  has  been  overlooked  by  students  of  the  life 
of  Lincoln.  But  he  who  journeys  over  the  roads,  and  becomes 
acquainted  with  the  environment,  discovers  that  the  transfer 
from  the  one  rough  farm  to  the  other  a  little  less  rough  was  an 
event  of  considerable  importance. 

The  two  farms  were  in  the  same  county,  and  lawsuits  or  trade 
called  Thomas  Lincoln  occasionally  to  the  county-seat,  Elizabeth- 
town  ;  but  except  when  he  had  business  in  court,  which  wras  not 
Very  often,  he  found  it  easier  to  go  to  Bardstown,  the  county- 
seat  of  Nelson  County;  for  the  distance  was  the  same,  and  the 
road  to  Bardstown  was  better.  Except  for  his  small  amount  of 
official  business,  as  his  lawsuits  over  the  title  to  his  farms,  and 
his  appointment  as  road  "surveyor/'  he  had  little  to  take  him 
back  to  his  own  county-seat,  and  not  much  more  to  take  him  to 
his  old  neighborhood  on  Nolin.  An  epoch  in  the  life  of  the 
Lincolns  ended  with  this  short  migration. 

This  removal  transferred  the 'family  across  Muldraugh's  Hill, 
which  is  not  a  hill,  but  an  escarpment  facing  the  Blue  Grass 
region.  It  extends  from  West  Point,  in  the  southwest  corner  of 
Jefferson  County  near  where  Rolling  Fork  enters  the  Ohio 
River,  southeastward  to  the  vicinity  of  Brodhead,  Rockcastle 
County,  thence  northeastward  to  the  Ohio  River  west  of  Vance- 
burg,  Lewis  County. 


*The  purchase  of  the  farm  was  December  12,  1808,  but  the  Lincolns  may 
have  been  living  there  a  few  weeks  earlier. 


78  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Knob  Creek  is  in  the  hills,  but  it  is  a  short  stream  which 
quickly  finds  the  Blue  Grass.  Thomas  Lincoln  changed  his  out- 
look on  life  by  this  migration  of  a  dozen  miles. 

The  Lincoln  farm  was  situated  in  the  forks  of  Knob  Creek. 
There  were  three  fields,  lying  in  the  rather  fertile  valley.  Thom- 
as Lincoln  made  no  attempt  to  cultivate  the  hillslopes  of  his 
farm,  the  three  little  fields  affording  him  sufficient  labor..  The 
house  stood  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  road  from  the  large  house 
afterward  erected  and  still  standing,  and  the  site  may  still  be 
found. 

It  was  while  living  on  Knob  Creek  that  Abraham  Lincoln  first 
went  to  school.  The  site  of  the  schoolhouse  has  been  identified 
for  me  by  Francis  X.  Rapier.* 

This  is  his  statement  to  me : 

My  father,  Nicholas  A.  Rapier,  born  in  1820,  moved  to  Knob 
Creek  about  1842  or  1843.  The  Lincoln  farm  remained  in  our 
family  until  twelve  or  fifteen  years  ago.  I  was  born  on  the  Knob 
Creek  Lincoln  farm.  The  Lincoln  house  was  still  standing  in 
my  childhood,  but  was  not  used  as  a  house.  The  house  which 
our  family  occupied  is  on  the  right  as  one  goes  down  the  creek 
toward  Athertonville  and  New  Haven.  The  two  creeks  meet  in 
the  middle  of  the  farm.  The  road  crosses  a  bridge  where  the 
creek  comes  in  from  the  left.  Just  this  side  of  the  bridge,  that  is, 
on  the  side  nearer  Muldraugh's  Hill,  is  a  large  farm  gate.  A 
iittle  distance  inside  that  gate  is  a  slight  elevation  where  the 
house  stood.  That  little  elevation  has  always  been  used  as  a 
feeding  place  for  cattle,  being  a  little  above  the  bottom  land,  and 
hence  more  dry.  That  doubtless  was  the  reason  why  the  spot  was 
selected  for  a  house ;  and  as  it  was  used  as  a  barn  in  my  father's 
ownership,  the  stock  gathered  there,  and  the  spot  continued  to  be 
used  as  a  feeding-place  after  the  old  shed  disappeared.  The 
gate  shows  the  general  course  of  the  short  path  from  the  road  to 
the  front  door  of  the  house. 

This  road  was  a  part  of  the  old  Louisville  and  Nashville  turn- 
pike,  and  my  father  fed  stage  passengers.     Thomas  Lincoln's 

*Mr.  Rapier,  who  had  not  previously  been  interviewed,  made  this  in- 
teresting statement  to  me  in  1920,  and  I  wrote  it  at  the  time,  and  have  con- 
firmed his  statements  on  the  testimony  of  other  old  residents  of  the  locality. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  79 

cabin  was  then  just  a  cattle  shed.  But  we  were  in  no  uncer- 
tainty about  it. 

I  have  never  been  interviewed  by  any  writer  of  books  about 
Lincoln.  But  I  was  born  across  the  road  from  the  cabin  where 
he  lived,  and  talked  with  all  the  men  who  knew  him  and  were 
living-  when  Lincoln  became  famous;  and  I  presume  that  I  am 
nearer  to  accurate  sources  of  knowledge  of  the  life  of  the  Lincoln 
family  while  living  on  Knob  Creek  than  any  one  else. 

The  schoolhouse  was  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  Lincoln 
home.  It  is  on  the  left  as  you  drive  into  Athertonville,  just  as 
you  pass  the  first  house,  on  a  little  elevation  about  a  hundred 
yards  up  a  little  run  or  "holler." 

Old  man  Austin  Gollaher  lived  not  far  away  from  us.  We 
had  a  good  well,  and  he  liked  to  drink  the  water.  He  came  to 
our  house  almost  every  day.  He  wore  trap-door  trousers  and 
coarse  white  shirts  with  knit  suspenders.  I  seldom  saw  him  with 
a  coat.  He  was  the  only  man  I  ever  knew  who  attended  school 
with  Abraham  Lincoln. 

He  said  Lincoln  attended  very  little.  All  the  boys  at  that  time 
used  to  wear  just  one  long  garment  in  the  summer  time :  the 
darkies  still  run  around  in  their  shirt-tails,  and  in  those  days  all 
the  boys  wore  long  tow  shirts.  But  in  school,  trousers  were  ex- 
pected, and  Austin  said  Abe  had  his  first  pair  of  pants  when  he 
went  to  school.  But  he  said  Abe  did  not  have  a  hat.  Hats  were 
about  the  hardest  garments  to  get.  Coonskin  caps  were  common', 
but  the  boy  who  had  a  wool  hat  was  in  style,  and  Gollaher  was 
quite  certain  that  when  Abe  first  came  to  school  he  was  shy  a 
hat.  His  impression  was  that  Abe  had  no  school  book  of  his 
own ;  but  that  was  not  so  uncommon.  He  knew  Abe  best  of  any 
one  who  wras  living  here  after  Lincoln  became  famous,  but  of 
course  what  he  remembered  had  happened  many  years  before, 
and  there  was  not  a  great  deal  that  he  could  really  tell.  He  liked 
to  talk  of  it,  however,  and  I  have  heard  him  tell  his  story  many 
times. 

Austin  Gollaher  gained  considerable  celebrity  in  his  old  age 
by  his  claim  to  have  saved  the  life  of  the  boy  Abraham  Lincoln. 
The  story  has  been  published  in  several  Lives  of  Lincoln,  perhaps 
the  best  version,  though  not  one  of  the  earliest,  is  that  recorded 
by  D.  J.  Thomas  in  an  interview  with  Austin  Gollaher : 


8o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Gollaher,  "the  story  that  I  once  saved  Abra- 
ham Lincoln's  life  is  true,  but  it  is  not  correct  as  generally  related. 

"Abraham  Lincoln  and  I  had  been  going  to  school  together 
for  a  year  or  more,  and  had  become  greatly  attached  to  each 
other.  Then  school  disbanded  on  account  of  there  being  so  few 
scholars,  and  w©  did  not  see  each  other  much  for  a  long  while. 
One  Sunday  my  mother  visited  the  Lincolns,  and  I  was  taken 
along.  Abe  and  I  played  around  all  day.  Finally,  we  concluded 
to  cross  the  creek  to  hunt  for  some  partridges  young  Lincoln  had 
seen  the  day  before.  The  creek  was  swollen  by  a  recent  rain,  and, 
in  crossing  on  the  narrow  footlog,  Abe  fell  in.  Neither  of  us 
could  swim.  I  got  a  long  pole  and  held  it  out  to  Abe,  who 
grabbed  it.  Then  I  pulled  him  ashore.  He  was  almost  dead,  and 
I  was  badly  scared.  I  rolled  and  pounded  him  in  good  earnest. 
Then  I  got  him  by  the  arms  and  shook  him,  the  water  meanwhile 
pouring  out  of  his  mouth.  By  this  means  I  succeeded  in  bringing 
him  to,  and  he  was  soon  all  right. 

"Then  a  new  difficulty  confronted  us.  If  our  mothers  discov- 
ered our  wet  clothes  they  would  whip  us.  This  we  dreaded  from 
experience,  and  determined  to  avoid.  It  was  June,  the  sun  was 
very  warm,  and  we  soon  dried  our  clothing  by  spreading  it  on  the 
rocks  about  us.  We  promised  never  to  tell  the  story,  and  I  never 
did  until  after  Lincoln's  tragic  end. 

"Abraham  Lincoln  had  a  sister.  Her  name  was  Sallie,  and  she 
was  a  very  pretty  girl.  Sallie  Lincoln  was  about  my  age ;  she 
was  my  sweetheart.  I  loved  her  and  claimed  her,  as  boys  do.  I 
suppose  that  was  one  reason  for  my  warm  regard  for  Abe.  When 
the  Lincoln  family  moved  to  Indiana,  I  was  prevented  by  circum- 
stances from  bidding  good-by  to  either  of  the  children,  and  I 
never  saw  them  again."* 

If  this  story  is  authentic,  it  entitles  Austin  Gollaher  to  our 
very  warm  thanks.  But  Newton  Bateman,  in  his  Biographical 
Encyclopedia  of  Illinois,  reminds  us  that  Dennis  Hanks  claimed 
to  have  performed  this  brave  deed ;  and  added :  "Austin  Gollaher, 
a  school-  and  play-mate  of  Lincoln's,  has  also  made  the  same 
claim  for  himself — *he  two  stories  presumably  referring  to  the 
same  event. "f 


*Early  Life  of  Lincoln,  by  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  pp.  45,  46;  also  her  Abraham 
Lincoln,  i,  pp.  14,   15. 

tRevised  edition,  Vol.  I,  p.  219. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  8i 

In  June,  1886,  Honorable  A.  M.  Brown,  of  Louisville,  who  had 
a  sister  living  in  Larue  County,  went  at  the  request  of  Colonel 
R.  T.  Durrett  to  interview  Austin  Gollaher,  and  wrote  out  the 
account  of  his  interview  on  June  17,  1886.  The  manuscript  is 
now  in  the  Durrett  Collection  in  the  Library  of  the  University 
of  Chicago.* 

Mr.  Brown  was  impressed  with  the  sincerity  of  Gollaher, 
whom  he  described  as  an  evidently  honest  and  a  well-preserved 
old  man.  He  noted,  however,  that  Gollaher  stated  that  it  was  in 
18 1 2  that  he  saved  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  that  at  that 
time  Abraham  was  three  years  old  and  Austin  five.  He  also 
ascertained  that  the  Gollaher  family  did  not  reside  in  Hardin 
County  until  18 12,  and  that  Gollaher's  memory  of  the  removal 
of  the  Lincolns  was  that  when  they  left  Knob  Creek  they  first 
moved  into  another  part  of  Hardin  County  and  thence,  subse- 
quently, to  Indiana.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  Gollaher's 
memory  improved  in  later  years  to  the  point  where  he  thought 
that  his  mother  was  among  those  present  at  the  birth  of  Lincoln, 
and  his  own  knowledge  of  the  date  of  the  Lincoln  removal  from 
Kentucky  seemed  to  him  sufficiently  clear  to  enable  him  to  cor- 
rect the  historians. 

Let  the  reader  think  back  to  his  own  school-days,  and  recall,  if 
he  can,  some  boy  who  attended  school  more  or  less  irregularly 
for  two  or  three  terms  and  with  whom  he  occasionally  played, 
whose  family  moved  into  the  neighborhood  when  he  was  three 
and  moved  away  when  he  was  seven,  and  was  not  heard  from 
afterward  for  something  like  fifty  years.  Just  how  much  could 
the  reader,  relying  solely  upon  his  own  unaided  memory,  add  to 
a  biography  of  that  boy? 

Austin  Gollaher  bore  a  good  reputation  for  truthfulness,  and 
I,  who  never  knew  Air.  Gollaher,  have  a  distinct  impression  that 
he  tried  at  first  to  tell  what  he  actually  remembered  about  Lin- 
coln.    But  as  he  grew  older,  he  was  pressed  by  different  inter- 


*To  this  collection  I  am  indebted  for  much  important  assistance. 


82  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

viewers  to  remember  additional  details,  and  if  he  did  not  supply 
those  details  the  interviewer  sometimes  did.* 

Austin  Gollaher's  memories  of  Lincoln's  life  as  a  pupil  in  a 
Kentucky  school  were  very  meager.  Abraham  attended  irregular- 
ly; the  school  was  cut  short  because  the  number  of  pupils  was 
small.  It  was  not,  of  course,  a  free  school,  but  a  subscription 
school,  and  there  was  little  to  make  it  profitable  for  the  teacher, 
and  not  much  more  to  make  it  profitable  for  the  pupils.  The 
boys  can  not  have  seen  each  other  very  frequently.  A  survey 
made  about  the  time  the  Lincolns  were  leaving  shows  the  loca- 
tion of  the  home  of  nine  neighbors  of  the  Lincolns,  nearly  or 
quite  all  of  them  nearer  than  the  Gollahers.  I  have  traveled  the 
road  between  the  two  homes,  and  it  can  not  be  less  than  three 
miles  from  one  house  to  the  other.  Three  miles  in  a  rough  and 
wooded  country  is  not  a  short  distance. 

This  may  be  as  good  a  place  as  any  to  comment  upon  the 
testimony  of  men  and  women  who  knew  Lincoln  personally,  and 
whose  recollections  form  invaluable  material  for  the  historian. 
Their  testimony  is  not  to  be  regarded  lightly.  The  reminiscences 
of  a  person  who  actually  knew  Lincoln  at  any  stage  of  his  career 
are  worth  gathering  and  are  entitled  to  careful  consideration. 
Innumerable  such  persons  have  contributed  to  this  work  by  per- 
sonal narration  and  by  correspondence.  Most  of  the  people  who 
knew  Lincoln  and  who  tell  their  experience  to  a  biographer  en- 
deavor to  tell  their  story  truthfully.  But  one  has  frequent  occa- 
sion to  recall  the  comment  of  Falstaff,  on  the  lack  of  veracity 
in  old  men. 

The  old  man  or  woman  who  recalls  for  publication  his  memo- 


*J.  Rogers  Gore,  who  lived  for  some  years  in  Hodgenville,  gathered  up 
the  entire  tradition  of  the  neighborhood  and  for  the  sake  of  unity  put  it  all 
into  the  mouth  of  Gollaher.  His  book,  The  Boyhood  of  Lincoln,  presents  this 
tradition,  and  does  not  intend  to  represent  that  Gollaher  personally  knew  all 
rtiat  he  is  credited  with  saying  in  that  book.  In  fact,  he  could  not  have 
known  any  very  large  fraction  of  what  the  book  tells.  The  book  belongs  in 
the  class  of  rather  highly  imaginative  historical  fiction  rather  than  history, 
and  gathers  up  in  readable  form  the  gossip  of  later  years.  I  have  talked 
with  Mr.  Gore,  who  has  told  me  in  detail  of  his  many  conversations  with 
Gollaher. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  83 

ries  of  Lincoln  is  under  very  strong  temptation  to  enlarge  some- 
what upon  his  actual  recollections.  Time  itself  tends  to  the 
enlarging  of  the  story.  The  questions  of  interviewers  suggest 
details  which  are  unconsciously  filled  in.  Above  all,  there  is  a 
tendency  to  add  details  appropriated  from  what  one  has  heard 
or  read. 

I  could  name  certain  very  respectable  persons  whose  published 
reminiscences  of  Lincoln  are  well  known,  some  of  these  persons 
still  living  and  more  of  them  dead,  of  whom  it  would  be  safe  to 
say  that  the  Lincoln  they  describe  is  only  in  minor  part  the 
Lincoln  they  personally  knew ;  the  outline  furnished  by  their  own 
actual  memory  has  been  filled  in  with  detail  and  color  borrowed 
from  their  reading  or  from  the  stones  of  others. 

It  would  greatly  simplify  the  task  of  the  historian  if  he  could 
say,  ''John  Doe  knew  Lincoln ;  John  Doe  is  a  truthful  man ;  John 
Doe  relates  this  incident;  I  will  therefore  record  it,  and  cause  it 
to  be  wTritten  down  as  accredited  history."  Too  largely  have 
histories  and  biographies  been  made  in  this  fashion.  John  Doe 
did  indeed  know  Lincoln,  and  John  Doe  is  a  truthful  man.  But 
John  Doe  did  not  make  record  of  his  interviews  with  Lincoln  at 
the  time,  nor  did  he  then  count  them  of  particular  significance; 
and  many  years  went  by  before  they  seemed  to  him  important 
enough  to  print.  Meantime,  John  Doe  told  his  reminiscences  a 
good  many  times.  At  first  he  related  them  to  friends  in  conver- 
[  sation.  Year  by  year  as  he  told  them,  and  his  friends  showed 
interest,  additional  details  occurred  to  him,  not  quite  all  of  them 
imaginary.  When  men  who  had  known  Lincoln  more  intimately 
or  in  matters  of  larger  public  interest  died,  John  Doe  found  him- 
self the  object  of  increasing  attention.  Representatives  of  the 
press  called  upon  him,  and  photographed  him,  and  put  his  story 
into  more  readable  shape.  He  read  his  own  enlarged  story  as  it 
appeared  in  print,  and  easily  believed  it  in  its  more  pleasing  form. 
Subsequent  interviews  imposed  additional  demands  upon  his 
memory.  John  Doe  knew  Lincoln;  John  Doe  is  a  truthful  man; 
;'I  am  greatly  indebted  to  John  Doe  and  to  his  friend,   Richard 


84  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Roe,  who  also  knew  Lincoln.  But  the  task  of  the  biographer  is 
not  finished  when  he  has  collected  their  statements  and  those  of 
other  men  like  them.  There  still  remains  the  serious  task  of  criti- 
cal historical  judgment,  analysis  and  construction. 

Ex-President  Eliot,  of  Harvard,  has  published  a  book  of  es- 
says and  addresses  prepared  by  him  between  the  ages  of  eighty 
and  ninety.  In  one  of  these  he  deals  with  the  defective  charac- 
ter of  our  education  in  the  training  of  the  perceptive  faculties. 
He  says  that  the  average  American,  young  or  old,  rich  or  poor, 
educated  or  uneducated,  can  not  see  straight  or  hear  straight,  or 
think  straight,  and  can  not  relate  with  reasonable  accuracy  one 
hour  afterward  a  conversation  in  which  he  has  participated  or 
an  incident  which  he  has  witnessed.  If  this  be  true,  and  I  think 
it  is,  what  historian  or  biographer  can  be  saved?  For  history 
and  biography  are  based  on  testimony  gathered  for  the  most 
part  many  years  after  the  events  described,  and  after  those 
events  have  come  to  take  on  quite  other  significance  than  at  the 
time  was  understood.  The  answer  is  that  historians  and  biog- 
raphers have  reason  to  be  more  careful  than  many  of  them  are 
or  have  been;  and  that  much  history  deserves  the  stinging  defi- 
nition of  Voltaire,  "a  lie  agreed  to." 

I  may  illustrate  the  ease  with  which  a  Lincoln  biographer  can 
fall  into  error.  In  1922  I  delivered  before  the  Chicago  Histori- 
cal Society  an  address  on  The  Influence  of  Chicago  upon  Abra- 
ham Lincoln*  As  part  of  the  preparation  I  compiled  a  list  of 
Abraham  Lincoln's  known  visits  to  Chicago.  I  now  could  add 
a  few  visits  to  the  list  then  made,  but  it  was  for  the  purposes  of 
my  lecture  an  adequate  as  it  was  also  an  instructive  list. 
Among  other  things,  I  published  in  the  Chicago  daily  press  a 
statement  that  I  was  preparing  this  address  and  requested  all 
persons  who  had  seen  Lincoln  in  Chicago  to  write  to  me.  I  had 
many  interesting  letters,  and  received  some  valuable  information. 
But  many  people  told  me  of  seeing  Lincoln  in  Chicago  on  dates 
when  I  knew  he  was  elsewhere.     For  example,  a  number  pro- 


*This   address   has  been   published   by   the  University   of    Chicago   Press. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  85 

fessed  to  have  seen  him  at  the  Republican  Convention  in  i860, 
a  convention  which  he  did  not  attend. 

Dwight  L.  Moody  was  accustomed  to  tell,  and  his  son  re- 
lates in  his  Life  of  his  father,  how  Lincoln  addressed  Moody's 
Sunday-school  when  Lincoln  was  on  his  way  to  his  inauguration, 
in  February,  1861.  But  Lincoln  did  not  pass  through  Chicago 
on  his  way  to  his  inauguration.  Bishop  Charles  E.  Cheney,  of 
the  Reformed  Episcopal  Church,  in  an  address  in  Memorial  Hall, 
on  Lincoln's  Birthday  in  1914,  related  that  he  preached  in  St. 
James  Church  on  Christmas  Day  in  i860  and  that  Lincoln  was 
present.  But  Lincoln  spent  that  last  Christmas  before  his  in- 
auguration in  his  Springfield  home. 

If  Chicago  ever  had  two  truthful  citizens,  they  were  D.  L. 
Moody  and  Bishop  Cheney,  but  both  were  mistaken.  On  Sun- 
day, November  26,  i860,  Lincoln  attended  St.  James  Church 
with  the  family  of  Honorable  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  and  on  the  after- 
noon of  the  same  day  spoke  in  Mr.  Moody's  North  Market  Mis- 
sion. So  I  learned  from  the  Chicago  Tribune  of  Monday, 
November  27,  i860,  and  it  was  correct. 

For  ordinary  purposes,  the  mistakes  of  Mr.  Moody  and  of 
Bishop  Cheney  were  unimportant.  The  incidents  as  they  re- 
lated them  were  correct,  except  as  to  the  date.  But  for  the  pur- 
poses of  the  historian  an  accurate  use  of  dates  is  highly  important, 
as  well  as  exceedingly  difficult. 

If  these  two  unusually  intelligent  and  honest  men  could  he 
mistaken  in  a  matter  of  this  character,  there  is  great  need  to 
scrutinize  carefully  recollections  submitted  as  sources  of  history. 
Yet  I  wTill  not  say  in  my  haste  that  all  men  are  liars ;  in  general 
a  tradition  has  in  it  a  kernel  of  truth.  This  book  contains  many 
such  kernels,  separated  with  some  difficulty  from  their  husks 
of  exaggeration  and  unintentional  misrepresentation. 

Thomas  Lincoln's  new  outlook  into  the  world  was  toward  the 
prosperous  settlements  of  the  Roman  Catholics  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Bardstown.     Edward  Eggleston  has  reminded  us  how 


86  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

frequently  the  first  teachers  of  frontier  schools  were  Irishmen. 
Abraham  Lincoln's  first  school-teacher  was  an  Irish  Catholic. 

"Before  leaving  Kentucky,  he  and  his  sister  were  sent,  for 
short  periods,  to  A  B  C  schools,  the  first  kept  by  Zachariah 
Riney,  and  the  second  by  Caleb  Hazel."  So  wrote  Abraham  Lin- 
coln for  John  L.  Scripps,  in  i860.  His  earlier  autobiography, 
written  in  1859  for  Jesse  W.  Fell,  told  of  his  schooling  in  In- 
diana, but  said  nothing  about  these  two  brief  periods  of  in- 
struction in  Kentucky. 

The  schools  which  Lincoln  attended  were  "blab-schools."  The 
pupils  were  required  to  study  aloud,  as  an  evidence  that  they 
were  studying  at  all.*  Text  books  were  very  few,  a  majority 
of  the  pupils  having  only  a  speller.  Dilworth's  speller  was  used 
at  the.  first,  then  Webster's  Old  Blueback. 

1  Not  all  the  children  of  the  neighborhood  attended  school.  If 
a  boy  who  was  not  in  school  passed  within  earshot  of  the  school- 
house  and  cried  "School-butter"  he  had'  need  to  be  fleet  of  foot 
to  escape  punishment  at  the  hand  of  the  pupils.  Just  what  the 
phrase  meant,  no  one  appears  to  know,  but  it  was  the  common 
insult  and  challenge,  the  appeal  to  the  "town  and  gown"  hostility 
that  manifests  itself  all  the  way  from  Knob  Creek  to  Cambridge 
and  Heidelberg.  The  cry  of  "Hey  Rube"  in  a  circus  does  not 
more  quickly  rally  all  employees  of  the  show  to  fight  the  out- 
side populace  than  did  the  cry  of  "School-butter"  rally  the  stu- 
dents to  punish  the  unlearned  and  insolent  of  the  world  that  lay 
extra-mural  to  the  frontier  school. 

Lincoln  was  too  small  to  have  participated  in  any  of  these  class 
struggles  of  his  first  school  experience,  and  too  young  also  to 
have  had  a  share  in  the  occasional  attempts  of  the  pupils  to  lock 
the  teacher  out.  Indeed,  we  know  almost  nothing  of  his  school 
experiences  while  a  boy  in  Kentucky. 

Nicolay  and  Hay  say  of  these  early  years: 


*For  further  facts  about  primitive  Kentucky  schools,  based  in  part  upon 
the  author's  personal  experience  as  a  teacher  in  schools  in  the  hills  of  Ken- 
tucky, the  reader  is  referred  to  The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  87 

Of  all  these  years  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  childhood,  we  know 
almost  nothing.  He  lived  a  solitary  life  in  the  woods,  returning 
from  his  lonesome  little  games  to  his  cheerless  home.  He  never 
talked  of  those  days  to  his  most  intimate  friends.  Once,  when 
asked  what  he  remembered  about  the  war  with  Great  Britain,  he 
replied,  "Nothing  but  this.  I  had  been  fishing  one  day  and 
caught  a  little  fish  which  I  was  taking  home.  I  met  a  soldier  in 
the  road,  and  having  always  been  told  at  home  that  we  must  be 
good  to  soldiers,  I  gave  him  my  fish!"  This  is  only  a  faint 
glimpse,  but  what  it  shows  is  rather  pleasant — the  generous  child 
and  the  patriotic  household.  But  there  is  no  question  that  these 
first  years  of  his  life  had  their  lasting  effect  upon  the  tempera- 
ment of  this  great  mirthful  and  melancholy  man.  He  had  little 
schooling.  He  accompanied  his  sister  Sarah*  to  the  only  schools 
that  existed  in  the  neighborhood,  one  kept  by  Zachariah  Riney 
and  the  other  by  Caleb  Hazel,  where  he  learned  his  alphabet  and 
a  little  more.  But  of  all  those  advantages  for  the  cultivation  of 
a  young  mind  and  spirit  which  every  home  now  offers  to  its 
children,  the  books,  toys,  ingenious  games,  and  daily  devotion 
of  paternal  love,  he  knew  absolutely  nothing.f 

Life  in  the  Knob  Creek  cabin  proceeded  along  a  line  so  well 
defined  by  the  conditions  of  frontier  life,  and  so  familiar  to 
those  who  have  known  life  of  that  character  that  we  have  no 
uncertainty  concerning  its  essential  details.  Thomas  Lincoln 
annually  scratched  the  surface  of  his  three  little  fields,  the  largest 
of  which  contained  seven  acres,  using  a  wooden  plow  shod  with 
iron.  His  main  crop  was  corn;  but  he  had  some  beans,  and  he 
dropped  a  pumpkin  seed  into  every  third  hill  of  corn.  Abraham 
when  a  small  boy  was  taught  the  art  of  corn-dropping,  and  in- 
structed to  remember  the  pumpkin  seed  in  the  third  hill.  The 
corn  was  cultivated  with  a  "bull-tongue"  plow,  Abraham  in  his 
last  year  in  Kentucky  riding  the  horse  to  plow  between  the  corn- 


*Xicolay  and  Hay  fell  into  the  error  of  saying  that  she  was  sometimes 
called  Nancy.  They  suggest  that  she  was  named  for  her  mother  and  that  she 
took  her  stepmother's  name  after  her  mother's  death.  I  have  discussed  this 
question  in  The  Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Her  name  was  Sarah,  first 
and  always.  The  name  Nancy  came  to  her  from  the  torn  page  in  the  family 
Bible,  her  own  name  having  been  lost  in  the  part  that  was  worn  off,  and  her 
mother's  name  mistaken  for  hers. 

^Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  i,  p.  2J. 


88  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

rows.  Thomas  also  planted  some  potatoes  and  a  few  onions, 
and  Nancy  may  have  had  a  small  garden  and  a   few   flowers. 

Thomas  Lincoln  was  a  good  judge  of  horses.  The  Estray 
Books  contain  for  the  most  part  stereotyped  notices  to  the  effect 
that  John  Smith  took  up  as  an  estray  at  his  farm  on  Bull  Skin 
Creek,  a  bay  mare,  or  a  brindle  cow.  When  Thomas  Lincoln  re- 
ported an  estray.  he  measured  the  height  in  hands,  and  looked  at 
the  teeth  for  age,  and  noted  all  the  marks  and  brands.  He  was 
never  without  horses  after  his  coming  of  age,  and  on  Knob 
Creek  he  owned  a  stallion  and  several  brood  mares. 

He  attended  the  auction  sale  of  the  personal  property  of  Jon- 
athan Joseph  in  1814.  Three  heifers  were  sold  at  auction,  and 
Thomas  Lincoln  bought  the  best  one,  as  judged  by  the  price. 
He  habitually  attended  auctions,  and  with  sufficient  money  in  his 
pocket  to  be  a  successful  bidder,  and  his  purchases  were  sensible. 

With  one  possible  exception: 

On  July  19,  1 8 14,  he  attended  the  auction  sale  of  the  estate  of 
Thomas  Hall  and  made  several  purchases.  A  sword  which  he 
bought  is  easily  accounted  for;  he  wanted  to  make  it  over  into  a 
drawing-knife.  But  he  bought  a  "truck-waggon"  for  8]/2  cents. 
What  kind  of  wagon  could  he  have  bought  for  that  price?  No 
kind  of  wagon,  so  far  as  I  know,  but  a  toy.  Abraham  Was  then 
five  years  and  five  months  of  age.  I  imagine  Abraham  was 
the  happiest  lad  on  Knob  Creek  that  night. 

These  are  trivial  incidents;  but  they  afford  us  little  flashes  of 
light  on  the  boyhood  of  Lincoln ;  we  have  very  meager  material 
at  the  best,  and  much  of  it  none  too  reliable.  Let  us  therefore 
be  glad  of  these  unimportant  records  that  assist  us  in  rescuing 
from  oblivion  a  little  of  the  childhood  of  our  great  president. 

While  actual  details  are  lacking,  we  have  no  difficulty  in  sup- 
plying the  essential  facts  of  the  life  of  the  Lincoln  family  on 
Knob  Creek  from  our  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  farm  and 
of  frontier  life  of  the  period.  We  know  with  reasonable  accu- 
racy how  Abraham  Lincoln  lived  in  his  childhood,  and  the  con- 
ditions of  life  in  the  home  of  his  father  and  mother. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  89 

It  is  not  probable  that  Nancy  Lincoln  had  a  button  to  her 
back.     Her  dresses  were  of  linsey-woolsey  and  they  were  put  on 

and  removed  without  any  needless  enlarging  or  closing  of  the 
aperture  at  the  neck.  One  or  two  pins  may  have  been  used  at 
the  throat,  but  pins  were  a  luxury.  Xor  did  she  possess  a  hair- 
pin. She  probably  wore  a  horn-comb,  and  it  may  have  been 
ornamental.  In  that  region,  the  hair  of  a  woman  is  always 
slipping  from  its  one  mooring,  and  coming  loose.  The  owner  must 
frequently  remove  her  back-comb,  run  it  through  her  hair  a  few 
times,  coil  up  the  hair  again,  and  refasten  it  with  her  comb.  A 
woman  in  the  hills  of  Kentucky  never  starts  any  new  occupa- 
tion without  first  winding  herself  up  in  this  fashion. 

Cows  were  cheap.  A  good  cow  and  calf  could  usually  lie 
bought  for  ten  dollars.  Feed  for  cattle  cost  nothing  from  early 
spring  until  late  in  the  fall :  for  the  cattle  ranged  freely  in  the 
woods,  but  usually  came  home  at  night  to  their  calves.  When 
they  did  not  come  home,  some  one  had  to  hunt  for  them;  and 
that  was  likely  to  be  a  wearisome  quest.  Xancy  milked  the 
cows  until  Sarah  was  old  enough  to  relieve  her  of  this  duty:  does 
not  the  word  "daughter"  mean  "milker"?  This  is  the  way  Sarah 
milked.  First  of  all,  she  drove  the  cow  into  a  fence-corner,  and 
then  led  the  calf  out  of  the  pen,  and  permitted  the  calf  to  begin 
its  meal.  This  induced  the  cow  to  let  down  her  milk.  The 
prospect  of  a  speedy  meeting  with  the  calf  was  a  strong  induce- 
ment to  the  cow  to  come  home  at  night:  one  cow  with  a  young 
calf  could  usually  be  depended  upon  to  lead  the  entire  herd  to  the 
fence  at  milking  time.  When  the  milk  was  ready  to  flow  freely, 
Sarah  led  the  protesting  calf  back  into  the  pen  or  shed,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  secure  the  family's  share  of  the  milk.  She  did  not  use 
a  milking  stool,  but  stood  and  with  her  right  hand  milked  into  a 
gourd  which  she  held  in  her  left  hand.  Now  and  then  she 
stopped  to  empty  the  gourd  into  a  bucket  placed  in  an  adjacent 
fence-corner,  safe  from  the  danger  of  being  kicked  over.  After 
she  had  obtained  as  much  milk  as  she  deemed  equitable,  sh" 
brought  back  the  calf:  and  the  calf  had  the  rich  strippings,  while 


90  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  mother  contentedly  licked  her  offspring.  This  was  a  happy 
hour  for  both  cow  and  calf ;  for  there  was  no  reason  to  lead  the 
calf  away  abruptly;  and  the  calf  continued  to  enjoy  the  cow, 
and  the  cow  likewise  enjoyed  the  companionship  of  the  calf  for 
perhaps  an  hour. 

Of  duties  inside  the  house,  we  also  know  the  daily  routine. 

Thomas  worked  his  little  farm,  not  industriously,  but  with  suf- 
ficient labor  to  produce  each  season  a  little  crop  of  corn;  now 
and  then  he  cheerfully  went  by  invitation  to  do  an  odd  job  of 
carpenter  work;  but  Nancy  worked  at  home  every  day.  If 
Thomas  had  sheep,  she  carded,  spun  and  wove.  In  the  absence 
of  wool,  she  knew  the  uses  of  buffalo-wool.  The  chafing-dish 
was  unknown  to  her,  but  she  was  on  terms  of  intimate  friend- 
ship with  its  predecessor,  the  skillet.  She  laid  hold  of  the 
spindle  and  her  hands  knew  the  distaff.  She  ate  not  the  bread  of 
idleness.  But  let  no  one  suppose  that  Nancy  was  overworked. 
Women  had  plenty  of  spare  time  until  the  invention  of  the 
sewing-machine  and  other  labor-saving  devices  for  women.  Not 
till  these  came  to  lighten  their  toil  were  they  worked  and  wor- 
ried into  nervous  prostration  by  the  burden  of  their  house-work. 
Nancy  was  able  to  finish  all  her  necessary  work  early  in  the  after- 
noon; and,  having  no  rocking-chair,  she  held  her  baby  in  her 
arms  as  she  sat  in  a  low  splint-bottomed  chair  whose  front  legs 
thumped  the  puncheon  floor,  if  indeed,  the  Knob  Creek  cabin 
had  such  a  floor.  There  was  a  certain  unhurried  spirit  about 
the  labor  of  the  pioneer  household,  a  spirit  which  we  have  quite 
lost  in  these  more  leisurely  times.  The  pioneer  did  not  fret  be- 
cause he  could  not  cut  down  the  whole  forest  in  a  single  year. 
He  accepted  his  situation,  and  when  his  day's  work  was  done, 
he  rested  and  visited  and  took  life  as  comfortably  as  he  was  able. 
Nancy  knew  what  to  do  in  her  hours  of  ease;  we  work  very  hard 
to  attain  a  leisure  which  we  do  not  deserve  and  do  not  know 
how  to  use. 

Nor  was  life  in  those  conditions  devoid  of  a  certain  simple 
luxury.  •  Now  and  then  Thomas  cut  down  a  bee-tree,  and  then 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  91 

the  family  had  honey,  some  of  which  was  kept  in  a  crock  against 
the  time  of  need.  Occasionally  he  did  a  day's  work  in  Bardstown 
and  took  his  pay  in  unbolted  wheat  flour.  Who  that  has  never 
lived  long  on  hoe-cake  and  corn-pone  with  sorghum  molasses  (a 
plural  noun)  for  "long-sweetening"  can  know  the  sheer  delight 
of  hot  biscuit  and  honey?  And  there  was  wild  turkey,  and  in 
time  there  were  chickens  .to  fry.  The  creek  furnished  fish.  The 
Knob  Creek  farm  provided  a  reasonably  sure  living  with  a  mini- 
mum of  physical  exertion. 

Nor  were  occasions  of  special  festivity  lacking.  There  were 
corn-huskings  and  frolics  and  raisings  and  weddings  and  camp- 
meetings  and  funerals.  And  there  was  the  monthly  preaching 
service. 

Besides  all  this,  the  Knob  Creek  farm  was  on  the  main  road 
from  Louisville  to  Nashville.  Travelers  went  by  every  day, 
and  sometimes  stopped  and  talked.  There  was  a  mill  on  Knob 
Creek  as  early  as  1797,  and  that  was  an  important  social  center. 
Moreover,  Caleb  Hazel,  father  of  Lincoln's  school-teacher  of  the 
same  name,  kept  a  tavern,  where  he  provided  things  to  eat  and 
also  to  drink.  Sometimes  he  paid  his  license,  and  sometimes  he 
paid  his  fine. 

Life  on  Knob  Creek  was  not  so  dull  as  has  been  imagined. 
Compared  with  Nolin  Creek,  the  Knob  Creek  farm  was  located 
on  Main  Street  of  the  Kentucky  wilderness. 

The  Knob  Creek  farm  was  more  fertile  and  more  easily  tilled 
than  that  on  Nolin  Creek;  and  here  Abraham  had  his  first  ex- 
perience in  riding  a  horse  to  plow  corn.  The  farm  was  subject 
to  sudden  rise  of  water,  which  sometimes  flooded  the  valley 
almost  without  warning  when  a  heavy  storm  broke  over  the  hill, 
and  the  plain  would  be  submerged  when  there  had  been  little  or 
no  rain  at  the  cabin.  One  such  storm  came  just  after  corn- 
planting  and  seemed  to  wash  all  the  seed  and  soil  away,  and  to 
leave  instead  onlv  sand  and  claw* 


*On  my  last  visit  to  Knob  Creek,  in  June,  1923,  the  bridge  on  the  main 
road  through  the  Lincoln  farm  had  been  washed  out  by  one  of  these  freshets, 
and  we  had  to  ford  Knob  Creek  twice  on  Lincoln  land. 


92  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  nature  of  the  claim  of  Thomas  Lincoln  upon  the  Knob 
Creek  property  is  disclosed  in  the  papers  of  the  eviction  suit.  He 
bought  the  land,  thirty  acres,  from  George  Lindsey,  but  as  yet 
did  not  have  a  deed.  He  and  Lindsey  continued  as  defendants 
in  the  Hardin  County  Court  while  suits  against  the  other  alleged 
squatters  were  transferred  to  Nelson  County  on  change  of 
venue,  the  plaintiffs  alleging  that  they  could  not  obtain  justice  in 
Hardin.  In  a  bill  of  exceptions  it  is  stated  that  Lindsey  was  Lin- 
coln's landlord  and  was  absent  in  Breckenridge  County ;  and  that 
Lincoln  as  tenant  had  papers  served  upon  him.  This  means  that 
the  title  stood  in  the  name  of  Lindsey,  and  that  Lincoln  occupied 
it  as  tenant  subject  to  Lindsey's  ability  to  give  clear  title,  the 
balance  of  purchase  money  to  have  been  then  paid.  Lincoln 
paid  taxes  on  this  farm ;  and  the  papers  in  the  suit  indicate  plainly 
that  he  was  considered  the  owner  of  that  small  part,  thirty  acres, 
of  the  land  in  controversy.  It  is  further  of  record  that  Lincoln, 
being  sued  as  a  trespasser,  won  his  suit,*  which  he  could  hardly 
have  done  if  he  had  not  had  valid  title  to  the  land.  Evidently 
there  were  several  small  purchases,  ten  of  them  being  indicated 
upon  a  plat  which  was  introduced  as  evidence,  and  which  is  pre- 
served, these  being  portions  of  a  much  larger  tract  owned  under 
a  conflicting  patent  by  parties  resident  in  Philadelphia. 

This  suit,  instituted  January  I,  1815,  and  decided  June  9, 
i8i8,f  shows  that  the  farm  was  a  part  of  a  tract  of  ten  thousand 
acres,  surveyed  in  1784,  and  patented  in  1786  by  Thomas  Mid- 
dleton.  Lincoln  and  the  other  alleged  squatters  who  were  sued 
at  the  same  time,  were  successful,  but  Lincoln  had  already  re- 
moved from  Knob  Creek  to  Indiana,  alleging  as  one  of  his 
reasons  for  removal  the  uncertainty  of  land  titles  in  Kentucky.! 


*For  the  records  of  this  suit  I  am  indebted  to  Honorable  George  Hol- 
bert  and  Reverend  Louis  A.  Warren. 

tSee  the  chapter  on  Thomas  Lincoln  in  The  Paternity  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  The  records  are  in  Civil  Order  Books  E  and  F,  Hardin  County- 
Court. 

$lt  is  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  that  all  that  Lamon  has  told  us 
about  the  title  to  this  farm  is  incorrect ;  and  that  other  authors  have  not 
helped  to  clarify  his  errors.  Lamon  utterly  confused  the  several  Lincoln 
farms  in  Kentucky,  and  those  who  have  since  attempted  to  correct  his  errors 
nave  not  improved  upon  his  conjectures. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  93 

On  the  whole  the  Knob  Creek  farm  was  a  desirable  one,  save 
for  the  uncertainty  about  the  title.  Doubtless  the  place  was  vis- 
ited by  agents  of  the  Philadelphia  claimants,  and  then  came 
vague  rumors,  followed  by  actual  litigation.  Thomas  Lincoln 
stood  better  with  the  Hardin  County  juries  than  did  the  people 
in  Philadelphia;  but  his  tenure  was  uncertain;  so  he  loaded 
his  goods  into  his  flatboat,  and  set  forth  to  discover  Indiana. 

If  Thomas  Lincoln  had  launched  his  flatboat  on  Nolin  Creek, 
he  would  have  followed  the  meanderings  of  that  stream  and 
Green  River  two  hundred  fifty-six  miles  to  reach  the  Ohio,  and 
would  have  entered  that  river  forty-six  miles,  by  the  Ohio  chan- 
nel, below  the  landing  for  their  home  in  Indiana.  He  would 
not  have  made  his  way  up-stream  to  the  same  place,  nor  is  it  very 
likely  that  he  would  have  landed  in  Indiana,  for  settlements  were 
more  abundant  below  the  mouth  of  Green  River,  toward  the 
mouths  of  the  Wabash,  Cumberland  and  Tennessee;  he  would 
have  been  rather  more  likely  to  float  on  to  Missouri  and  have 
made  his  home  in  that  state,  as  many  Kentuckians  did,  among 
them  Daniel  Boone.  But  when  he  floated  away  from  his  Knob 
Creek  farm,  he  had  only  forty-two  miles,  instead  of  two  hundred 
fifty-six,  to  sail  until  he  reached  the  Ohio,  and  then  about  fifty 
miles  to  Thompson's  Ferry  in  Perry  County,  Indiana.  If 
Thomas  Lincoln  had  continued  to  live  on  a  stream  whose  mouth 
was  so  far  from  the  Ohio,  would  he  have  gone  out  of  Kentucky 
in  that  way  at  all?  If  so,  he  certainly  would  not  have  made  his 
home  where  he  did  in  Indiana,  and  in  either  event  the  whole 
story  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  life  would  thenceforth  have  been 
materially  modified.* 

Of  Abraham  Lincoln's  life  in  this  environment  few  authentic 
traditions  remain.  The  years  were  uneventful.  The  labored 
efforts  of  later  decades  to  fill  in  this  gap  bear  on  their  face  the 
marks  of  invention.  But  these  were  not  lost  years  in  Lincoln's 
life.     I  have  seen  much  of  the  life  of  boys  and  girls  reared  amid 


*T  am  indebted  to  the  United  States  Geological  Survey  and  to  the  Ken- 
tucky Geological   Survey  for  these  measurements  and  related  data. 


94  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

such  surroundings,  and  have  no  difficulty  in  thinking  of  Lin- 
coln's boyhood  as  a  period  fruitful  of  good. 

It  is  sometimes  assumed  that  life  amid  beautiful  scenery  is  in- 
spired from  infancy  by  the  charm  of  such  surroundings.  If  this 
were  true,  all  people  born  on  Knob  Creek  should  have  been 
poets,  for  the  scenery,  while  not  majestic,  is  attractive  and  pic- 
turesque. But  my  own  observation  does  not  wholly  sustain  the 
opinion  that  features  of  natural  beauty  inevitably  inspire  the 
souls  of  those  who  reside  among  them.  Most  people  I  have 
known  who  spend  their  lives  amid  mountains  accept  their  situa- 
tion with  stolid  patience.  A  hill  is  not  something  to  be  ad- 
mired, but  something  whose  climb  is  to  be  avoided  if  possible. 
Such  people  do  not  ascend  a  hill  to  behold  a  sunset.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  conjecture  what  natural  phenomenon,  as  eclipse 
or  comet,  would  induce  the  average  mountaineer  to  climb  a  hill. 
History  may  almost  be  said  to  have  been  made  by  the  disinclina- 
tion of  humanity  to  climb  hills ;  mountain  ranges  hardly  less  than 
oceans  are  effective  national  boundaries.  But  now  and  then  a 
mountain  lad  feels  from  his  childhood  the  companionship  of  the 
hills. 

I  remember  riding  many  years  ago  along  a  valley  in  the  Ken- 
tucky highlands,  beside  a  stream  that  wound  past  the  base  of  a 
prominent  and  exceptionally  high  mountain.  Between  the  road 
and  the  hill,  in  a  place  where  the  valley  widened  a  little,  stood  a 
cabin.  A  little  distance  up  the  road  from  the  cabin,  in  a  place 
where  the  clearing  gave  a  good  view,  stood  a  boy  of  nine  or 
ten.  The  sun  was  coming  over  the  range  of  hills,  and,  shining 
through  a  notch  it  lit  up  his  face.  He  was  looking  at  the  hill, 
and  talking  to  it  in  a  sing-song  chant  which  he  had  composed: 

"Oh,  Mountain,  big  and  high: 
I'll  stand  on  you  and  I'll  touch  the  sky!" 

He  chanted  this  over  and  over,  pausing  each  time  to  listen  to 
the  echo  of  his  own  voice.  The  road  was  little  traveled,  and  the 
boy  talked  to  the  mountain  with  no  expectation  of  intrusion.     As 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  LINCOLN  95 

he  saw  a  stranger  approaching-  he  ceased  his  chant  and  slipped 
away  into  the  woods  with  evident  embarrassment.  The  traveler 
wanted  to  stop  and  talk  with  him,  but  the  boy  would  not  come. 
He  felt  ashamed  that  he  had  been  overheard  in  his  dialogue 
with  the  high  hill  in  whose  shadow  he  dwelt. 

I  do  not  remember  any  other  incident  of  precisely  this  char- 
acter, either  in  the  Kentucky  hills  or  in  any  other  mountainous  re- 
gions wdiich  I  have  visited.  That  boy  had  in  him  something  un- 
usual. 

Abraham  Lincoln  may  not  have  done  that  sort  of  thing  when 
he  lived  on  Knob  Creek:  but  his  surroundings  there  were  more 
calculated  to  inspire  such  moods  than  any  in  which  he  ever  lived 
elsewhere.  Much  more  romantic  than  Nolin,  Knob  Creek  was 
a  place  to  stir  the  boyish  imagination.  In  some  fashion,  the 
strength  of  the  hills  became  his  in  those  years  in  the  Knob  Creek- 
cabin.  When,  now  and  then,  I  recall  the  chant  of  that  moun- 
tain boy,  I  am  somehow  reminded  of  Lincoln  on  Knob  Creek. 
Child  that  he  was,  and  with  a  narrowed  horizon  walled  in  by 
almost  insuperable  heights  that  shut  him  from  contact  with  the 
outer  world,  save  as  that  world  plodded  along  the  rough  road 
down  Muldraugh's  Hill  and  along  the  creek,  he  was  not  wholly 
out  of  touch  with  the  beginnings  of  imagination  and  aspiration 
and  nascent  achievement.  There  was  more  in  that  environment 
than  on  Xolin  to  answer  his  own  inward  strivings.  Already 
there  was  the  beginning  of  the  answer  to  America's  call,  as  inter- 
preted by  Sam  Walter  Foss : 

"Give  me  men  to  match  my  mountains !" 

We  can  not  suppose  that  the  Lincoln  family  left  Knob  Creek 
without  a  final  round  of  visits  from  their  relations.  Thomas 
snd  Elizabeth  Sparrow  and  Levi  and  Nancy  Hall  and  Jesse  and 
Polly  Friend  must  all  have  come  to  hear  Thomas  Lincoln's  ac- 
count of  the  Indiana  he  had  visited  and  to  which  he  and  his 
family  were  about  to  migrate.  And  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  for  a 
moment  that  Henry  and  Lucy  Sparrow  rode  over  from  Doctor's 


96  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Fork  to  Knob  Creek  and  spent  a  night  before  the  final  removal. 
The  outward  relations  between  Lucy  and  her  daughter  were 
those  of  aunt  and  niece,  and  Abraham  did  not  suspect  that  this 
woman  of  fifty  years  sustained  toward  his  mother  any  closer 
relation  than  did  her  Aunts  Polly  and  Nancy,  nor  as  close  as 
her  Aunt  Betty.  But  Lucy  and  Nancy  knew.  And  when  Lucy 
iooked  at  this  lad  of  seven  and  commented  on  his  growth  since 
her  last  visit,  and  the  progress  he  was  making  at  school,  her 
heart  must  have  given  a  significant  leap ;  for  she  knew  that  he 
was  her  own  grandson.  Both  she  and  Nancy  kept  these  things 
and  pondered  them  in  their  hearts. 


CHAPTER  VI 


LINCOLN S    KENTUCKY 


The  Kentucky  which  Abraham  Lincoln  knew  was  limited  in 
area.  It  comprised  parts  of  three  counties — Hardin,  Nelson  and 
a  little  of  Washington.  The  removal  to  Knob  Creek  from  Xolin 
turned  the  face  of  the  Lincoln  family  toward  the  nearer  counties 
in  the  edge  of  the  Blue  Grass.  Both  Thomas  and  Nancy  had 
lived  in  Washington  County,  and  she  had  lived  in  Mercer,  and 
they  had  friends  in  Nelson  and  their  friends  were  near  at  hand. 
The  four  villages,  all  county-seats,  which  Abraham  Lincoln  is 
likely  to  have  visited  in  his  childhood  are  Elizabethtown,  Bards- 
town,  Harrodsburg  and  Springfield.  He  probably  did  not  go 
many  times  to  any  one  of  them.  However,  county  court  day  wras 
and  is  a  notable  day  in  Kentucky  county-seats.  The  business 
of  the  court  is  a  minor  though  a  genuine  interest.  The  event 
has  commercial  and  social  importance.  Thomas  Lincoln  was  a 
man  too  socially  inclined  not  to  visit  the  county-seats  within  easy 
reach  on  monthly  court  days,  and  swap  a  story  or  a  horse  with 
some  distant  acquaintance. 

When  Abraham  was  old  enough  to  stick  on  behind  his  father, 
he  doubtless  sometimes  rode  with  him  to  some  of  these  gather- 
ings. The  primitive  log  court-house  in  the  middle  of  the  hud- 
dled little  town  must  have  seemed  to  him  a  great  building,  and 
the  village  itself  a  city.  The  crowd  that  moved  around  the 
court-house  square  and  shuffled  in  and  out  of  the  court  room 
must  have  impressed  him  deeply.  The  boy  who  is  reared  in 
isolation  and  emerges  now  and  then  to  behold  on  one  acre  of 
land  more  people  than  he  knew  existed  on  earth,  has  a  new  vision 

97 


98  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  the  significance  of  collective  humanity  and  of  social  psy- 
chology. 

The  life  of  the  pioneer  in  Lincoln's  boyhood  was  one  of  ap- 
proach to  isolation.  Distances  were  great  and  houses  were  far 
apart.  The  settlements  were  small,  and  even  the  cities  were  vil- 
lages. In  1800  Pittsburgh  had  only  1,565  inhabitants;  Lexing- 
ton, the  metropolis  of  the  new  region,  had  1,797,  of  whom  439 
were  slaves ;  Frankfort  had  628  including  260  slaves ;  and  Nash- 
ville 355,  of  whom  141  were  slaves.  The  county-seat  towns  had 
only  a  court-house,  a  jail,  a  blacksmith  shop,  one  or  more  primi- 
tive log  taverns,  two  or  three  stores  and  perhaps  a  dozen  or  a 
score  of  cabins. 

Of  the  strong  individualism  of  the  pioneer  Senator  Beveridge 
writes : 

These  American  backwoodsmen,  as  described  by  contemporary 
writers  who  studied  them  personally,  pushed  beyond  the  inhabit- 
ed districts  to  get  land  and  make  homes  more  easily.  This  was 
their  underlying  purpose;  but  a  fierce  individualism,  impatient 
even  of  those  light  and  vague  social  restraints  which  the  exist- 
ence of  near-by  neighbors  creates,  was  a  sharper  spur.  Through 
both  these  motives,  too,  ran  the  spirit  of  mingled  lawlessness 
and  adventure.  The  physical  surroundings  of  the  backs  woods- 
man nourished  the  non-social  elements  in  his  character.  The 
log  cabin  built,  the  surrounding  patch  of  clearing  made,  the  seed 
planted  for  a  crop  of  cereals  only  large  enough  for  their  house- 
hold's need — these  almost  ended  the  backwoodsman's  agricultur- 
al activities,  and  the  habits  of  regular  industry  which  farming 
requires.* 

But  the  Kentucky  pioneers  were  also  social  and  gregarious. 
They  wanted  plenty  of  room,  and  the  usages  of  society  sat  light- 
ly on  them,  but  they  sought  opportunity  for  friendly  association ; 
and  their  large  family  connections,  widened  by  intermarriage, 
gave  to  kinship  the  basis  of  a  strong  bond  of  attachment. 

Kentucky  was  originally  the  western  end  of  Virginia's  west- 


*Life  of  John  Marshall,  i,  p.  29. 


LINCOLN'S  KENTUCKY  99 

ernmost  county  of  Fincastle.  In  December,  1776,  Kentucky 
County  was  divided  from  Fincastle,  and  formed  into  a  separate 
bounty,  having  its  county-seat  at  Harrodsburg.  About  Novem- 
ber 1.  1780,  this  county  was  divided  into  three, — Jefferson.  Lin- 
coln and  Fayette.  Kentucky  was  admitted  to  the  Union  as  a 
state  June  1,  1792.  By  this  time  there  were  fourteen  counties, 
and  their  number  grew.  Washington  was  formed  in  1792.  and 
in  the  same  year  the  legislature  erected  Hardin  County.  Both 
of  these  had  formerly  been  parts  of  Xelson,  and,  prior  to  that, 
parts  of  Jefferson.  Hardin  County  as  originally  formed  con- 
tained not  only  its  present  territory  but  that  included  in  twelve 
other  counties  in  whole  or  in  part.  That  is  why  one  must  search 
in  several  different  county-seats  for  records  relating  to  the  same 
piece  of  land. 

Kentucky  was  a  land  of  conflicting  land  titles.  Virginia  sold 
her  public  land  with  no  official  survey.  A  fee  was  paid  for  the 
privilege  of  "taking  up"  a  given  number  of  acres,  and  a  warrant 
was  issued,  directed  to  the  surveyors  to  measure  off  that  amount 
of  land  and  certify  it  to  the  land  office  as  satisfying  the  condi- 
tions of  the  warrant.  This  left  the  owner  of  the  warrant  at 
liberty  to  select  any  land  which  he  might  find,  and  have  it  sur- 
veyed and  entered  as  his.  Professor  Shaler  says :  "To  this  day 
one  can,  if  he  please  to  pay  the  costs,  patent  any  land  that  lies 
in  Kentucky,  and  repeat  the  same  process  on  the  same  area  each 
year/' 

There  would  appear  to  be  no  good  reason  why  any  man  who 
desires  it  should  not  obtain  a  patent  to  the  court-house  in  Louis- 
ville or  the  race  track  at  Lexington.  He  might  have  some  diffi- 
culty in  proving  that  his  claim  was  prior  to  that  of  the  occupants 
or  others,  but  his  patent  would  give  him  title  against  any  subse- 
quent adventurer. 

At  this  moment,  as  Professor  Shaler  again  informs  us,  there 
are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  of  land  in  Kentucky  that 
have  never  been  patented  and  on  which  no  taxes  are  collected. 


ioo  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  old  surveys  did  not  always  join.     On  the  other  hand,  they 
often  overlapped. 

The  advantages  of  the  Virginia  plan  were  large.  The  plan 
virtually  authorized  any  man  who  paid  a  moderate  fee  to  go  out 
and  find  his  land  and  send  in  a  description  of  it,  and  feel  assured 
that  he  could  hold  it  if  his  claim  was  a  good  one.  It  facilitated 
rapid  settlement  of  the  new  territory.  Kentucky  would  have 
developed  much  more  slowly  had  Virginia  held  her  land  off  the 
market  until  it  was  officially  surveyed  and  divided. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  the  disadvantages  were  grave.  To  this 
day  lawsuits  abound  that  have  their  origin  in  these  overlapping 
surveys. 

Twice  at  least,  on  Nolin  Creek  and  on  Knob  Creek,  Thomas 
Lincoln  paid  money  for  farms  and  was  later  sued  as  a  trespasser 
by  the  owners  of  large  tracts  inclusive  of  his  small  holdings. 

Thomas  Lincoln  knew  that  in  Indiana,  just  across  the  Ohio,  it 
was  not  thus.  There  the  land  was  surveyed  by  the  United  States 
Government  into  sections  a  mile  square,  and  these  sections  were 
divided  into  four  farms  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  each. 
A  patent  from  the  government  meant  a  guarantee  of  possession, 
and  not  the  probability  of  a  lawsuit. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  therefore,  in  giving  his  father's  reasons  for 
leaving  Kentucky,  mentioned  prominently  among  them  the  uncer- 
tainty of  land  titles  in  Kentucky.  In  the  light  of  preceding  chap- 
ters, for  the  first  time  we  know  what  Thomas  Lincoln  had  suf- 
fered from  overlapping  titles  in  Kentucky. 

The  Kentucky  of  Lincoln's  childhood  was  haunted  by  the 
shuddering  fear  of  savages.  We  who  look  back  more  than  a 
hundred  years  and  have  before  us  the  map  of  the  country,  know 
that  before  1800  Kentucky,  which  was  a  common  hunting- 
ground  for  many  tribes  but  the  home  of  none,  had  been  perma- 
nently cleared  of  resident  hostile  Indian  tribes,  but  the  early 
settlers  did  not  know  this.  To  them  the  forests  were  possible  hid- 
ing-places for  innumerable  ferocious  savages,  pushed  back,  indeed, 


LINCOLN'S  KENTUCKY  101 

by  the  advancing  pressure  of  immigration,  but  never  an  impossible 
distance  away,  and  in  number  overwhelming  as  compared  with 
any  possible  number  of  white  men  in  any  one  neighborhood. 
There  were  frequent  attacks  and  some  bloody  battles.  The  fear 
of  Indians  continued  long  after  there  was  any  need  of  it  and 
boys  were  brought  up  on  Indian  stories.  Often  in  his  childhood 
Abraham  heard  the  story  of  how  his  grandfather  was  killed,  and 
how  his  father,  Thomas,  then  a  little  child,  had  been  with  him 
at  the  time. 

This  story  and  others  like  it  were  told  by  the  fire  at  night. 
^Whenever  strangers  stayed  over  night  in  the  Lincoln  cabin,  In- 
dian stories  were  exchanged.  Abraham  heard  this  and  other  tales 
of  murdering  and  scalping.  The  forest,  infested  with  savages, 
never  an  impossible  distance  removed,  had  its  marked  and  per- 
manent influence  upon  the  life  of  the  boy. 

The  Durrett  Collection  has  an  original  list,  dated  March  10, 
1795,  of  a  popular  subscription  to  pay  for  scalps  of  Indians  killed 
near  Louisville,  and  along  the  road  to  Shepherdsville,  a  road 
familiar  to  the  Lincolns.  The  last  Indian  battle  was  long  past; 
but  the  fear  of  savages  remained,  and  in  that  year  there  wrere 
alarms  in  many  counties  of  Kentucky. 

Lincoln's  Kentucky  was  in  the  hills,  but  not  in  the  mountains. 
It  bordered  hard  on  the  Blue  Grass,  but  was  not  of  it.  Geographi- 
cally and  socially  he  was  of  the  highlands. 

He  saw  almost  nothing  of  slavery  in  his  own  childhood. 
Herndon  says  there  were  not  fifty  negroes  in  Hardin  County  at 
the  time  of  Lincoln's  birth.  This  is  a  mistake ;  there  were  several 
hundred  negroes  there.*  In  1816,  the  year  of  Lincoln's  removal, 
1,238  slaves  were  listed  on  the  tax  lists  of  Hardin  County. 
Herndon's  estimate  would  have  been  more  nearly  correct  if  he 
had  multiplied  it  by  24.     Washington  County  in  181 1  had  974 


*In  The  Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln  I  have  cited  the  very  interesting 
Hardin  County  Case,  which  went  up  to  the  Supreme  Court,  of  Enlaws  Heirs 
vs.  Enlaws  Executors,  in  which  a  slave  woman  named  Xancy  figured  promi- 
nently. 


102  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

negroes  above  sixteen  years  of  age,  perhaps  a  total  population  of 
1,500  negroes,  in  a  county  with  1,827  white  males  above  twenty- 
one.  Here  was  nearly  a  slave  to  each  possible  male  owner.  Still, 
these  slaves  were  not  owned  by  the  immediate  neighbors  of  the 
Lincolns.  If  Lincoln  on  any  childhood  visit  to  friends  in  Wash- 
ington County  saw  anything  of  slavery,  he  saw  it  in  its  mildest 
form. 

The  Kentucky  of  Lincoln's  childhood  was  agitated  by  anti- 
slavery  discussions.  Slavery  existed  in  that  state  when  it  was  a 
county  of  Virginia,  and  already  had  its  slaves  when  it  became  a 
state.  Washington,  Hamilton,  Jefferson,  Franklin,  Adams,  Mad- 
ison and  Monroe  all  lamented  the  existence  of  slavery  in  America 
and  many  hoped  for  its  gradual  decrease  and  ultimate  abolition. 
When  a  Constitutional  Convention  was  called  in  Kentucky  in 
1792,  a  movement  to  prohibit  slavery  within  the  bounds  of  that 
state  began.  This  movement*  was  led  by  Reverend  David  Rice, 
the  father  of  Presbyterianism  in  the  West.  He  moved  from  Vir- 
ginia in  1783,  and  was  a  leader  in  the  organization  of  churches 
and  in  advancing  the  causes  of  education  and  of  freedom.  Just 
before  the  Constitutional  Convention  was  called,  he  issued  a 
pamphlet,  entitled  Slavery  Inconsistent  with  Justice  and  Good 
Policy.  He  spoke  freely  of  slavery's  infringement  of  personal 
rights;  of  the  degradation  which  it  brought  to  womanhood;  of 
its  deprivation  of  religious  and  moral  instruction;  of  its  violent 
separation* of  families;  of  the  encouragement  which  it  gave  to 
idleness  and  vice,  particularly  among  young  men;  of  the  com- 
parative unproductiveness  of  slave  property  and  of  the  growing 
danger  of  servile  insurrection.  He  answered  the  familiar  argu- 
ments from  Scripture  in  favor  of  slavery,  and  proposed  that  the 
coming  convention  should  forever  end  slavery  in  Kentucky.  He 
himself  was  a  delegate  to  the  Convention,  and  taking  the  floor 
he  advocated  abolition  in  a  notable  address.     He  said ; 

Holding  men  in  slavery  is  the  national  vice  of  Virginia,  and 


*See    The   Anti-Slavery  Movement   in   Kentucky  Prior  to   1850,  by   Asa 
Earl  Martin.     Published  by  the  Filson  Club,  1918. 


LINCOLN'S  KENTUCKY  103 

while  a  part  of  that  state,  we  were  partakers  of  the  guilt.  As  a 
separate  state  we  are  just  now  come  to  the  birth;  and  it  depends 
on  our  free  choice  whether  we  shall  be  born  in  this  sin.  or  inno- 
cent of  it. 

Of  the  forty-five  members  of  this  Convention,  seven  were 
ministers.  There  were  three  Presbyterians,  three  Baptists  and 
one  Methodist.  To  their  lasting  honor  be  it  recorded  that  all 
seven  voted  against  slavery.  Among  them  was  Reverend  John 
Bailey,  the  Baptist  preacher  who  married  Henry  Sparrow  and 
Lucy  Hanks. 

At  that  time  there  were  only  fifteen  thousand  slaves  in  Ken- 
tucky, and  few  people  realized  the  seriousness  of  the  evil  which 
slavery  entailed;  but  foremost  of  those  who  did  realize  the  evil 
and  courageously  oppose  it  were  the  ministers. 

The  Severns  Valley  Church,  the  first  Baptist  Church  of  Eliza- 
bethtown,  to  which  the  Bush  family  belonged,  and  which  Thom- 
as and  Nancy  Lincoln  probably  attended  while  living  in  Eliza- 
bethtown,  has  the  following  of  record : 

January  23,  1796.  Quare.  is  slavery  oppression  or  not?J  The 
quare  being  taken  up  was  answered  in  the  affirmative;  it  was 
oppression. 

Feb.  27,  1796.  Question.  Can  we  as  a  Church  have  fellow- 
ship with  those  that  hold  the  righteousness  of  perpetual  slavery? 
It  was  answered  in  the  affirmative;  that  we  could  not. 

April,  1796.  Resolved  that  whereas  the  Church  having  taken 
into  consideration  Respecting  Slavery  that  if  any  member  has 
got  Slaves  or  shall  purchase  hereafter  any  Slaves  shall  have  the 
time  that  they  shall  serve  to  make  satisfaction  for  his  or  her 
raising  or  purchase  to  his  or  her  Master  or  Mistress  either  in  the 
Church  or  belonging  to  any  other  provided  there  should  not  be 
a  sufficiency  of  Brethren  that  shall  be  deemed  by  the  Church 
to  be  Judges  of  the  business  but  if  Said  Slaves  shall  not  behave 
himself  as  a  dutiful  servant  ought  to  do,  that  the  sd  Master  or 
Mistress  Shall  dispose  of  Sd  disobedient  Slaves  as  they  may 
judge  expedient  themselves." 

The  Nolin  Church  was  separated  from  the  Severns  Valley 
Church  on  March   13,   1803.     Already  there  had  been  separate 


104  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

preaching  appointments,  but  one  organization.  From  that  date 
there  were  two  organizations,  both  under  the  pastoral  care  of 
Reverend  Josiah  Dodge. 

While  Thomas  and  Nancy  doubtless  rode  around  to  monthly 
preaching  appointments  when  the  weather  was  favorable,  and  did 
a  great  deal  of  their  visiting  of  friends  on  these  various  pil- 
grimages, Thomas,  certainly,  and  Nancy  almost  as  certainly, 
had  a  local  church  membership;  for  when  Thomas  joined  the 
Little  Pigeon  Baptist  Church  in  Indiana,  he  brought  his  letter 
from  Kentucky.  Unfortunately,  the  record  does  not  name  the 
local  church  which  issued  the  letter.  To  what  church  did 
Thomas  and  Nancy  belong? 

It  can  hardly  have  been  the  Severns  Valley  Church,  for  their 
residence  in  Elizabethtown  was  brief;  moreover,  the  records  of 
this  church  are  extant  and  their  names  do  not  appear  on  the  roll. 
Neither  was  it  probably  the  Nolin  Church.  They  must  have  at- 
tended services  there,  but  this  church  was  located  four  miles 
from  the  Sinking  Spring  farm,  and  farther  from  the  Knob 
Creek  farm.  The  nearest  church  to  the  Sinking  Spring  farm 
was  the  South  Fork  Baptist  Church,  organized  in  1804.  Its 
oldest  records  are  in  existence*  and  do  not  show  the  names  of 
Thomas  and  Nancy  Lincoln  as  members.  At  the  time  Thomas 
and  Nancy  established  their  home  on  Sinking  Spring  farm, 
the  South  Fork  Church  was  torn  by  dissensions  over  slavery. 
The  records  show  that  on  the  third  Saturday  in  July,  1808,  just 
about  the  time  the  Lincolns  were  removing  to  this  locality,  fif- 
teen members — a  large  section  of  the  church — were  "rent  off 
from  the  Church  on  account  of  slavery."  Of  these  fifteen  were 
Isaac  Friend  and  Jesse  Friend.f  The  church  to  which  this  anti- 
slavery  contingent  apparently  transferred  their  membership  was 
the    Little    Mount    Church,    about    three    miles    eastwardly    of 


*They  are  in  possession  of  Honorable  Otis  M.  Mather,  of  Hodgenville, 
one  of  the  most  reliable  of  my  correspondents,  from  whom  I  have  much 
valuable  material  on  early  Hardin  County. 

tCaleb  Hazel  was  a  member,  and  did  not  withdraw  in  the  slavery  dis- 
sension. 


LINCOLN'S  KENTUCKY  105 

Hodgenville,  toward  Muldraugh's  Hill.  The  records  of  this 
church  are  not  known  to  exist.  The  organization  and  building 
have  both  disappeared.  But  we  know  that  the  Friends  became 
members  of  the  Little  Mount  Church.  A  bequest  of  Charles 
Friend,  father  of  Dennis  Hanks,  preserved  the  cemetery,  and 
there  are  inscribed  stones  as  early  as  181 2,  and  others  doubtless 
older.  This  was  a  reasonably  convenient  church  for  the  Lin- 
colns  while  living  on  the  Sinking  Spring  farm,  and  much  the 
most  convenient  for  them  while  living  at  Knob  Creek.  There 
was  a  meeting-house  on  Knob  Creek,  with  regular  or  occasional 
preaching,  but,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  learn,  no  church 
organization.  I  am  confident,  therefore,  that  the  church  home 
of  the  Lincolns  was  the  Little  Mount  Church,  a  Primitive  Bap- 
tist anti-slavery  Church ;  and  that  in  its  little  graveyard  Abra- 
ham Lincoln's  little  brother  Thomas  was  buried. 

In  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  churches 
somewhat  abated  their  opposition  to  slavery.  The  question  was 
a  divisive  one,  and  its  discussion  was  attended  with  increasing 
difficulty.  The  Methodist  Church  in  1804  ceased  to  memorial- 
ize legislatures  for  the  abolition  of  slavery;  and  in  1808,  it  went 
further  by  removing  all  restrictions  against  its  members'  holding 
slaves.  The  Presbyterians,  too,  became  less  certain  that  it  was 
advisably  to  "disturb  the  peace  of  Zion"  by  agitation  of  this 
subject.  The  agitation  never  died  down;  but  it  was  the  Baptists 
who  formed  the  first  anti-slavery  body  in  Kentucky — the  Ken- 
tucky Abolition  Society,  composed  largely  of  members  of  the 
"Baptized  Licking-Locust  Association,  Friends  of  Humanity," 
but  embracing  also  some  members  of  other  communions. 

Agitation  against  slavery  in  Kentucky  measurably  subsided. 
Henry  Clay,  who  vigorously  opposed  slavery  in  1799,  ceased  to 
stand  strongly  against  it.  Churches  wearied  of  divisive  contro- 
versy and  counseled  peace  when  there  was  no  peace.  Opposition 
to  slavery  did  not  wholly  disappear ;  and  in  time  it  broke  forth 
with  new  vigor  in  the  preaching  of  John  G.  Fee,  the  fearless  ora- 
tions of  Cassius  M.  Clav,  and  in  the  movement  which  led  to  the 


106  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

establishment  of  Berea  College.  There  was  some  prospect  that  if 
slavery  was  let  alone  in  Kentucky,  it  would  break  down  of  its 
own  weight;  and  the  opinion  of  Professor  Shaler  is  familiar — 
that  "if  there  had  been  no  external  pressure  against  slavery, 
there  still  would  have  been  a  progressive  elimination  of  the  slave 
element  from  the  population,  by  emancipation  on  the  soil,  by 
the  sale  of  slaves  to  the  planters  of  the  Southern  States,  and  by 
their  colonization  in  foreign  parts." 

The  question  was  alive  in  the  first  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  the  Lincoln  family  can  not  have  escaped  the  dis- 
cussion of  it. 

The  Kentucky  of  Lincoln's  experience  was  a  religious  com- 
munity. The  Hodgenville  community  was  a  Baptist  settlement. 
Preaching  services  were  held  monthly,  and  the  Lincolns  doubt- 
less attended  their  own  and  other  church  services  from  the  time 
that  Abraham  had  to  be  taken  in  his  mother's  arms.* 

Dennis  Hanks  wrote  truthfully  to  William  H.  Herndon: 
"William  I  have  seen  a  Book  which  states  that  Lincolns  was 
Quakers.     I  say  this  is  a  mis  take  they  was  Baptist. "f 

I,  who  rode  through  these  mountains  in  later  years,  with  my 
wardrobe  in  one  saddle-bag  and  my  library  in  the  other,  should 
like  to  pay  my  tribute  of  respect  to  the  mountain  doctors  and 
the  mountain  preachers,  hard-riding,  sturdy  ministers  to  men's 
bodies  and  souls.  There  was  much  in  the  religion  of  the  back- 
woods which  personally  I  did  not  enjoy,  and  much  in  the  char- 
acter of  its  preaching  which  was  foreign  to  my  own  training  and 
belief;  but  increasingly  as  I  lived  there  I  respected  the  men  who 
rode  their  circuits  and  preached  the  vehement  evangel  of  the  hill 
country. 

The  religion  of  the  Kentucky  hills  was  boisterous  and  emo- 
tional. The  doctrine  was  a  rigid  predestinarianism.  Hell  fire 
was  preached  with  great  fervor.     Camp-meetings  were  held  in 


*Of  the  religous  conditions  of  Lincoln's  childhood  and  subsequent  years 
I  have  treated  fully  in   The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

fThis  letter  bears  date  of  April  2,  1866.  The  original  is  in  the  Gunsaulus 
Collection  in  the  Library  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 


LINCOLN'S  KENTUCKY  107 

the  autumn,  and  were  wide-reaching  in  their  fervor  and  spiritual 
results.  A  religion  less  gentle  or  more  refined  would  not  have 
served  so  well  the  rude  conditions  of  the  frontier. 

The  doctrine  of  hell  fire  as  the  pioneer  preachers  proclaimed 
it  was  a  very  wholesome  one ;  nothing  less  virile  would  have  met 
the  requirements  of  the  situation.  But  it  was  preached  for  the 
admonition  of  the  living,  and  held  with  all  possible  charity  for 
the  dead.  The  doctrine  of  predestination  helped  in  the  applica- 
tion of  a  broader  charity  than  might  otherwise  have  been  pos- 
sible. When  I  was  preaching  in  the  mountains  of  Kentucky,  and 
had  to  share  with  a  primitive  Baptist  preacher  the  funeral  of  a 
man  killed  in  a  drunken  brawl,  I  always  felt  that  his  theology 
fitted  the  requirements  of  the  situation  quite  as  well  as  my  own. 
I  preached  very  little  about  hell,  but  these  older  men  preached 
it  mercilessly  for  the  living  and  found  great  comfort  for  the  dead 
in  the  sovereign  grace  of  God.  If  this  dead  man  was  one 
whom  God  had  chosen  as  of  his  elect,  nothing  could  frustrate  his 
grace.  Only  incidentally  was  it  a  matter  of  this  man's  re- 
pentance, but  there  was  time  for  that.  Between  the  time  the  bul- 
let left  the  gun  and  the  time  it  reached  his  heart,  if  he  truly  re- 
pented, that  was  time  enough  for  God.  What  right  had  we  to 
limit  the  pardoning  grace  of  God?  As  for  the  living,  let  them 
take  warning  from  this  tragic  ending  of  this,  which  might  have' 
been  a  useful  life.    As  for  the  dead,  let  us  believe  that : 

Between  the  saddle  and  the  ground, 
He  pardon  sought  and  pardon  found. 

The  Methodists,  and  even  the  Disciples,  had  got  into  Hardin 
County  in  Lincoln's  time,  and  while  the  Lincoln  household  was 
consistently  Baptist,  it  was  aware  of  the  general  influence  upon 
the  life  of  the  community  of  these  other  denominations.  The 
Little  Mount  Church  was  conveniently  near;  there  was  a  meet- 
ing-house on  Knob  Creek ;  and  the  monthly  meetings  were  events 
of  social  as  well  as  religious  importance. 

The  period  of  the  Revolutionary  War  was  one  of  great  diffi- 


108  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

culty  for  all  American  churches ;  and  was  followed  by  a  number 
of  years  in  which  godlessness,  infidelity  and  immorality  were 
rife.  The  westward  movement  did  not  of  itself  improve  the 
moral  tone  of  the  period.  Many  religious  people  moved  west, 
and  some  of  them  transported  their  religion  with  them.  Some 
Virginia  churches  were  seriously  weakened  by  the  migration  to 
Kentucky;  and  many  of  the  ministers,  especially  the  young, 
hardy  and  adventurous,  joined  in  the  migration.  But  the  condi- 
tions of  pioneer  life  were  hard  upon  the  institutions  of  organized 
religion.     Imlay  wrote  in  1792: 

There  is  a  number  of  people  who  have  so  long  been  in  the 
custom  of  moving,  farther  and  farther  back  as  the  country  be- 
comes settled,  for  the  sake  of  hunting,  and  what  they  call  range 
for  their  cattle  .  .  .  that  they  seem  unqualified  for  any  other  life.* 

Francis  Bailey,  in  1797,  described  the  people  of  the  migra- 
tory sort  as  "a  race  of  people  rough  in  their  manners,  impatient 
of  restraint,  and  of  an  independent  spirit,  who  are  taught  to  look 
on  all  men  as  their  equals,  and  no  further  worthy  of  respect  than 
their  conduct  deserves. "f 

For  several  years,  life  on  the  frontier  was  rude  and  largely 
irreligious.  But  it  was  not  wholly  so  in  the  period  of  Lincoln's 
boyhood.  In  1800,  a  great  revival  of  religion  spread  over  the 
settlements  and  continued  with  intervals  of  partial  cessation  for  a 
half-dozen  years.  Baptists,  Methodists  and  Presbyterians  joined 
in  movements  of  far-reaching  significance;  and  other  denomina- 
tions were  born.  The  Cumberland  Presbyterians,  the  "New 
Lights,"  the  Disciples  of  Christ  and  the  Shakers,  all  these  came 
into  being  in  Kentucky  at  about  this  time. 

The  revival  was  accompanied  by  physical  exercises,  by  "fall- 


*Imlay:  Topographical  Description  of  the  Western  Territory  of  North 
America,  London,   1792,  p.  149. 

fFrancis  Bailey:  Journal  of  a  Tour  in  the  Unsettled  Parts  of  North 
America,  1796-1797,  (London,  1856),  p.  217.  Theodore  Roosevelt's  The  Win- 
ning of  the  West,  contains  an  excellent  description  of  social  and  religious 
life  on  the  frontier. 


LINCOLN'S  KENTUCKY  109 

ing,"  "the  jerks"  and  by  dancing  and  leaping-.  The  camp-meet- 
ing came  into  existence ;  and  its  influence  was  wide-spread. 

The  Baptist  Church  was  always  strong  in  Kentucky.  In  1800 
there  were  in  that  new  commonwealth  one  hundred  six  churches, 
with  a  total  membership  of  five  thousand.  The  Methodists  were 
much  fewer  in  number ;  but  their  system  of  circuits  gave  them  a 
notable  advantage  as  propagandists  of  their  faith,  and  they  rode, 
singing  and  shouting,  far  back  into  the  wilderness. 

The  great  revival  was  preceded  by  a  period  of  depression, 
out  of  which  came  a  deepening  earnestness.  Then  came  the  mes- 
sage of  the  preachers,  sternly  rebuking  sin  and  worldliness.  por- 
traying the  terrors  of  an  endless  hell,  and  calling  on  men  to  re- 
pent and  believe  the  Gospel. 

People  flocked  together  wherever  religious  interest  was 
aroused.  Isolated,  and  starved  for  social  contacts,  they  sought 
out  the  places  where  meetings  were  announced ;  and  when  con- 
viction came,  it  came  with  mighty  power.  Those  people  who 
went  to  camp-meetings  to  scoff  were  not  infrequently  taken  with 
"jerks"  and  found  no  relief  till  they  cried  out  in  agony  of  spirit 
for  forgiveness  and  peace.  Drunkards,  profligate  men  and 
women,  and  people  notorious  for  vicious  habits  were  seized  with 
conviction  and  cried  out  for  mercy. 

The  Baptist  churches  doubled  their  membership.  The  Metho- 
dists in  a  single  year,  1801,  within  the  bounds  of  the  Western 
Conference,  added  3,250  members,  and  in  the  following  year, 
1802,  they  added  3,000  more. 

When  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks  were  married  in 
1806  the  intensity  of  this  revival  had  abated  and  a  reaction  set 
in.  But  the  wilderness  had  been  evangelized ;  and  a  new  spirit 
of  reverence  and  religious  earnestness  was  there. 

The  Kentucky  of  Lincoln's  childhood  was  young.  The  men 
and  women  who  had  come  over  the  wilderness  road  were  largely 
young  people,  strong,  resolute,  courageous  and  full  of  the  spirit 
of  adventure.     A  majority  of  them  had  come  from  Virginia;  and 


no  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

there  was  continuous  travel  back  and  forth  through  Cumberland 
Gap,  keeping  the  new  state  in  touch  with  the  mother-state.  But 
the  wilderness  population  had  a  life  of  its  own,  independent, 
self-contained  and  virile. 

Lincoln's  Kentucky  was  a  horse-racing,  whisky-drinking  com- 
munity, with  poverty  as  a  check  upon  great  excess  in  either  gam- 
ing or  drinking.  There  is  record  of  a  member  of  the  Baptist 
Church  in  Elizabethtown  being  expelled  for  riding  around  the 
racetrack,  which  shows  how  sternly  horse-racing  was  fought  by 
the  religious  interests.  But  every  one  who  owned  anything 
owned  a  horse,  and  there  were  few  better  judges  of  horse-flesh 
than  the  preachers.* 

Lincoln's  Kentucky  was  a  land  of  superstition.  The  back- 
woods abounded  in  superstitions.  Few  people  now  are  free  from 
superstition  in  some  form,  and  in  Kentucky,  in  that  day,'  no  one 
pretended  to  be  free  from  it.f  It  was  a  region  in  which  witches 
were  understood  to  exist;  a  land  of  "haunts"  and  ghosts,  and 
omens  and  warnings  and  "bad  signs."  Lincoln  grew  up  amid 
superstition  from  which  none  of  his  neighbors  was  free.  He 
inherited  some  of  these  superstitions  and  never  outgrew  them. 

Not  only  did  Lincoln  spend  his  childhood  in  the  midst  of 
these  primitive  conditions,  but  he  was  in  all  essentials  a  part  of 
his  environment.     He  had  in  him  dormant  qualities  which  were 


*I  did  my  first  preaching  in  the  hills  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  and 
write  with  a  very  tender  feeling  for  a  good  horse.  I  have  never  yet  con- 
vinced myself  that  there  is  special  virtue  in  taking  other  people's   dust. 

fReference  may  be  made  to  Kentucky  Superstitions,  by  Daniel  Lindsey 
Thomas,  Ph.D.,  late  Professor  of  English  at  Center  College,  Danville,  Ken- 
tucky, and  President  of  the  Kentucky  Branch  of  the  Folk-Lore  Society;  and, 
Lucy  Blayney  Thomas,  M.  D.,  a  teacher  at  Nashville,  Tennessee.  This  vol- 
ume contains  nearly  four  thousand  "superstitions"  that  have  been  located  in 
Kentucky — 3954,  to  be  exact.  Not  all  of  the  instances  cited  deserve  to  be 
called  superstitions,  and  not  all  by  any  means  are  distinctive  of  Kentucky. 
But  the  present  author  has  found  the  greater  part  of  these  superstitions  in 
various  parts  of  Kentucky,  and  many  of  them  elsewhere.  The  collection  of 
such  a  body  of  what,  under  any  possible  flexibility  of  interpretation,  may  be 
called  superstitions  is  arresting.  Moreover,  all  these  are  given  as  now  cur- 
rent. Most  of  them,  and  perhaps  some  others,  were  current  in  primitive 
days. 


LINCOLN'S  KENTUCKY  in 

later  to  lift  him  above  these  conditions,  but  he  was  not  in  his 
childhood  superior  to  the  life  around  him.  He  was  to  the  man- 
ner born.  Later  he  came  to  think  meanly  of  his  poverty-stricken 
youth;  but  at  the  time  his  was  the  life  of  a  normal  backwoods 
boy,  and  he  was  the  logical  product  of  the  life  in  the  midst  of 
which  he  lived. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Lincoln's  boyhood 
1816-1830 

The  seven  years  of  Lincoln's  childhood  belong  to  Kentucky. 
Twice  seven  were  the  years  of  his  boyhood  in  Indiana. 

Abraham  Lincoln  appears  to  have  inherited  from  his  father 
his  life-long  interest  in  waterways.  Thomas  Lincoln  made  one 
or  more  trips  to  New  Orleans.  On  one  of  these  journeys  he  was 
in  the  empjoy  of  Isaac  Bush;  and  it  is  said  that  Isaac's  intimate 
knowledge  of  Thomas  stood  the  latter  in  good  stead  some  years 
later  when  Thomas  Lincoln  returned  to  Kentucky  and  laid  suit 
to  the  hand  of  Sarah  Bush  Johnston;  her  male  relatives  favored 
the  match.  Having  learned  how  to  build  and  navigate  a  flat- 
boat,  Thomas  Lincoln  built  one  for  himself  in  the  fall  of  18 16, 
and  launched  it  upon  the  waters  of  the  Rolling  Fork  of  Salt 
River,  near  the  mouth  of  Knob  Creek.  The  Rolling  Fork  has 
long  been  noted  for  its  distilleries.  Thomas  Lincoln  was  no 
drunkard,  neither  was  he  a  total  abstainer.  He  procured  four 
hundred  gallons  of  corn  whisky,  and  loaded  it  upon  the  flat- 
boat  with  his  tools  and  the  greater  part  of  his  household  goods. 
He  floated  safely  down  Salt  River  to  the  Ohio,  but  on  the  larger 
stream  he  suffered  shipwreck.  His  home-made  craft  capsized, 
and  landed  his  cargo  in  the  river.  Recovering  his  tools,  and 
most  of  his  whisky,  he  continued  his  journey  to  Thompson's 
Ferry  in  Perry  County,  Indiana.  There  he  left  his  property  in 
the  care  of  a  settler  named  Posey,  and  set  forth  on  foot  to  dis- 
cover a  site  for  a  home.  He  had  some  acquaintance  with  a 
man  named  Thomas  Carter  who  lived  on  Pigeon  Creek,  and  he 
inquired  the  way  to  Carter's  house. 

112 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  113 

The  spot  which  Thomas  Lincoln  selected  for  a  home  is  a 
slight  elevation  within  the  bounds  of  the  present  village  of  Lin- 
coln City.  The  public  school  now  stands  immediately  adjacent 
to  the  site  of  his  cabin.* 

The  soil  was  reasonably  fertile,  but  it  lacked  a  good  well. 
The  land  was  heavily  timbered.  Thomas  Lincoln  selected  his 
farm,  marked  its  corners  by  chopping  and  piling  some  brush, 
and,  warned  by  his  experiences  in  titles  in  Kentucky,  he  walked 
to  Yincennes  and  filed  his  claim. f 

At  the  time  the  Lincoln  family  moved  to  this  farm,  there  were 
only  eight  other  settlers  in  the  vicinity.  Gentry ville,  of  which 
town  we  hear  much  in  the  story  of  the  boyhood  of  Lincoln,  did 
not  as  yet  exist.  The  new  home  was  in  the  heart  of  the  virgin 
forest,  eighteen  miles  from  Thompson's  Ferry,  where  Lincoln 
had  landed  his  mixed  cargo  and  stored  it  in  the  home  of  Posey. 
Thomas  Lincoln  walked  back  from  Vincennes  to  Knob  Creek, 
and  informed  the  family  of  his  selection  of  a  site  for  a  home. 
His  title,  when  he  paid  up,  would  be  from  the  Government  of 
the  Lnited  States,  with  no  more  lawsuits  about  ownership  or 
conflict  of  claims. 

The  journey  from  Knob  Creek  to  Spencer  County,  Indiana, 
is  not  a  long  one.  As  traveled  through  the  woods,  and  with  de- 
tours for  hills  and  fords,  it  was  less  than  a  hundred  miles.  If 
the  family  spent  their  first  night  with  relatives  near  Elizabeth- 
town,  they  had  not  more  than  three  or  four  additional  nights  to 
spend  upon  the  way.     The  journey  can  not  have  been  a  very 


*The  cabin  was  standing  within  the  memory  of  men  now  living.  After 
the  house  disappeared  the  site  was  marked  by  a  cedar  tree.  A  tablet  now 
occupies  the  site  of  the  permanent  Lincoln  home.  It  is  probable  that  the 
school  will  be  removed,  and  the  home  site  transformed  into  a  park  by  the 
State  of  Indiana. 

fThe  entry  of  the  land  was  made  a  year  later,  on  October  15,  1817.  The 
land  is  the  Southwest  Quarter  of  Section  32,  Township  4,  South  of  Range  5 
west,  in  Spencer  County,  Indiana.  He  subsequently  relinquished  his  claim 
upon  the  east  half  of  this  quarter-section,  and  paid  for  the  remaining  eighty 
acres.  The  land  was  purchased  under  the  "Two  dollar  act"  and  the  patent 
was  not  issued  until  June  6,  1827.  It  was  signed  by  John  Quincy  Adams 
as  President  and  George  Graham  as  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land 
Office. 


I 14  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

hard  one.  Thomas  and  Nancy  each  rode  a  horse,  and  each  one 
had  a  child  and  a  bundle  of  bedding  and  of  household  belonging's 
upon  the  horse  with  the  rider.  Abraham  was  seven ;  Sarah 
was  nine.  There  had  been  a  little  son  Thomas,  two  years  young- 
er than  Abraham,  but  he  died  in  infancy.  Four  persons  made 
the  company.  What  livestock  they  had  other  than  horses  is  not 
known,  but  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  there  were  one  or  more 
cows  and  possibly  a  few  young  hogs.  Abraham  and  Sarah  did 
not  ride  all  the  way.  Part  of  the  time  they  walked,  for  their 
own  enjoyment  and  for  the  comfort  of  the  horses.* 

The  family  arrived  at  the  home  of  Posey,  where  they  bor- 
rowed a  wagon,  loaded  in  their  additional  belongings,  and  in 
due  time  came  through  the  unbroken  forest  to  what  was  to  be 
for  fourteen  years  the  home  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Then  followed  what  Lincoln  later  described  as  "pretty  pinch- 
ing times."  The  first  winter  was  spent  in  what  Dennis  Hanks 
described  as  a  "half-faced  camp."  It  was  a.  shed  of  poles,  with 
the  front  facing  the  south,  and  the  rear  wall  supported  by  the 
hill  out  of  which  room  for  the  home  had  been  dug.  It  was  a 
cheerless  place  in  which  to  spend  a  winter  ;t  but  there  was  no  lack 
of  firewood,  and  the  supply  of  corn-bread  and  bacon  held  out 
till  spring. 

This  poor  shed  was  only  the  temporary  home  of  the  family, 


*Lamon  opines  that  Lincoln  borrowed  the  horses  from  his  brother-in- 
law,  Ralph  Crume ;  but  Thomas  Lincoln  was  the  owner  of  four  horses  in 
1816,  and  also  of  cows  and  other  livestock. 

fit  is  interesting  to  note  and  record  that,  as  the  first  winter  of  the 
Lincolns  in  Illinois  was  "the  winter  of  the  deep  snow''  with  its  attendant 
hardship  to  man  and  beast,  and  its  pathetic  slaughter  of  wild  game,  the  year 
of  their  removal  from  Kentucky  to  Indiana  was  one  of  severity.  No  records 
exist  of  the  suffering  of  the  Lincolns  on.  account  of  the  unusual  climatic 
conditions  of  that  year,  but  throughout  the  country  it  was  a  season  of 
violent  changes.  In  Salem,  Massachusetts,  according  to  Perley's  Historic 
Storms  of  Nczv  England,  the  weather  about  May  twenty-third  was  the  hot- 
test in  ten  years,  rising  to  101  in  the  shade,  and  on  June  fifth  it  was  92 ; 
but  next  morning  it  was  43,  a  drop  of  49  degrees  in  one  night,  and  there 
were  snow  flurries  in  parts  of  Massachusetts.  On  June  seventh,  there  was 
snow  in  the  suburbs  of  Boston,  and  a  foot  or  more  of  snow  fell  in  Williams- 
town.  On  June  twenty-second  and  twenty- fourth,  the  thermometer  ranged 
from  93  to  101  in  Salem,  and  then  came  more  cold  weather.  We  have  no 
such  detailed  record  of  the  weather  in  Kentucky,  but  we  know  that  through- 
out the  country  the  year  1816  was  remembered  as  "eighteen-hundred-and- 
froze-to-death." 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  115 

though  it  appears  to  have  been  kept  somewhat  steadily  in  use. 
The  reports  of  the  Lincolns  to  their  Kentucky  kinsfolk  can  not 
have  been  very  depressing,  for  there  soon  followed  an  exodus 
of  Sparrows  and  Hankses  to  the  new  land  of  promise.  When 
the  Lincolns  moved  into  their  permanent  home,  Thomas  and 
Elizabeth  Sparrow  came  on  and  occupied  the  camp  until  they 
had  a  home  ready ;  and  afterward  there  came  Levi  Hall  and 
Nancy  his  wife,  and  there  were  other  families  moving  from  Ken- 
tucky who  successively  rejoiced  in  the  poor  shelter  of  the  half- 
faced  camp. 

The  home  which  Thomas  Lincoln  built  was  of  hewn  logs  and 
about  eighteen  feet  square.  It  had  a  low  loft  reached  by  means 
of  pins  driven  into  the  logs  in  the  corner.  ■  The  earth  was  its 
floor  and  it  had  neither  window  nor  door  at  the  beginning. 
These  luxuries  came  later. 

Game  was  abundant,  and  the  settlers  were  not  too  far  from 
their  former  homes  in  Kentucky  nor  from  the  river  to  procure 
corn  until  they  could  raise  some  of  their  own.  Wheat  was 
scarce  in  the  beginning,  and  it  was  long  before  it  became  plenty ; 
but  there  was  no  lack  of  corn-bread. 

The  first  great  sorrow  in  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  oc- 
curred two  years  after  the  removal  of  the  family  to  Indiana. 
The  ''milk-sick"  visited  the  settlement,  and  claimed  a  number 
of  victims.  Thomas  and  Elizabeth  Sparrow,  who  had  been 
Nancy's  foster  parents,  died.  Levi  and  Nancy  Hall  also  died. 
Thomas  Lincoln  sawed  out  lumber  for  their  coffins,  and  gave 
them  decent  burial  according  to  the  standards  of  the  time  and 
place.  A  few  days  later  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln  died.  The  date 
of  her  death  was  October  5,  18 18.  Again  Thomas,  aided  by 
Abraham,  brought  the  whip-saw  into  requisition,  and  the  mother 
of  the  future  president  was  laid  to  rest  beside  the  Sparrows  and 
the  Halls.* 


*The  land  which  includes  the  cemetery  where  the  body  of  Abraham 
Lincoln's  mother  is  buried  is  now  a  state  park.  The  situation  is  beautiful, 
and  the  grave  is  well  marked  and  receives  adequate  care.     The  knoll  where 


n6  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Of  the  last  sickness  of  Lincoln's  mother,  we  have  one  testi- 
mony from  an  eye-witness,  as  it  was  given  in  Herndon : 

She  struggled  on,  day  by  day,  a  good  Christian  woman,  and 
died  on  the  seventh  day  after  she  was  taken  sick.  Abe  and  his 
sister  Sarah  waited  on  their  mother,  and  did  the  little  jobs  and 
errands  required  by  them.  There  was  no  physician  nearer  than 
thirty-five  miles.  The  mother  knew  she  was  going  to  die,  and 
called  the  children  to  her  bedside.  She  was  very  weak,  and  the 
children  leaned  over  while  she  gave  her  last  messages.  Placing 
her  feeble  hand  on  little  Abe's  head,  she  told  him  to  be  kind 
and  good  to  his  father  and  sister;  to  both  she  said,  Be  good  to 
one  another,  expressing  a  hope  that  they  might  live,  as  they  had 
been  taught  by  her,  to  love  their  kindred  and  worship  God.* 

According  to  the  custom  of  Kentucky  Baptists  then  and  now, 
the  burial  of  these  early  settlers  in  the  Pigeon  Creek  neighbor- 
hood was  not  accompanied  by  funeral  services.f  Not  simply  the 
absence  of  ministers  but  a  distinct  and  well  established  custom, 
still  persisting,  postponed  the  funeral  for  several  months.  There 
was  nothing  unusual  about  the  delay  in  the  funeral  of  Mrs. 
Lincoln. 


the  grave  is  located  is  sightly,  and  the  surroundings  are  appropriate,  but 
the  area  owned  by  the  state  should  be  increased,  and  the  approach  improved. 
The  first  marker  above  the  grave  of  Lincoln's  mother  was  erected  by  local 
subscription,  headed  by  Joseph  D.  Armstrong,  as  stated  in  a  paper  by  his 
daughter,  Miss  Ida  D.  Armstrong  of  Rockport,  Indiana,  before  the  South- 
western Indiana  Historical  Society,  October,  1923.  When  this  stone  was  re- 
moved for  a  larger  one,  the  little  marker  was  broken  up  and  carried  away 
by  relic  hunters.  The  second  marker,  which  now  stands  at  the  foot  of  the 
grave,  was  erected  in  1879,  the  gift  of  Clement  Studebaker,  Sr.,  of  South 
Bend.  The  present  monument  was  dedicated  October  1,  1902.  In  1907  the 
property  was  transferred  to  the  State  of  Indiana.  A  suitable  iron  fence  was 
erected  around  the  graves  of  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln  and  the  four  relatives 
who  lie  buried  with  her.  The  five  graves  are  not  all  in  one  row,  but  are  in 
one  row  of  three  graves  and  another  of  two.  Soil  where  a  grave  has  been 
dug  and  filled  can  rarely,  if  ever,  be  replaced  in  such  manner  as  to  mislead 
an  experienced  grave-digger  who  has  occasion  to  remove  the  upper  layers  or 
to  re-excavate  the  grave.  The  erection  of  the  fence  and  the  laying  of  a 
walk  compelled  such  disturbance  of  the  top  layers  of  soil.  The  three  graves 
in  one  row  are  those  of  Xancy  Hanks  Lincoln  and  her  foster  parents.  Thom- 
as and  Elizabeth  Hanks  Sparrow;  the  two  graves  at  the  foot  of  these  three 
are  those  of  Nancy's  aunt,  Nancy  Hanks   Hall  and  her  husband,  Levi  Hall. 

*Herndon's  Lincoln,  1st  ed.,  p.  27. 

tThe  subject  on  which  so  many  writers  have  gone  astray  has  been  con- 
sidered at  length  in  The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Reference  to  that  book 
makes  extended  treatment  of  the  subject  here  unnecessary. 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  117 

Some  months  after  the  death  of  Nancy  Hanks,  a  funeral 
service  was  held.  Reverend  David  Elkins,*  a  Baptist  preacher 
from  Kentucky,  preached,  and  probably  included  the  Halls  and 
Sparrows  and  other  deceased  neighbors  in  the  same  funeral  dis- 
course. 

A  little  more  than  a  year  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife, 
Thomas  Lincoln  went  back  to  Elizabethtown,  and  courted  Sarah 
Bush  Johnston,  whom  he  had  known  before  her  first  marriage. 
She  was  the  widow  of  Daniel  Johnston,  jailer  of  Hardin 
County,  t 

Thomas  Lincoln  and  Sarah  Bush  Johnston  were  married  in 
Elizabethtown,  Kentucky,  December  2,  18 19.  Although  she  was 
a  poor  widow,  with  three  children  and  in  debt,  she  was  not 
without   a   substantial   marriage   portion.      She  had   bed-clothes 


*Reverend  David  Elkins,  who  preached  the  funeral  sermon  at  the  grave  of 
Abraham  Lincoln's  mother,  Xancy  Hanks  Lincoln,  was  born  in  South  Caro- 
lina, and  served  as  a  private  in  the  Second  South  Carolina  Militia  in  the 
War  of  1812.  His  enlistment  was  October  17,  1814,  and  his  discharge,  March 
9,  181 5.  He  was  then  a  resident  of  the  Richland  district,  South  Carolina, 
and  later  migrated  to  Kentucky.  He  appears  in  Spencer's  History  of  Ken- 
tucky Baptists,  first  as  minister  of  Good  Hope  Church  in  Taylor  County. 
About  1820  he  united  with  the  Separate  Baptists  of  Xolynn  (Xolin)  As- 
sociation.    These  were  anti-slavery.     Spencer  says  : 

"He  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  natural  intellect,  but  was  uncultivated, 
being  barely  able  to  read.  He  was  extremely  poor  as  to  this  world's  goods, 
and  what  was  worse,  he  was  very  indolent  and  slovenly  in  his  dress.  Yet  it 
pleased  the  Lord  to  use  him  to  good  account,  especially  in  the  early  days  of 
his  ministry.  .  .  .  His  reputation  was  somewhat  sullied  in  his  later  years, 
perhaps  from  too   free  use  of  strong  drink." 

He  was  minister  in  Indiana  of  the  Rock  Lick  church  and  later  of  the 
Spice  Valley  Baptist  Church.  He  removed  to  Lawrence  County  in  the  'forties, 
and  died  in  1857,  and  is  buried  in  a  nearly  abandoned  cemetery  three  miles 
west  of  Mitchell.  Citizens  of  that  town  are  proposing  to  erect  a  monument 
over  his  grave,  which  now  has  only  the  government  marker  with  the  in- 
scription, "David  Elkins,  2nd   South   Carolina   Militia,  War  of   1812." 

fThe  story  is  told  that  when  Thomas  Lincoln  proposed  to  Sarah  Bush 
Johnston  she  said  to  him  that  she  could  not  accept  immediately,  because  she 
was  in  debt.  He  obtained  a  list  of  her  creditors,  paid  the  bills,  produced  the 
receipts  for  her  inspection  and  renewed  his  proposal.  She  accepted.  This 
story  is  not  new ;  but  I  should  like  to  add  that  members  of  the  Bush  family, 
including  S.  H.  Bush,  an  aged  member  of  the  Elizabethtown  bar,  a  former 
Confederate  soldier,  and  a  nephew  of  Sarah  Bush,  related  the  story  to  me 
in  detail.  The  Bush  family  show  no  sensitiveness  concerning  the  story,  but 
tell  it  rather  with  pride  that  she  married  a  man  of  sufficient  resource  and 
resolution  to  meet  an  emergency  of  that  kind.  The  Hardin  County  records 
show  that  Daniel  Johnston  left  her  poor.  She  did  better  in  her  second  mar- 
riage than  in  her  first. 


n8  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  cooking  utensils  and  furniture  such  as  the  humble  home  on 
Pigeon  Creek  had  never  known.  Thomas  Lincoln  borrowed 
from  his  brother-in-law,  Ralph  Crume,*  a  four-horse  wagon, 
into  which  Thomas  loaded  his  bride,  her  three  children  and  her 
belongings,  and  made  his  return  journey  to  Spencer  County.  In 
due  time  they  arrived,  and  the  new  mother  took  up  her  responsi- 
bilities. 

What  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln  found  on  her  arrival  may  or  may 
not  have  surprised  her.  She  knew  the  lot  of  pioneers,  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Thomas  Lincoln  had  attempted  to 
deceive  her.  At  the  same  time  she  must  have  felt  some  con- 
trast between  his  readiness  in  Elizabethtown  to  produce  money 
and  pay  off  her  small  indebtedness  and  the  manifest  poverty  of 
the  home  as  she  found  it.  The  cabin  was  windowless  and  floor- 
less,  and  the  furniture  was  of  the  most  primitive  sort.  There 
were  two  unkempt  children,  Sarah,  aged  twelve  and  Abraham 
aged  ten.  There  was  yet  another,  for  Dennis  Hanks,  since  the 
death  of  the  Sparrows,  lived  with  the  Lincolns. 

There  was  call  for  a  gourd  of  soft  soap,  and  plenty  of  water, 
The  children  were  scrubbed  and  better  clad.  The  home  took  on 
new  character  at  once.  Thomas  Lincoln  had  to  saw  out  lumber 
for  a  floor,  and  plane  the  boards.  He  bought  lime  and  mixed 
whitewash,  and  used  it  where  Sarah  directed.  Dennis  Hanks, 
who  remembered  her  coming  and  the  revolution  which  it 
wrought,  said  that  Aunt  Sarah  "certainly  had  faculty."  She 
transformed  the  home  of  the  cheerless  widower  and  his  two 
motherless  children  into  a  spot  of  pleasant  associations  and  hap- 
py memories.  Her  own  three  children,  John,  Sarah  and  Ma- 
tilda, lived  in  perfect  accord  with  the  children  already  there.  It 
was  a  good  day  for  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  world  that  brought 
Sarah  Bush  Johnston  to  the  rude  cabin  of  Thomas  Lincoln.  It 
was  equally  a  good  clay  for  Sarah  and  her  fatherless  children. 

Of  Sarah  Bush,  her  granddaughter,  Mrs.  Harriet  Chapman, 


*It   is  the  loan   of   Crume's  wagon  to  meet  this   matrimonial   emergency 
which  careless  biographers  have  confused  with  the   original  migration. 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  119 

daughter  of  Dennis  Hanks,  wrote:  "My  grandmother  is  a  very 
tall  woman,  straight  as  an  Indian,  and  was,  when  I  first  remember 
her,  very  handsome,  sprightly,  talkative  and  proud.  She  wore  her 
hair  curled  till  gray ;  is  kind-hearted  and  very  charitable,  and 
also  very  industrious." 

Herndon  spent  a  day  with  her  in  1865,  and  was  much  im- 
pressed by  her  character  and  her  love  for  her  stepson,  Abraham. 
To  this  visit  we  owe  some  of  our  best  and  most  authentic  tra- 
ditions of  Lincoln's  boyhood. 

The  Southern  Indiana  of  Lincoln's  boyhood  was  a  transplanted 
section  of  Kentucky.  The  social  life,  the  religious  environment, 
the  superstitions,  the  schools,  were  all  of  the  same  sort  with 
which  the  family  was  familiar.  Moreover,  it  was  not  so  far 
away  as  to  forbid  occasional  return,  and  more  frequent  visits 
from  old  neighbors  as  they  came  over  the  river  and  toward  the 
West,  looking  for  better  locations  than  those  they  had  possessed 
in  Kentucky.  The  urge  that  was  in  the  patriarch  Abraham,  send- 
ing him  forth  not  knowing  whither  he  went,  was  in  the  blood 
of  the  American  pioneer. 

Abraham  Lincoln  attended  school  in  Indiana.  His  first 
teacher  was  Andrew  Crawford,  his  second  a  man  named  Sween- 
ey, and  his  third  wras  Azel  W.  Dorsey.  The  school  which  Lin- 
coln attended  was  one  and  one-fourth  miles  from  the  home.  Like 
the  Kentucky  schools,  it  was  a  "blab"  school.*  The  system  of 
silent  study  was  beginning  to  be  recognized,  but  how  was  the 
teacher  to  know  that  a  boy  was  studying  unless  the  boy  kept  re- 
peating his  lesson  aloud  as  he  studied?  And  how  was  he  to  be 
persuaded  to  continue  his  industrious  application  to  his  spelling 
book  unless  the  teacher  passed  about  the  room,  whip  in  hand,  and 
gently  or  otherwise  whipped  those  who  were  silent? 

Abraham's  schoolmates  in  after  vears  remembered  that  he  had 


*The  blab  schools  had  not  passed  entirely  out  of  Southern  Indiana  when 
George  Cary  Eggleston  had  the  experiences  which  furnished  his  brother 
Edward  Eggleston  the  material  for  his  Hoosier  Schoolmaster.  This  was 
about  1858.  There  were  few  of  any  other  kind  forty  years  earlier.  See  The 
First  of  the  Hoosier s,  by  George  Cary  Eggleston ;  being  reminiscences  of 
Edward  Eggleston. 


120  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

been  an  apt  pupil,  eager  to  learn,  and  that  he  quickly  surpassed 
his  companions.  His  sister  Sarah,  who  accompanied  him,  was  also 
a  bright  pupil,  of  good  mind,  and  was  more  industrious  than  her 
brother.  For  while  Abraham  loved  books,  he  did  not  love  hard 
work;  and  when  study  became  work,  he  became  for  a  time  less 
eager  for  learning,  and  gave  himself  to  fun. 

Of  Lincoln's  school-days  in  Indiana,  the  most  definite  memo- 
ries appear  to  be  those  of  the  school  kept  by  Andrew  Crawford. 
This  teacher  endeavored  to  impart  not  only  the  education  con- 
tained in  books,  but  the  principles  which  underlie  the  usages  of 
polite  society.  One  pupil  was  required  to  go  out-of-doors,  and 
to  be  met  at  the  door  by  another  pupil  who  inquired  his  name, 
and  then  escorted  him  about  the  room,  presenting  him  to  the 
pupils  one  by  one. 

In  his  first  schools  Abraham  used  only  the  spelling  book.  It 
was  the  custom  in  that  day  for  a  pupil  to  spell  the  book  through 
several  times  before  he  began  to  read.  He  knew  how  to  spell 
"incomprehensibility,"  a  "word  of  eight  syllables,  accented  on  the 
sixth"  long  before  he  could  read  that  interesting  statement  that 
"Ann  can  spin  flax."  At  first  he  used  Dillworth's  Speller,  then 
Webster's  Old  Blucback.  After  long  and  faithful  use  of  the 
speller,  he  learned  to  use  the  reader,  and  in  time  became  familiar 
with  Murray's  English  Reader,  which  he  believed  to  have  been 
the  best  text-book  ever  supplied  to  an  American  boy.  Having 
used  it  as  a  text-book,  I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  him. 

The  whole  of  his  schooling,  as  he  has  informed  us,  was  less 
than  a  year.  What  he  has  told  and  what  is  otherwise  known  of 
his  teachers  has  caused  some  authors  to  question  whether  his 
teaching  was  of  any  considerable  value  to  him;  whether,  like 
George  Bernard  Shaw,  he  was  not  one  of  those  whose  education 
was  interrupted  by  his  schooling.  But  I  know  the  kind  of  schools 
Lincoln  attended,  and  in  spite  of  their  grave  limitations  I  have  a 
high  sense  of  their  value.  Even  the  discipline  of  those  schools, 
severe  as  it  was,  and  combining  "lickin'  and  l'arnin'  "  with  a 
liberal  allowance  for  the  licking,  was  not  without  its  worth.     If 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  121 

the  teachers  were  ignorant,  so  were  the  pupils  and  their  parents; 
if  the  teacher  could  cipher  to  the  rule  of  three,  that  was  quite 
as  far  as  most  of  the  pupils  had  any  occasion  to  go.  The  school- 
houses  were  bare,  log  buildings,  with  the  cracks  unchinked.  They 
were  built  upon  slopes  high  enough  at  one  end  for  hogs  to  rest 
under  the  floor,  and  fill  the  place  with  fleas, — a  situation  only 
partly  remedied  by  the  pennyroyal  which  the  pupils  brought  in 
by  the  armful  and  tramped  upon  in  the  aisle.  The  benches  were 
of  puncheon  and  had  no  backs,  and  it  was  thought  a  needless  con- 
cession to  the  love  of  luxury  to  saw  off  the  legs  where  they  pro- 
jected upward  through  the  surface  of  the  seat.  But  the  children 
departed  from  those  schools  a  little  less  ignorant  than  they  were 
when  they  entered. 

The  books  that  Lincoln  read  and  re-read  in  his  boyhood  had  a 
marked  influence  upon  his  life.  There  was  the  Bible,  first  of  all, 
the  basis  of  his  pure  literary  style,  and  the  foundation  of  his 
system  of  righteousness  expressed  in  law.  There  were  Pilgrim's 
Progress  and  ^Esop's  Fables.  There  was  Weems'  Life  of 
Washington,  at  which  people  smile,  but  which  did  good  to  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  and  many  another  lad.  There  was  Robinson  Cru- 
soe, and  a  History  of  the  United  States.  If  we  could  substitute 
a  better  Life  of  Washington  and  a  modern  History  of  the  L^nited 
States,  it  would  be  for  the  profit  of  any  American  boy  if  he 
were  shut  up  with  these  half-dozen  books  and  no  others  until  he 
thoroughly  mastered  them.  They  were  an  almost  ideal  selection. 
To  this  short  list  he  later  added  Franklin's  Autobiography  and 
Weems'  Life  of  Marion. 

It  has  become  common  to  refer  mirthfully  to  Weems'  Life  of 
JJTashington,  and  in  truth  it  has  no  great  merit  as  critical  biog- 
raphy ;  but  it  is  quite  as  good  in  that  particular  as  many  more 
pretentious  works,  including  some  Lives  of  Lincoln.  Even  the 
story  of  the  cherry-tree  and  the  little  hatchet  has  this  to  be  said 
in  its  favor,  that  such  a  story  could  not  easily  have  come  into  cur- 
rent circulation  and  belief  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Washing- 
ton's home  if  he  had  not  borne  in  bovhood  as  in  manhood  the 


122  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

reputation  of  being  truthful.  Lincoln  read  this  pompous  and 
highly  colored  book  with  none  of  the  disdain  of  the  modern 
critic.  In  1861,  in  addressing  the  Senate  of  the  State  of  New 
Jersey,  he  said : 

May  I  be  pardoned  if,  upon  this  occasion,  I  mention  that  away 
back  in  my  childhood,  the  earliest  days  of  my  being  able  to  read, 
I  got  hold  of  a  small  book,  such  a  one  as  few  of  the  younger 
members  have  ever  seen — Weems'  Life  of  Washington.  I  re- 
member all  the  accounts  there  given  of  the  battle-fields  and 
struggles  for  the  liberties  of  the  country,  and  none  fixed  them- 
selves upon  my  imagination  so  deeply  as  the  struggle  here  at 
Trenton,  New  Jersey.  The  crossing  of  the  river,  the  contest 
with  the  Hessians,  the  great  hardships  endured  at  that  time,  all 
fixed  themselves  on  my  memory  more  than  any  single  Revolu- 
tionary event ;  and  you  all  know,  for  you  have  all  been  boys,  how 
these  early  impressions  last  longer  than  any  others.  I  recollect 
thinking  then,  boy  even  though  I  was,  that  there  must  have  been 
something  more  than  common  that  these  men  struggled  for. 

Abraham  Lincoln  became  the  owner  of  Weems'  Life  of  Wash- 
ington through  an  accident.  He  borrowed  the  book  from  Josiah 
Crawford,  a  neighbor  reputed  to  have  been  close-fisted.  The 
book  was  placed  upon  a  little  shelf  below  an  unchinked  crack 
between  the  logs  of  the  Lincoln  home  and  was  damaged  by  rain. 
Lincoln  offered  to  pay  for  it,  and  had  to  pull  fodder  three  days  at 
twenty-five  cents  a  day  to  purchase  the  book. 

Crawford  has  been  unjustly  blamed  for  his  part  in  this  trans- 
action. It  was  his  right  to  receive  compensation  for  the  book, 
and  seventy-five  cents  was  a  fair  price,  and  twenty-five  cents 
was  not  an  oppressive  wage.  Abraham  often  worked  for  less. 
Abraham  had  cause  to  dislike  Crawford,  but  not  for  his  collec- 
tion of  an  extortionate  price  for  his  damaged  book.  And  Abra- 
ham then  owned  and  prized  the  book. 

Studying  by  the  fire  at  night,  or  by  the  light  of  pine  knots, 
and  lying  in  the  shade  in  the  daytime  with  a  corn  pone  in  one 
hand  and  a  book  in  the  other,  Abraham  Lincoln  made  the  ac- 


c  jn 


OS 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  123 

quaintance  of  a  few  highly  desirable  books,  and  he  profited  by 
the  reading  of  them. 

At  school  Abraham  was  a  leader.  He  stood  well  in  his  studies. 
He  was  a  good  reader,  an  excellent  speller,  a  good  penman,  and 
was  able  to  compose  well.  Very  early  he  had  a  desire  to  write 
out  his  opinions  on  many  topics;  and  his  essays  attracted  atten- 
tion at  once.  He  won  the  respect  of  his  teachers  and  also  of  his 
fellow-students.  His  habitual  and  well-known  fairness  caused 
him  to  be  chosen  to  decide  mooted  questions,  and  his  decisions 
were  accepted  without  appeal.  Altogether  it  is  an  attractive 
young  giant  who  emerges  from  our  study  of  the  conditions  of 
Lincoln's  boyhood.  He  was  rude  and  uncultured ;  but  he  had  a 
good  mind,  a  warm  heart,  a  love  of  justice  and  fair  play,  and  a 
high  sense  of  honor  that  won  for  him  the  lasting  respect  of  those 
who  knew  him. 

While  Lincoln  was  a  boy  in  Indiana  he  had  two  important 
social  centers,  the  mill  and  the  general  store  at  Gentry ville.* 
He  loved  to  go  to  mill,  and  he  loved  to  loaf  in  the  country  store. 
He  liked  the  conversation,  the  discussion,  the  attempts  to  settle 
the  problems  of  the  universe.  He  participated  in  all  this  writh 
great  satisfaction  to  himself,  and  to  the  joy  of  his  companions. 
He  was  a  good  story-teller,  a  clever  debater,  a  jolly  companion. 

Abraham  Lincoln  in  his  mature  years  thought,  spoke  and 
moved  slowly.  He  inherited  on  both  sides  the  deliberate  and 
almost  lazy  movement  of  the  Kentucky  hill-dweller.  But  in  one 
particular  he  exhibited  very  rapid  development.  In  his  eleventh 
year  he  suddenly  shot  up  in  stature  until  he  overtopped  all  his 
companions.  This  rapid  growth  made  him  tired,  and  he  never 
recovered  from  the  effort.  On  this  abrupt  change,  David  Turn- 
ham  wrote  to  Herndon: 

As  he  shot  up  he  seemed  to  change  in  appearance  and  action. 
Although  quick-witted  and  ready  with  an  answer,  he  began  to 
exhibit  deep  thoughtfulness,  and  so  was  often  lost  in  studied  re- 

*I   have    discovered    no    local    tradition    in   Gentryville    that    Lincoln    was 
ever  a  clerk  in  the  store  there,  and  I  do  not  credit  the  statement. 


I24  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

flection.  We  could  not  help  noticing  the  strange  turn  in  his 
actions.  He  disclosed  rare  timidity  and  sensitiveness,  especially 
in  the  presence  of  men  and  women,  and,  although  cheerful 
enough  in  the  presence  of  the  boys,  he  did  not  appear  to  seek  our 
company  as  earnestly  as  before.* 

Among  the  incidents  of  Lincoln's  boyhood  which  reach  us 
practically  at  first  hand,  and  may  therefore  be  presumed  to  be 
reliable,  is  one  which  his  stepsister  Matilda  Johnston,  later  the 
wife  of  Squire  Hall,  related  to  Herndon. 

AYhen  Lincoln  was  well  grown,  he  undertook  one  autumn  the 
clearing  of  a  piece  of  woodland  so  far  from  the  house  that  it 
was  his  custom  to  take  his  lunch  and  spend  the  day.  Matilda, 
youngest  child  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  liked  to  go  with  him,  but  her 
mother  forbade  her.  One  morning  she  stole  away,  and  slipping 
through  the  bushes,  came  up  behind  Abraham  as  he  went,  sing- 
ing, to  his  work.  She  crept  up  behind,  and  with  a  cat-like  leap, 
landed  with  one  hand  on  each  of  his  shoulders  and  her  knees  in 
the  middle  of  his  back.  That  trick,  familiar  to  school-boys;  en- 
abled her  to  land  Abraham  on  his  back  before  he  could  turn 
around  or  in  any  way  guard  his  fall.  As  he  fell,  his  ax  cut  a 
wound  in  her  ankle.  He  staunched  the  flow  of  blood  with  bits 
of  cloth  torn  from  his  shirt  and  her  clothing;  and  when  she  had 
ceased  or  nearly  ceased  crying,  he  asked : 

"  'Tilda,  what  are  you  going  to  tell  mother  about  getting  hurt  ?" 

"I'll  tell  her  I  did  it  with  the  ax,"  she  sobbed.  "That  will  be 
the  truth,  won't  it?" 

"Yes,  that's  the  truth,  'Tilda,"  replied  Abraham,  "but  it's  not 
the  whole  truth.  Tell  the  whole  truth,  'Tilda,  and  trust  your 
good  mother  for  the  rest."t 

Incidents  such  as  this  illustrate  the  reasons  for  Abraham's 
popularity  in  his  youth.  He  was  manly,  courageous,  truthful, 
sympathetic  and  honest.  No  incident  comes  to  us  from  those 
years  that  shows  him  in  any  act  of  meanness  or  dishonesty. 


*Herndon's  Lincoln,  ist  Ed.,  i,  p.  25. 
fHerndon's  Lincoln,  i,  p.  34. 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  125 

Some  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  recollections  of  Lincoln 
that  were  given  to  Herndon  in  1865,  were  those  of  Mrs.  Allen 
Gentry,  formerly  Katie  Roby.  She  attended  school  with  Lincoln, 
and  was  about  three  or  four  years  his  junior.  While  she  took 
pains  to  explain  that  they  were  never  lovers,  there  was  between 
them  a  boy-and-girl  attachment. 

She  told  how  one  day  at  a  spelling  match,  when  she  and  Lin- 
coln were  on  opposite  sides,  she  hesitated  over  the  word  "defied," 
not  feeling  sure  whether  to  spell  it  with  an  "i"  or  a  "y."  Lin- 
coln, seeing  her  hesitation,  generously  helped  her  by  holding  up 
one  finger  to  his  eye. 

When  Lincoln  was  about  to  sail  down  the  Ohio  River  on  his 
flat-boat,  she  sometimes  strolled  down  to  the  river  with  him  in 
the  evening,  and  he  and  Katie  dangled  their  bare  feet  in  the  water 
and  watched  the  sun  go  down  and  the  moon  come  up.  On  one 
such  evening  he  explained  to  her  that  the  sun  did  not  really  set 
nor  the  moon  rise,  but  that  the  earth  revolved  and  made  these 
other  bodies  appear  to  move  around  it.  Such  knowledge  seemed  to 
her  quite  wonderful,  indeed,  incredible ;  for  the  people  among 
whom  Lincoln  spent  his  youth,  including  the  ministers,  believed 
the  earth  to  be  flat  and  stationary,  and  the  sun  to  move  around 
it  once  in  twenty-four  hours.  Katie  never  forgot  the  vast  learn- 
ing of  Abraham. 

She  took  careful  account  of  his  appearance,  and  it  is  to  her  we 
ewe  our  best  description  of  the  Lincoln  of  that  date. 

At  the  end  of  his  seventeenth  year  he  weighed  about  one 
hundred  sixty  pounds,  was  tough,  wiry,  vigorous  and  strong. 
His  body  was  slender,  and  his  head  seemed  small  in  proportion 
to  his  great  height.  His  legs  and  his  arms  were  extraordinarily 
long,  and  his  hands  and  feet  very  large.     She  said : 

His  skin  was  shriveled  and  yellow.  His  shoes,  when  he  had 
any,  were  low.  He  wore  buckskin  breeches,  linsey-woolsey  shirt 
and  a  cap  made  from  the  skin  of  a  squirrel  or  coon.  His  breeches 
were  baggy,  and  lacked  by  several  inches  meeting  the  tops  of  his 
shoes,  thereby  exposing  his  shin-bone,  sharp,  blue  and  narrow. 


! 


126  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Certainly  he  was  not  handsome ;  but  he  was  tall,  kind  and 
brave;  and  both  the  boys  and  girls  admired  him. 

By  the  time  he  was  seventeen,  Lincoln  had  attained  his  great 
stature.  He  had  used  the  ax  from  the  time  of  his  arrival  in  Indi- 
ana, and  could  sink  it  deep  in  the  log.  He  could  plow,  reap  and 
do  all  manner  of  rough  work,  and  was  sometimes  employed  by 
neighbors.  He  was  in  demand  in  hog-killing,  and  for  this  hard, 
none  too  pleasant  work  received  what  now  seems  a  poor  sti- 
pend ;  but  it  was  a  time  when  money  was  hard  to  get,  and  a  very 
little  of  it  purchased  a  considerable  amount  of  muscular  toil. 

He  shared'  in  the  merry-making  of  the  neighborhood,  and 
showed  no  refinement  of  taste  higher  than  his  neighbors.  Too 
much  has  been  made  of  a  certain  rude  country  prank  which  he 
and  others  are  alleged  to  have  performed  at  a  wedding,  and  some 
coarse  articles  that  he  wrote  about  it.*  Jokes  at  weddings  are 
not  very  refined  even  now,  and  such  as  were  then  performed 
were  part  and  parcel  of  rude  frontier  life.  The  pioneer  was 
rough  and  coarse-grained,  and  the  objects  of  his  mirth  were  ele- 
mental. They  were  coarse  but  not  degenerate.  The  author  finds 
no  good  reason  to  reproduce  here  any  of  the  crude  lines  written 
by  Lincoln  in  this  period ;  they  are  easily  accessible  for  any  who 
want  them,  and  there  is  no  occasion  to  suppress  them.  Neither  is 
it  necessary  to  take  them  too  seriously.  They  represent  the  char- 
acteristic humor  and  satire  of  the  period  and  the  place.  Lincoln 
was  as  refined  as  his  boyhood  neighbors,  and  at  that  time  not 
much  more  so. 


*It  may  be  worth  while  to  record  that  the  practical  joke  described  in 
the  verses  which  Herndon  unwisely  printed  probably  never  occurred.  After 
the  appearance  of  Herndon's  book,  inquiry  was  made  in  Indiana,  and  what 
was  declared  to  be  the  original  manuscript  of  Lincoln's  doggerel  was  then 
in  possession  of  Edmond  Grigsby,  of  Rockport,  Indiana.  A  newspaper  ob- 
tained possession  of  a  copy,  and  before  printing  the  Chronicles  sent  a  re- 
porter to  interview  Elizabeth  Grigsby,  or  "Aunt  Betsy"  as  she  was  known. 
She  was  asked  about  the  manuscript,  and  declared  that  it  was  true  that 
Lincoln  wrote  the  verses,  but  that  there  was  no  intention  of  giving  the  im- 
pression that  the  event  really  occurred.  "Yes,  they  did  have  a  joke  on  us," 
said  Aunt  Betsy.  "They  said  my  man  got  into  the  wrong  room,  and  Charles 
got  into  my  room.  But  it  wasn't  so.  Lincoln  just  wrote  that  for  mischief. 
Abe  and  my  man  often  laughed  about  that.'' 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  127 


Thomas  and  Nancy  Lincoln  were  religious  people,  and  Sally 
Bush,  who  later  came  to  the  home,  was  also  religious.  The  as- 
sumption that  Thomas  Lincoln  was  dragged  into  church  mem- 
bership by  his  second  wife,  does  not  appear  to  be  well-founded. 
When  he  first  reached  Indiana,  there  was  no  church  on  Pigeon 
Creek.*  When  he  united  with  the  Little  Pigeon  Church,  his 
membership  was  by  letter,  while  that  of  his  wife  was  "by  ex- 
perience." 

It  was  Thomas  Lincoln's  custom  to  "ask  a  blessing"  at  the 
table.  On  one  occasion  when  the  meal  consisted  wholly  of 
roasted  potatoes,  Abraham  looked  up  from  the  potatoes  to  his 
father  and  remarked,  "Dad,  I  call  them  mighty  poor  blessings." 

Thomas  Lincoln  became  a  prominent  as  well  as  a  consistent 
member  of  the  Little  Pigeon  Church. 

The  records  of  the  Little  Pigeon  Church  contain  this  record 
of  the  uniting  of  Thomas  and  Sarah  Lincoln : 

June  the  7  1823 

The  church  met  and  after  prayer  proceeded  to  busyness. 

1st  Inquired  for  fellowship. 

2nd  'Invited  members  of  sister  churches  to  seats  with  us. 

3rd  Opened  a  dore  for  the  Reception  of  Members. 

4th  Received  Brother  Thomas  Linkhon  by  letter  and 

5th  the  case  of  Sister  Elizabeth  White  coled  for  &  refires  and 
the  Brother-  and  the  brother  that  was  to  bare  a  letter  to  his 
aquited. 

6th  The  church  appoints  Messengers  to  Represent  them  at 
the  next  asiation :  Yong  Lemare  Charles  Harper  &  Win  Stark 
and  the  Clirk  to  prepare  a  letter  to  be  inspected  At  our  Next 
Meting — 

7th  Received  Brother  John  wire  by  Relation  And  Sister 

Linkhon  and  Thomas  Carter  by  Experance. 

A  few  days  later  Abraham  Lincoln  doubtless  saw  his  step- 
mother immersed  in  the  waters  of  Little  Pigeon  Creek. 

^Honorable  Thomas  B.  McGregor,  Assistant  Attorney  General  of  Ken- 
tucky, first  called  my  attention  to  the  Pigeon  Creek  records,  which  I  later 
examined  and  copied.  I  acknowledge  the  courtesy  of  the  clerk  of  the  church, 
Mr.  Lewis  Yarner,  in  being  permitted  to  copy  these  records. 


128  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Baptisings  in  those  days  were  noisy  events ;  and  it  was  con 
sidered  desirable  for  the  candidate  to  "come  up  a-shouting."   But 
we  can  imagine  that  Sarah  Bush  took  the  experience  calmly,  and 
with  a  deep  realization  of  its  meaning. 

The  Lincolns  were  active  members  of  the  church.  Thomas 
Lincoln  was  an  officer,  and  is  of  record  as  a  contributor.  There 
are  several  records  such  as  this : 

We  the  under  Signed  Refereas  being  Conveaned  at  the  meting 
house  on  the  20th  of  February  in  1830  in  order  to  Settle  A  dif- 
ficulty between  Sister  Grigsby  &  Sister  Crafford  first  chose 
brother  T.  Lincoln  moderator  &  Bro.  Wm.  Bristow  Clk.  not 
being  one  of  the  body  qualified  and  agreed  to  deside  on  all 
points  by  a  Majority  third  after  a  long  patient  Investigation  on 
the  above  case  on  motion  The  referees  agrees  that  the  Charge 
is  In  legal  therefore  agrees  the  defendent  is  aquited. 
Attest :  T.  Lincoln  mod. 

Wm.  Bristow  Clk.  A.  Guntraman 

R.  Oskins 
I.  Oskins 
D.  Turnham. 

The  name  of  Thomas  Lincoln  appears  frequently  on  the  record 
book  of  the  Little  Pigeon  Church.  Thomas  was  often  moderator 
of  church  meetings,  and  sometimes  a  messenger  to  other 
churches.  He  was  appointed  to  arbitrate  disputes  between  mem- 
bers. At  no  time  is  there  any  indication  that  he  and  his  wife  were 
not  acceptable  members  of  the  church,  and  loved  by  most  of  their 
neighbors.  We  know,  however,  that  the  Lincolns  and  the  Grigs- 
bys  were  not  always  at  peace.  Abraham's  sister  Sarah  married 
Aaron  Grigsby,  and  died  at  the  birth  of  her  first  child.  Abraham, 
and  apparently  the  other  members  of  his  family,  disliked  the 
Grigsbys,  evidently  for  some  reason  associated  with  the  death  of 
Sarah.  When  the  Lincolns  were  preparing  to  leave  Indiana  for 
Illinois,  they  requested  their  church  letters,  that  they  might  unite 
with  a  church  in  their  new  home  state.  These  letters  were 
granted  at  a  meeting  of  the  church  November  12,  1829.     There 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  129 

was  no  opposition.  But  two  months  later,  on  January  tenth,  this 
entry  appears : 

Inquired  for  fellowship  and  Sister  Nancy  Grigsby  informed 
the  church  that  she  is  not  satisfied  with  Br.  and  Sister  Lincoln. 
The  church  agreed  and  called  back  their  letters  until  satisfaction 
could  be  obtained.  The  partys  convened  at  Wm.  Hoskins  and 
agreed  and  settled  the  difficulty. 

So  Thomas  and  Sarah  Lincoln  left  Indiana  with  their  church 
letters  in  due  form,  commending  them  to  any  other  Primitive 
Baptist  Church. 

The  Primitive  Baptist  Church  in  Lincoln's  day  was  not  a 
startlingly  progressive  organization.  The  records  of  Little 
Pigeon,  in  the  time  of  the  membership  of  the  Lincolns,  show 
more  than  one  vote  in  which  the  church  declined  all  responsibility 
for  missionary  organizations  and  "track  societies."  To  this  day 
that  church,  and  the  other  churches  of  that  communion  in  the 
Little  Zion  Association,  have  their  monthly  preaching  appoint- 
ments instead  of  weekly  services.  They  have  grown  somewhat 
more  progressive  with  the  passage  of  the  years ;  but  in  Lincoln's 
day  they  stood  for  the  good  old  Two-Seed,  Hardshell,  Anti-Mis- 
sionary, Predestinarian  gospel,  and  he  was  not  much  of  a  preach- 
er who  could  not  be  heard  a  mile. 

The  woods  of  Kentucky  and  the  woods  of  Indiana  are  much 
alike.  But  Spencer  County  has  one  thing  adjacent  to  its  woods 
which  the  Knob  Creek  neighborhood  did  not  have,  and  that  is  the 
Ohio  River,  a  mighty  artery  of  the  nation's  life  and  a  potent  in- 
fluence in  the  life  of  Lincoln.  The  significance  of  this  fact  must 
not  be  overlooked.  In  his  later  boyhood  Lincoln  was  engaged  as 
a  ferryman,  at  the  mouth  of  Anderson's  Creek,  at  the  present  vil- 
lage of  Troy.  This  was  a  task  which  must  have  been  an  educa- 
tion to  him.  Low  water  tied  up  all  sorts  of  traffic,  and  even 
when  the  traffic  moved,  it  was  deliberate.  Lincoln  had  occasion 
to  meet  and  know  many  types  of  life  as  he  wrought  at  his  task 
as  a  ferrvman. 


130  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

When  he  was  nineteen,  he  made  a  voyage  on  a  flat-boat  to 
New  Orleans.  It  must  have  been  an  illuminating  journey.  He 
received  eight  dollars  a  month  and  his  return  transportation ;  but 
what  he  learned  must  have  been  worth  to  him  much  more  than 
the  money,  although  at  the  time  the  money  doubtless  seemed  the 
more  desirable.  He  was  later  to  make  another  voyage,  from 
Illinois,  and  we  know  some  convictions  concerning  human  free- 
dom that  grew  stronger  as  he  made  that  journey. 

For  several  months  in  the  latter  part  of  1826,  Abraham 
worked  for  James  Taylor  of  Posey's  Landing,  near  where  the 
Lincoln  family  had  first  entered  Indiana  ten  years  previously. 
Taylor  was  a  merchant,  operating  a  "bank-store"  which,  located 
on  the  river  bank,  supplied  both  river  trade  and  that  of  the  farms. 
He  also  operated  a  ferry  across  Anderson's  Creek.  Lincoln 
does  not  appear  to  have  worked  in  the  store ;  Taylor  was  as- 
sisted there  by  his  son  Green.  Lincoln's  task  was  to  operate 
the  ferry. 

Near  the  same  point  was  a  ferry  across  the  Ohio  River,  op- 
erated by  John  T.  Dill.  Apparently  there  was  a  somewhat  sharp 
distinction  between  the  right  to  navigate  a  ferry  across  Ander- 
son's Creek,  which  was  an  Indiana  concession,  and  that  which 
permitted  the  operation  of  a  ferry  across  the  Ohio;  for  by  the 
original  Act  admitting  Kentucky  to  the  Union,  the  Ohio  River 
to  low-water  mark  on  the  opposite  shore,  lies  within  the  juris- 
diction of  Kentucky. 

In  the  spring  of  1827,  Lincoln  built  for  himself  a  flat-bot- 
tomed boat,  and  now  and  then  did  a  little  business  on  his  own 
account.  He  was  able  at  times  to  earn  an  honest  penny  by,  row- 
ing passengers  out  from  the  Indiana  side  to  steamers  halted  by 
signal.  Secretary  Seward  was  accustomed  to  tell  a  story  about 
an  entire  dollar  which  Lincoln  received  from  two  appreciative 
passengers  for  a  service  of  this  character.  A  dollar  for  less  than 
a  day's  work  seemed  fabulously  large  to  a  young  man  accus- 
tomed to  work  for  something  like  sixteen  cents  a  day. 

The  river  ferryman.  John  T.  Dill,  did  not  enjoy  having  Lin- 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  131 

coin  engage  in  this  traffic ;  and  apparently  Lincoln  did  not 
solicit  custom  when  Dill  was  on  the  Indiana  side  of  the  river. 
But  if  a  steamer  had  been  hailed  and  was  approaching,  and 
Dill  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  stream,  that  was  Lincoln's 
opportunity,  and  he  improved  it. 

One  day  when  Lincoln  was  in  his  boat,  Dill  hailed  him  from 
the  Kentucky  side,  and  Lincoln  rowed  to  the  shore,  where  he 
was  seized  by  Dill  and  his  brother,  the  brother  having  hidden 
till  Lincoln  was  within  reach.  They  accused  him  of  taking  their 
business  away  from  them,  and  threatened  to  duck  him  in  the 
river.  Perhaps  they  felt  some  misgivings  as  to  whether  even  the 
two  of  them  were  safe  in  an  undertaking  of  this  character.  For 
whatever  reason,  they  offered  to  modify  the  plan  if  Lincoln 
would  go  with  them  to  the  house  of  a  magistrate  and  have  the 
matter  settled  according  to  law.  Lincoln  readily  consented,  and 
the  three  went  together  to  the  house  of  Squire  Samuel  Pate,  only 
a  few  hundred  yards  away. 

There  the  Dills  entered  complaint,  and  swore  out  a  warrant. 
This  was  issued  and  served  upon  the  defendant,  present  in  court, 
and  the  case  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Kentucky  against  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  was  called.  Both  parties  announced  themselves 
as  ready  for  trial. 

The  complaining  witnesses  introduced  their  evidence.  The 
defendant  had  transported  passengers  from  the  Indiana  shore 
to  steamboats  on  the  Ohio  River,  though  having  no  license  to 
operate  a  ferry  on  that  stream.  The  river  belonged  to  Ken- 
tucky, and  John  T.  Dill  held  a  license  to  operate  a  ferry  across 
the  Ohio  River  from  the  Kentucky  shore  to  the  mouth  of  Ander- 
son's Creek. 

The  defendant  admitted  the  facts  as  alleged,  but  denied  hav- 
ing violated  the  statute  or  having  infringed  upon  the  rights  of 
the  authorized  ferryman.  The  ferry  license  authorized  John  T. 
Dill  to  convey  passengers  across  the  Ohio  River,  and  gave  him 
the  exclusive  right  of  doing  this  for  pay  between  the  points 
specified.  But  it  did  not  forbid  others  than  the  ferryman  to 
transport  passengers  to  the  middle  of  the  stream. 


132  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

He  told  the  magistrate  that  he  had  not  intended  to  violate  the 
law  and  did  not  think  that  he  had  done  so.  He  had  not  claimed 
the  privilege  of  "setting  persons  across  the  river,"  but  had 
rowed  them  out  to  midstream.  He  stated  that  as  the  ferry-boat 
could  not  always  be  on  the  Indiana  side  when  a  steamer  was 
approaching,  and  as  steamers  would  not  be  delayed,  it  seemed 
but  right  that  passengers  who  were  awaiting  the  steamer  should 
have  opportunity  to  hire  a  boat  to  convey  them  to  the  steamer 
when  it  arrived. 

Squire  Pate  was  impressed  by  the  evident  sincerity  of  the 
young  man,  and  began  to  examine  with  some  care  the  copy  of 
the  Statutes  of  Kentucky  which  he  owned.  He  stated  at  length 
that  Dill  unquestionably  held  the  lawful  and  exclusive  right 
to  "set  a  person  across"  the  river;  but  the  court  was  of  opinion 
that  that  right  did  not  preclude  an  unlicensed  person  from  row- 
ing passengers  to  the  middle  of  the  stream.  The  defendant  was 
therefore  acquitted. 

The  Dill  brothers,  much  disgruntled,  went  their  way,  and 
Lincoln  sat  on  the  ample  porch  and  talked  with  Squire  Pate. 
The  squire  told  Lincoln  that  many  difficulties  arise  because 
people  do  not  inform  themselves  concerning  the  statutes,  and 
said  that  every  man  ought  to  know  something  about  law.* 

Squire  Pate  had  built  his  new  hewn-log  house  with  one  of 
its  rooms  of  unusual  size,  with  special  reference  to  use  as  a 
magistrate's  court  room,  and  once  a  month  he  cleared  his  month- 
ly docket.  Lincoln  rowed  across  the  river  more  than  once  to 
attend  these  trials,  and  grew  increasingly  interested  in  court  pro- 
cedure. There  would  appear  to  be  reasonable  probability  that  this 
case  had  an  important  influence  in  turning  Lincoln's  attention 


*My  knowledge  of  this  interesting  case  comes  to  me  from  Honorable 
William  H.  Townsend,  who  has  discovered  these  facts  and  corroborated  them 
by  evidence  obtained  from  the  descendants  of  Squire  Pate,  who  still  lives  in 
the  house  where  the  case  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Kentucky  against  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  tried.  Very  appropriately,-  Mr.  Townsend  owns  the  copy  of  the 
Revised  Statutes  of  Indiana  which  belonged  to  David  Turnham,  and  which 
Abraham  Lincoln  studied  after  this  experience.  Mr.  Townsend  is  relating 
this  and  much  other  important  information  in  his  Abraham  Lincoln,  Litigant, 
to  be  published  about  the  time  of  publication  of  the  present  work. 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  133 

to  the  law.  He  borrowed  a  copy  of  the  Indiana  Statutes  from 
David  Turnham,  and  afterward  borrowed  other  books  from 
Judge  John  Pilcher. 

Stern  as  were  the  conditions  of  frontier  life,  they  did  not  oblit- 
erate any  of  the  essential  joys  of  living.  Hope  was  strong  in  the 
hearts  of  the  pioneers,  and  love  and  labor  were  the  common  lot. 
There  was  little  time  for  romance,  but  there  was  rough  and 
hearty  and  generally  wholesome  merry-making,  and  now  and 
then  a  dream  of  something  beyond. 

As  near  a  day-dream  as  has  come  to  us  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is 
the  following,  which  has  found  a  place  in  various  collections  of 
Lincoln's  stories  and  sayings,  and  which  was  recorded  by  T.  W.  S. 
Kidd,  editor  of  The  Morning  Monitor,  of  Springfield : 

Did  you  ever  write  out  a  story  in  your  mind?  I  did  when  I 
was  a  little  codger.  One  day  a  wagon  with  a  lady  and  two  girls 
and  a  man  broke  down  near  us,  and  while  they  were  fixing  up, 
they  cooked  in  our  kitchen.  The  woman  had  books  and  read  us 
stories,  and  they  were  the  first  I  had  ever  heard.  I  took  a  great 
fancy  to  one  of  the  girls ;  and  when  they  were  gone  I  thought  of 
her  a  great  deal,  and  one  day  when  I  was  sitting  out  in  the  sun 
by  the  house  I  wrote  out  a  story  in  my  mind.  I  thought  I  took 
my  father's  horse  and  followed  the  wagon,  and  finally  I  found  it, 
and  they  were  surprised  to  see  me.  I  talked  with  the  girl  and 
persuaded  her  to  elope  with  me,  and  that  night  I  put  her  on  my 
horse,  and  we  started  off  across  the  prairie.  After  several  hours 
we  came  to  a  camp ;  and  when  we  rode  up  we  found  it  was  the 
one  we  had  left  a  few  hours  before,  and  we  went  in.  The  next 
night  we  tried  again,  and  the  same  thing  happened — the  horse 
came  back  to  the  same  place;  and  then  we  concluded  that  we 
ought  not  to  elope.  I  stayed  until  I  had  persuaded  her  father 
to  give  her  to  me.  I  always  meant  to  write  that  story  out  and 
publish  it,  and  I  began  once;  but  I  concluded  it  was  not  much  of 
a  story.     But  I  think  that  was  the  beginning  of  love  with  me, 

It  was  unfortunate  for  Lincoln  that  in  all  his  childhood  and 
youth  he  did  not  fall  under  the  direct  influence  of  an  educated 
minister  who  might  have  encouraged  his  love  of  learning  and 


i34  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

given  it  some  measure  of  direction.  The  preachers  whom  the 
Lincoln  family  heard  were  nearly  all  Baptists,  earnest  and  un- 
lettered men,  who  plowed  corn  and  preached  with  equal  perspira- 
tion and  other  evidence  of  hard  work,  and  who  did  good,  but 
had  no  learning  or  love  of  it.  Lincoln  is  alleged  to  have  mimicked 
the  preachers  of  his  boyhood.  Their  mannerisms  invited  mirth- 
ful mimicry.  Their  cultivated  whine,  their  periodic  and  profes- 
sional expectoration,  their  dogmatism,  their  appeal  to  the  ter- 
rors of  hell  fire,  all  invited  the  imitation  of  a  frolicsome  boy. 
They  appear  to  have  done  him  no  harm,  and  their  preaching  and 
his  home  doctrine  made  him  a  predestinarian,  or  as  Herndon  de- 
clares, a  fatalist,  to  the  day  of  his  death.  But  his  love  of  learn- 
ing was  not  strongly  assisted  by  the  ministry  of  the  backwoods. 
One  Baptist  preacher,  Aaron  Farmer,  commended  an  article  of 
Abraham's  on  Temperance,  and  is  said  to  have  sent  it  for  publi- 
cation to  an  Ohio  newspaper ;  but  this  incident  was  exceptional. 
Of  Abraham's  conduct  in  the  years  of  his  boyhood,  Dennis 
Hanks,  his  constant  companion,  wrote  to  Herndon,  June  13. 
1 


Abe  was  a  good  boy — an  affectionate  one — a  boy  who  loved 
his  parents  well  and  was  obedient  to  their  every  wish.  Although 
anything  but  an  impudent  or  rude  boy,  he  was  sometimes  un- 
comfortably inquisitive.  When  strangers  would  ride  along  or 
pass  by  his  father's  fence,  he  always — either  through  boyish 
pride  or  to  tease  his  father — would  ask  the  first  question.  His 
father  would  sometimes  knock  him  over.  When  thus  punished, 
he  never  bellowed ;  but  dropped  a  kind  of  silent,  unwelcome  tear 
as  an  evidence  of  his  sensitiveness  or  other  feelings.* 

In  Indiana  as  in  Kentucky  the  principal  crop  of  the  pioneer 
was  corn.  It  began  to  be  an  article  of  food  as  soon  as  the  ears 
were  ready  for  roasting.  A  little  later  the  kernels  were  utilized 
for  hominy ;  and  as  they  matured  a  little  more  they  were  gritted 
against  a  sheet  of  tin,  perforated  and  attached  to  a  board.    Hand- 


*Herndon's    Lincoln,  i,   p.  22. 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  135 

mills  were'  in  many  homes,  and  were  utilized  for  the  grinding  of 
corn  in  small  quantities.  But  the  food  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  year  had  to  be  ground  in  the  public  mill  and  prepared  as  hoe- 
cake  or  corn  pone.  This  made  the  local  mill  an  important  ad- 
junct to  the  home.  When  the  streams  were  flowing  well,  the 
small  dull  stones  were  driven  slowly  round  by  water-power;  but 
when  water  failed,  the  horse  that  brought  the  grist  to  mill  was 
the  power  that  turned  the  mill.  Hitched  to  a  long  sweep,  the 
horse  walked  round  and  round,  the  stone  making  one  revolution 
each  time  the  horse  completed  the  larger  circle.  It  was  a  pain- 
fully slow  process.  The  boy  who  had  ridden  to  mill  on  his  sack 
of  corn  and  who  hoped  to  ride  triumphantly  home  upon  the 
same  bag  filled  with  meal,  had  no  fondness  for  the  weary  task  of 
whipping  his  reluctant  horse  around  the  dusty  circular  path. 

One  clay  Abraham  rode  his  father's  gray  mare  to  mill.  The 
miller's  name  was  Gordon,  and  the  mill  wras  several  miles  away. 
Abraham  was  late  in  arriving ;  and  if  there  had  been  any  water 
in  the  pond,  it  had  flowed  through  the  race  and  over  the  wheel 
before  his  turn  came.  He  had  to  hitch  the  old  mare  to  the 
sweep,  and  drive  her  around  the  course,  a  task  which  he  enjoyed 
as  little  as  the  mare.  Seeking  to  shorten  a  little  the  period  of 
this  distasteful  labor,  he  urged  the  old  mare  on  by  clucking  and 
whipping  until  the  mare  rebelled  and  kicked  back  at  him  with 
her  unshod  hoof.  "Get  up,  you  old  hussy,"  he  began  to  say,  and 
accompanied  the  first  word  with  the  use  of  the  whip.  He  had 
just  said  "Get  up"  when  the  kick  came.  The  blow  knocked  him 
senseless  and  apparently  dead.  Gordon  sent  word  to  Thomas 
Lincoln,  who  came  with  his  wagon  and  conveyed  the  insensible 
hoy  home.  All  night  he  lay,  and  gave  no  sign  of  life ;  but  as 
dawn  came  in,  his  consciousness  struggled  slowly  back,  and  the 
first  sign  of  it  was  his  utterance  of  the  words,  "you  old  hussy!" 

In  later  years  he  pondered  long  over  this  incident.  His  mind 
resumed  its  normal  activity  at  the  precise  point  where  conscious- 
ness had  been  interrupted.  The  suspended  thought  and  the  un- 
completed sentence  were  completed  automatically  under  the  im- 


136  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

pulse  of  his  previous  intent.  Lincoln  never  ceased  to  think  this 
one  of  his  notable  experiences;  and  it  gave  him  material  for 
thoughtful  consideration  of  the  nature  and  operation  of  the  hu- 
man intellect. 

Lest  we  seem  to  exalt  unduly  the  Lincoln  of  this  period,  let  it 
be  recorded  that  he  did  not  love  work.  Some  of  his  old  neigh- 
bors, including  one  or  two  of  his  employers,  were  sufficiently 
unawed  by  his  subsequent  greatness  to  say  frankly  that  he  was 
lazy.  He  could  work  hard,  and  on  occasion  did  so ;  but  his  work 
was  interrupted  by  his  love  of  story-telling,  his  fondness  for  gos- 
sip with  any  one  who  passed  along  the  road,  and  by  periods  of 
deep  meditation  and  abstraction.     John  Romaine  said  of  him  in 

i865: 

He  worked  for  me,  but  was  always  reading  and  thinking.  I 
used  to  get  mad  at  him  for  it.  I  say  he  was  awful  lazy.  Fie 
would  laugh  and  talk,  crack  his  jokes  and  tell  stories  all  the 
time;  but  he  didn't  love  his  work  half  as  much  as  his  pay.  He 
said  to  me  one  time  that  his  father  taught  him  to  work,  but  he 
never  taught  him  to  love  it.* 

The  women  liked  to  have  him  about.  While  he  was  not  ob- 
servant of  trifling  jobs  that  needed  to  be  done,  he  was  always 
obliging,  and  ready  to  bring  a  bucket  of  water  from  the  spring,  or 
take  a  hand  at  the  churn.  But  one  of  these  women  admitted 
that  "Abe  was  no  hand  to  work  like  killing  snakes.'' 

Though  he  did  not  like  to  work,  he  did  like  to  read.  He  bor- 
rowed newspapers  from  William  Wood  and  learned  about  the 
life  of  the  world  as  it  then  was  lived  outside  Gentry ville  But 
as  for  manual  labor,  we  may  accept  the  statement  of  John  Ro- 
maine that  he  was  "awful  lazy"  and  liked  his  pay  much  better 
than  he  liked  work. 

The  Lincoln  family  is  nearly  ready  for  its  next  migration. 
For  all  of  them  it  will  mean  a  permanent  removal  from  Indi- 


*Herndon's  Lincoln,  1st  Ed.  i,  p.  42. 


LINCOLN'S  BOYHOOD  137 

ana,  more  complete  than  their  removal  from  Kentucky  fourteen 
years  previously.  For  Abraham  it  will  mean  more ;  for  this  up- 
rooting from  his  boyhood  soil  in  Indiana  coincides  with  his  ar- 
rival at  the  age  of  manhood. 

It  meant  much  to  Abraham  Lincoln  to  spend  the  years  of  his 
adolescence  in  Southern  Indiana.  He  was  on  free  soil,  pro- 
tected from  slavery  by  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  yet  he  was  not 
detached  from  the  social  and  political  and  religious  environments 
of  his  Kentucky  childhood.  There  was  in  the  transfer  of  the 
family  from  Kentucky  to  Indiana  a  wholesome  step  in  evolution 
toward  his  predestined  greatness,  but  not  too  violent  a  wrench- 
ing away  from  what  he  had  previously  known  and  believed.  In- 
diana was  a  good  place  for  him  in  those  obscure  years. 

And  now,  Indiana  sends  him  forth,  a  tall,  strong,  awkward 
youth,  who  has  not  yet  been  seriously  in  love,  who  has  not  united 
with  any  church,  who  has  not  cast  a  vote,  but  wrho  has  in  him 
the  promise  and  potency  of  large  achievements.  He  is  intelli- 
gent, courageous,  sympathetic.  He  can  read  and  write  and 
spell,  and  he  can  cipher  to  the  rule  of  three.  He  can  write  essays 
and  declaim  stump  speeches  and  command  respect  for  his  power 
of  arm  and  strength  of  character. 

Indiana  does  not  know  that  she  has  been  sheltering  and  train- 
ing a  future  leader  of  the  nation,  but  no  state  ever  knows  that. 
Indiana  has  done  well  by  him,  and  will  one  day  discover  of 
what  sort  is  this  raw-boned  youth  who  is  about  to  leave  her  for  a 
new  home,  and  will  make  a  shrine  of  the  place  where  he  lived, 
and  will  seek  out  the  lovely  spot  where  Nancy  Hanks  lies  buried, 
and  erect  a  monument  on  the  soil  where  he  wept  in  boyhood 
over  the  grave  of  his  mother. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS 
l830 

The  childhood  of  Lincoln  belongs  to  Kentucky,  and  his  youth 
to  Indiana ;  but  the  whole  of  his  manhood,  until  his  inauguration 
as  president,  belongs  to  Illinois.  Less  than  three  weeks  after 
his  twenty-first  birthday,  Abraham  Lincoln  set  out  for  Illinois, 
and  never  left  that  state  for  residence  elsewhere  until  he  departed 
for  Washington,  on  February  11,  1861.* 

The  autumn  of  1829  brought  to  Spencer  County  a  recurrence 
of  the  "milk-sick."  Cattle  and  human  beings  died.  The  fatality 
was  less  than  it  had  been  eleven  years  previous,  but  the  fear  was 
great.  No  member  of  the  Lincoln  family  or  of  their  immediate 
kin  perished  in  this  outbreak,  but  they  lost  some  of  their  live- 
stock. They  were  discouraged  and  alarmed.  Moreover,  they 
were  of  a  migratory  disposition.  John  Hanks  had  gone  to  Illi- 
nois some  years  earlier,  and  his  reports  and  those  of  others  who 
had  made  their  homes  there  were  very  attractive.  Dennis  went 
to  Illinois  to  visit  John  and  spy  out  the  land,  and  his  report  was 
favorable.     The  Lincolns  and  their  kin  were  ready  to  move. 

Thomas  Lincoln  had  entered  one  hundred  sixty  acres  of  land 
when  he  first  came  from  Kentucky  to  Indiana.  He  had  reduced 
that  venture  to  an  eighty-acre  tract,  applying  upon  the  half 
which  he  retained  the  whole  of  his  payment.     Still  he  owed  the 


*Reference  may  be  made  to  my  address  on  The  Influence  of  Illinois  in 
the  Development  of  Abraham  Lincoln  delivered  before  the  Illinois  State 
Historical  Society  and  published  in  its  Transactions  for  1921  ;  also  to  my 
address  on  The  Influence  of  Chicago  upon  Abraham  Lincoln  delivered  be- 
fore the  Chicago  Historical  Society,  and  published  by  the  University  of 
Chicago  in  1922. 

138 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS  139 

government  more  than  he  was  likely  ever  to  pay  toward  the 
completion  of  his  purchase  at  two  dollars  an  acre.  He  sold  his 
land  to  James  Gentry,  and  his  stock  and  grain  to  David  Turn- 
ham.  He  had  recently  disposed  of  a  town  lot  in  Elizabethtown, 
which  had  come  to  him  on  his  marriage  with  Sarah  Bush  John- 
ston. He  was  able  to  pay  up  his  bills  and  to  leave  Indiana  with 
more  personal  property  than  he  brought  to  it. 

On  the  first  day  of  March,  1830,  the  family  of  Thomas  Lin- 
coln left  their  home  in  Spencer  County,  Indiana,  and  started  for 
Illinois.  The  company  included  Thomas  and  Sarah  Lincoln, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  John  D.  Johnston,  son  of  Sarah  Lincoln  by 
her  former  husband,  Dennis  Hanks  and  his  wife  Sarah,  a  daugh- 
ter of  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln,  Squire  Hall  and  his  wife  Matilda, 
the  other  daughter  of  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln,  and  enough  small 
children,  grandchildren  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  to  make  the  entire  party 
thirteen.* 

These  people  and  their  belongings  were  loaded  into  a  wagon 
drawn  by  two  yoke  of  oxen.  Abraham  drove  the  oxen  a  consid- 
erable portion  of  the  journey.  Long  afterward  he  described  the 
experience  which  he  remembered  vividly : 

He  said  the  ground  had  not  yet  yielded  up  the  frosts  of  winter ; 
that  during  the  day  the  roads  would  thaw  out  the  surface  and  at 
night  freeze  over  again,  thus  making  traveling,  especially  with 
oxen,  painfully  slow  and  tiresome.  There  were,  of  course,  no 
bridges,  and  the  party  were  consequently  driven  to  ford  the 
streams,  unless  by  a  circuitous  route  they  could  avoid  them.  In 
the  early  part  of  the  day  the  latter  also  were  frozen  slightly,  and 
the  oxen  would  break  through  a  square  yard  of  ice  at  every  step. 

*Mrs.  Harriet  Chapman,  daughter  of  Dennis  Hanks,  accompanied  this 
party.  She  was  a  little  girl  at  the  time.  She  made  oath  in  1912  that  there 
were  three  covered  wagons,  two  drawn  by  oxen  and  one  by  horses,  but  other 
accounts  speak  of  only  one  wagon.  She  gave  the  names  of  the  members  of 
the  party:  Thomas  Lincoln  and  his  wife  Sarah;  Dennis  F.  Hanks  and  his 
wife  Elizabeth  (Johnston)  Hanks  and  their  children,  John,  Sarah  Jane, 
Nancy  and  the  affiant,  Harriet  Hanks ;  Squire  Hall  and  his  wife  Matilda 
(Johnston)  and  one  child  named  John  Hall;  Abraham  Lincoln  and  John  D. 
Johnston.  In^  this  company  of  thirteen  Thomas  Lincoln  could  write  his 
name,  but  the  only  ones  who  could  have  written  any  account  of  the  journey 
were  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Dennis  Hanks. 


140  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Among  other  things  which  the  party  brought  with  them  was  a 
pet  dog,  which  trotted  along  after  the  wagon.  One  day  the 
little  fellow  fell  behind  and  failed  to  catch  up  till  after  they  had 
crossed  the  stream.  Missing  him,  they  looked  back,  and  there, 
on  the  opposite  bank,  he  stood,  whining  and  jumping  about  in 
great  distress.  The  water  was  running  over  the  broken  edges  of 
the  ice,  and  the  poor  animal  was  afraid  to  cross. 

It  would  not  pay  to  turn  the  oxen  and  wagon  back  and  to 
ford  the  stream  again  in  order  to  recover  a  dog,  and  so  the  ma- 
jority, in  their  anxiety  to  move  forward,  decided  to  go  on  with- 
out him.  "But  I  could  not  endure  the  idea  of  abandoning  even 
a  dog,"  related  Lincoln.  "Pulling  off  shoes  and  socks,  I  waded 
across  the  stream  and  triumphantly  returned  with  the  shivering 
animal  under  my  arm.  His  frantic  leaps  of  joy  and  other  evi- 
dences of  a  dog's  gratitude  amply  repaid  me  for  all  the  exposure 
1  had  undergone."* 

This  is  practically  the  only  incident  preserved  to  us  of  a  notable 
migration.  The  journey  occupied  two  weeks.  To  the  thirteen 
occupants,  old  and  young,  of  the  big  prairie  schooner,  it  was  too 
much  akin  to  the  life  they  knew  and  understood  to  leave  many 
very  permanent  impressions.  Lincoln  afterward  told  his  friends 
that  as  they  passed  through  Vincennes  he  saw  a  printing  press 
for  the  first  time.f  He  also  related  that  as  they  passed  through 
Palestine  he  saw  a  juggler  performing  tricks  of  sleight  of  hand. 
One  night  near  the  middle  of  March  they  came  to  Decatur  and 
camped  in  the  court-house  square.  In  1856,  Lincoln  was  able  to 
identify  the  exact  spot  where  the  wagon  had  stood,  and  the  site  is 
now  indicated  by  a  tablet.     They  had  come  to  Decatur  from  the 


*Herndon's  Lincoln,   i  159 

fin  June,  1923,  accompanied  by  Honorable  William  H.  Townsend,  of 
Lexington,  Kentucky,  and  his  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Cleveland  D.  Johnson,  of 
Kansas  City,  I  traced  the  Lincoln  route  from  Springfield,  Kentucky,  to 
Springfield,  Illinois.  Our  journey  by  automobile  occupied  three  and  one- 
half  days,  and  our  mileage  was  six  hundred  and  eighty-seven.  We 
followed  the  route  laid  down  in  two  official  investigations,  that  of  Mr.  C. 
M.  Thompson  for  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Library,  and  that  of  Messrs. 
Joseph  M.  Cravens  and  Jesse  W.  Weik  for  the  governor  of  Indiana.  We 
ferried  across  the  Ohio,  the  Kentucky  and  some  other  rivers. 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS  141 

south,  their  route  being  not  far  from  the  main  line  of  the  Illinois 
Central  Railroad.* 

The  next  day  they  journeyed  westward  to  the  home  of  John 
Hanks, f  who  had  already  located  in  Macon  County.  He  had 
cut  logs  for  a  new  home  located  on  the  Sangamon  River  about 
ten  miles  west  of  Decatur.  Thomas  and  Abraham  Lincoln,  Den- 
nis Hanks,  John  D.  Johnston  and  Squire  Hall  soon  had  the  logs 
built  into  a  cabin.  There  the  entire  company  of  thirteen  made 
their  first  home  in  Illinois.  They  broke  ten  acres  of  prairie 
ground  and  raised  a  crop  of  sown  corn  that  same  year.  They 
cut  down  trees  and  made  rails  with  which  the  ten  acres  were 
fenced.  These  rails,  according  to  the  testimony  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  himself,  were  the  ones  that  afterward  became  famous. 
They  were  not,  however,  the  only  rails  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
split  in  Macon  County.  He  and  John  Hanks  split  three  thousand 
rails  for  Major  John  Warnick,  Sheriff  of  Macon  County,  and 
Abraham  procured  his  first  new  clothes  after  the  attainment  of 
his  majority  by  the  splitting  of  four  hundred  rails  for  every 
yard  of  brown  jeans  dyed  with  white  walnut  bark,  that  would 
be  necessary  to  make  him  a  pair  of  trousers.  For  a  man  of  his 
height  this  was  no  small  contract,  and  apparently,  he  did  not  at 
that  time  procure  the  rest  of  his  suit. 

Having  provided  for  his  father  and  stepmother,  Lincoln  now. 


♦Henry  C.  Whitney  relates  that  he  was  in  Decatur  with  Lincoln  in  1856, 
when  the  latter  pointed  out  the  precise  spot  where  the  wagon  halted  for  the 
night.     The   place  is  now  marked  by  a  tablet. 

"Lincoln  walked  out  a  few  feet  in  front,  and  after  shifting  his  position 
two  or  three  times,  said,  as  he  looked  up  at  the  building,  partly  to  himself 
and  partly  to  me :  'Here  is  the  exact  spot  where  I  stood  by  our  wagon 
when  we  moved  from  Indiana  twenty-six  years  ago ;  this  isn't  six  feet  from 
the  exact  spot.'  ...  I  asked  him  if  he,  at  that  time,  had  expected  to  be  a 
lawyer  and  practice  law  in  that  court-house;  to  which  he  replied:  'Xo,  J 
didn't  know  I  had  sense  enough  to  be  a  lawyer  then.'  He  then  told  me  he 
had  frequently  tried  to  locate  the  route  by  which  they  had  come ;  and  that 
he  had  decided  that  it  was  near  to  the  main  line  of  the  Illinois  Central 
Railroad.'' 

tHerndon  in  his  account  of  this  journey  speaks  of  him  as  "John  Hanks, 
son  of  that  Joseph  Hanks,  in  whose  shop  at  Elizabethtown  Thomas  Lincoln 
learned  what  he  knew  of  the  carpenter's  art."  Xicolay  and  Hay  make  this 
same  mistake.  John  was  the  son  of  William  Hanks  and  nephew  of  this,  the 
younger  Joseph. 


142  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

left  the  paternal  home.  For  a  year  he  worked  at  odd  jobs  ob- 
tained from  various  settlers  in  Macon  County.  He  split  rails,  he 
worked  in  the  harvest  field  and  took  a  general  share  in  the  rough 
work  of  a  new  community. 

Freed  from  the  restraints  of  home  life,  Lincoln  at  this  time 
made  some  independent  adventures  into  society.  One  still  may 
hear  tales  in  the  vicinity  of  Decatur  of  Lincoln's  attentions  dur- 
ing those  twelve  months  to  the  girls  of  the  settlement.  These 
little  gallantries  were  all  innocent  enough,  but  they  have  served 
to  preserve  the  names  of  one  or  two  of  the  young  women  of  the 
neighborhood.  Polly  Warnick,  daughter  of  Major  Warnick.  the 
Sheriff  of  Macon  County,  lived  on  a  large  farm  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  river  from  the  Lincolns,  and  Abraham  paid  her  some 
little  attention.  Major  Warnick  is  said  not  to  have  favored  the 
match.  Polly  had  suitors  in  abundance  who  owned  land  or  had 
political  influence;  and  Lincoln  belonged  to  a  poor  family  lately 
arrived  and  without  brilliant  prospects.  If  Lincoln  cared  for 
her  or  she  for  him  beyond  a  pleasurable  and  passing  interest  in 
each  other,  there  is  no  record  of  it.  And  it  did  not  last  long. 
The  records  of  Macon  County  show  that  on  June  17,  1830, 
license  was  issued  for  the  marriage  of  Joseph  Stevens  and  Mary 
Warnick.  But  Joseph  Stevens  boasted  to  the  end  of  his  life  that 
he  and  Abe  Lincoln  had  been  rivals  for  the  affection  of  Polly, 
and  that  in  the  contest  Abe  came  out  at  the  little  end  of  the  horn. 

John  Hanks,  who  was  his  closest  companion  at  this  time,  in- 
forms us  that  Lincoln  made  a  political  speech  in  or  near  De- 
catur. A  man  by  the  name  of  Posey  visited  the  locality  and  de- 
livered an  address.  John  Hanks  declared  that  Abraham  could 
do  better.  Abraham  ascended  a  box  or  stump  and  delivered  an 
address  on  the  navigation  of  the  Sangamon  River.  That  sub- 
ject interested  the  people  of  Macon  County  more  than  almost 
anything  else  which  he  could  have  talked  about.  John  recorded 
that  Posey  himself  was  impressed  by  it  and  called  Abraham  aside 
to  inquire  how  he  had  learned  so  much.  Abraham  told  him  what 
he  had   read,   and   Posey  encouraged   him  to   persevere   in   his 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS  143 

studies.  Several  old  settlers  resident  in  and  about  Decatur  in 
after  years  professed  to  have  heard  this  first  political  speech  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  It  is  affirmed  that  so  far  as  he  discussed  na- 
tional issues,  he  spoke  in  praise  of  Andrew  Jackson.  This  may 
or  may  not  be  true.  It  would  have  been  natural,  considering-  Lin- 
coln's background  and  environment.  But  he  wisely  refrained 
from  much  discussion  of  national  issues,  of  which  he  knew  but 
little  and  his  audience  cared  less.  "His  subject  was  the  naviga- 
tion of  the  Sangamon,"  says  John  Hanks,  and  other  men  who 
professed  to  have  heard  the  speech  agreed  with  him. 

The  winter  of  1 830-1  was  long  remembered  in  Illinois  as  "the 
winter  of  the  deep  snow."  Lincoln's  canoe  upset  as  he  was  cross- 
ing the  Sangamon  River,  and  his  feet  froze.  For  two  weeks  he 
lived  in  the  home  of  Major  Warnick  while  his  feet  were  healing-. 

"The  winter  of  the  deep  snow"  was  for  a  whole  generation 
a  dividing  point  in  Illinois  history.  The  snow  fell,  not,  as  it 
seemed,  in  flakes,  but  in  shovelsful.  The  snow  was  followed  by 
bitter  cold  weather — twelve  or  more  degrees  below  zero — and 
the  settlers  were  imprisoned  for  weeks.  Livestock  perished; 
and  wild  game  has  never  been  so  plentiful  in  Illinois  since.  In 
later  years  when  old  settlers  compared  early  experiences,  no  one 
was  thought  to  have  anything-  really  worth  recounting  unless  he 
came  to  the  prairies  in  time  to  participate  in  the  experiences  of 
that  terrible  winter.* 


*For  matters  relating  to  the  life  of  Lincoln  in  Illinois  I  am  indebted  to 
the  unfailing  kindness  of  Mrs.  Jessie  Palmer  Weber  and  Miss  Georgia  L. 
Osborne,  of  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Society,  and  Miss  Caroline  Mcll- 
vaine,  of  the  Chicago  Historical  Society. 


CHAPTER  IX 

A  WIZARD  OF  FINANCE 
183I-1832 

Abraham  Lincoln  sat  in  the  large  and  comfortable  house  of 
Major  Warnick  awaiting  the  healing  of  his  frozen  feet.  It  was 
such  a  home  as  he  had  seldom  if  ever  occupied  even  for  a  single 
night,  and  it  offered  a  sorrowful  contrast  to  the  cabins  of  Thom- 
as Lincoln.  If,  as  the  local  tradition  affirms,  he  was  casting 
longing  looks  at  Polly  Warnick,  and  knew  that  she  had  a  landed 
suitor  ready  to  marry  her,  he  could  hardly  blame  Major  War- 
nick for  preferring  the  other  man. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  a  man  who  counted  leisure  time 
wasted.  He  had  enough  to  eat  and  no  pressing  duties  awaiting 
his  attention.  The  snow  was  too  deep  for  unnecessary  work. 
With  his  feet  encased  in  huge  moccasins  extemporized  from 
deerskins,  he  shuffled  over  the  floor  to  the  fireplace,  and,  with 
his  chair  tipped  back  against  the  wall,  or  laid  face-downward  on 
the  floor  with  its  tilted  back  as  the  hypothenuse  of  a  convenient 
triangle  for  the  support  of  his  own  back  stretched  partly  along 
the  chair  and  partly  on  the  floor,  he  alternated  two  of  his  favorite 
positions  and  read  from  a  volume  of  the  Statutes  of  Illinois 
which  Major  Warnick,  in  his  capacity  of  sheriff,  had  in  his  pos- 
session. 

What  was  he  to  do  when  his  feet  healed,  and  the  snow  melted 
and  another  spring  appeared  in  the  valley  of  the  Sangamon  ?  He 
had  come  to  Illinois  with  his  father,  having  no  plan  beyond  this, 
that  he  would  see  his  father  and  stepmother  established  in  a  new 
home,  and  then  make  his  own  way  in  the  world.     For  nearly  a 

144 


A  WIZARD  OF  FINANCE  145 

year  he  had  been  pursuing  this  course.  What  had  he  to  show  for 
it,  and  what  was  he  to  do  next  ?  These  questions  troubled  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  as  little  as  most  men,  but  they  troubled  him. 

For  two  weeks  he  was  confined  to  the  house.  Outside,  as  he 
looked  through  the  windows,  the  snow  was  piled  high.  Roads 
began  to  be  broken,  but  it  was  no  time  for  unnecessary  travel. 
Decatur  was  nine  miles  away,  and  the  crowded  cabin  of  Thomas 
Lincoln  was  three  miles  distant  and  across  the  river.  He  sat 
down,  or  lay  down,  in  the  comfortable  Warnick  home,  and 
waited  with  less  impatience  than  some  men  would  have  displayed, 
for  the  passing  of  the  bitter  cold  and  the  melting  of  the  snow. 
What  was  he  to  do  next  ? 

He  might  take  up  land,  as  John  Hanks  had  done,  and  as  Den- 
nis Hanks  and  John  D.  Johnston  professed  to  intend  to  do ;  but 
he  did  not  enjoy  manual  labor.  It  was  not  simply  that  toil  was 
irksome  to  him,  though  that  was  true,  but  he  disliked  the  isola- 
tion and  monotony  of  farm  work.  Two  tendencies  within  him 
prevented  his  seeking  a  farm  of  his  own  as  a  home  for  himself 
and  Polly  Warnick  or  some  other  Macon  County  girl.  One  was 
his  disinclination  to  farm  labor;  the  other  was  the  stirring  of  a 
consuming  ambition.  He  remembered  his  political  speech  of  the 
preceding  summer.  The  approval  with  which  it  was  greeted  was 
pleasant  to  remember  as  he  sat  in  Major  Warnick's  home  and 
wondered  what  he  was  to  do  when  he  was  able  to  go  to  work- 
again. 

One  thing  was  certain,  he  must  finish  his  contract  of  three 
thousand  fence-rails  which  he  had  agreed  to  split  for  Major  War- 
nick. It  would  require  most,  if  not  all  of  those  rails,  to  pay 
for  his  board.  And  there  would  be  occasional  jobs  until  spring. 
Then  he  must  depend  on  such  labor  as  he  could  pick  up  in  aid  of 
one  farmer  or  another.  He  was  determined  not  to  go  back  to 
his  father's  over-populated  cabin;  and  he  was  equally  disinclined 
to  begin  with  the  virgin  prairie  and  devote  the  years  of  his  life 
to  the  making  of  a  farm  for  himself.  What  was  he  to  do  when 
the  snow  melted?    He  did  not  knowr.     Abraham  Lincoln  was  the 


146  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

least  impatient  of  the  prisoners  of  the  deep  snow,  but  he  some- 
times wished  he  knew. 

Destiny  chooses  strange  heralds.  Most  of  us,  if  we  were  to 
think  back  over  the  changes  in  our  lives,  would  recall  some  inci- 
dent which  at  the  moment  seemed  trivial,  or  some  person  appar- 
ently insignificant,  that  served  as  the  messenger  of  a  new  dis- 
pensation. One  day  after  Lincoln's  feet  had  healed,  John  Hanks 
rode  over  to  where  Abraham  was  then  making  his  temporary 
home,  and  asked  him  to  ride  to  Decatur  and  meet  a  remarkable 
man  then  stopping  at  the  tavern  in  that  place.  That  man  was 
Denton  Offutt. 

Now  the  curtain  rises  on  one  of  the  most  important  scenes  in 
the  early  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  his  interview  at  Decatur  with 
Denton  Offutt.  Abraham  Lincoln,  his  second  cousin  John 
Hanks  and  his  stepbrother  John  D.  Johnston  sat  down  with  this 
merchant  prince  of  the  Sangamon,  and  discussed  the  future  pros- 
perity of  that  region,  whose  destiny  Offutt  appeared  to  hold  in 
his  keeping.  Offutt  had  come  from  Lexington,  Kentucky,  and 
possessed  the  self-confidence  and  courtesy  that  belonged  to  a 
Kentuckian  who  assumed  a  position  in  the  higher  social  strata 
together  with  the  camaraderie  that  insured  immediate  acceptance 
among  the  common  people.  What  the  people  of  Illinois  needed 
was  markets  for  their  produce,  he  affirmed.  The  prairies  were 
capable  of  producing  enormous  crops,  but  for  them  there  was 
no  natural  outlet  save  by  the  rivers,  whose  use  was  undeveloped. 
He  proposed  to  buy  cargoes  of  grain  and  pork  in  Illinois  and 
market  them  in  New  Orleans,  and  to  promote  in  connection  with 
this  central  line  of  business  a  group  of  related  enterprises  that 
would  bring  wealth  to  all  who  participated  in  the  venture. 

John  Hanks  had  had  a  preliminary  conversation  with  Offutt 
and  was  impressed,  but  desired  to  confirm  his  own  favorable 
judgment  by  the  concurrent  approval  of  Lincoln  and  Johnston. 
That  approval  was  not  delayed.  They  all  appro "ed.  Offutt  ap- 
peared to  them  a  man  of  vision  and  enterprise,  and  they  could 
not  fail  to  trust  him. 


A  WIZARD  OF  FINANCE  147 

It  was  John  Hanks  and  not  Lincoln,  of  whom  Decatur  had 
heard,  and  so  informed  Offutt,  as  a  capable  riverman;  and  it 
was  Hanks  who  told  Offutt  that  he  had  two  friends,  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  John  D.  Johnston,  both  of  whom  had  accompanied 
him  on  one  of  his  voyages  to  New  Orleans,  and  who  might  be 
persuaded  to  go  again.  These  three,  all  experienced,  and 
knowing  one  another  and  capable  of  working  well  together 
would  make,  with  Offutt,  a  complete  crew.  Offutt  did  not  pre- 
tend to  understand  river  navigation.  But  he  knew  or  was  sup- 
posed to  know  business.  He  knew  the  prices  at  which  corn  and 
pork  could  be  bought  along  the  Sangamon,  and  the  prices  at 
which  these  commodities  could  be  sold  in  New  Orleans.  He 
wanted  three  men  to  handle  his  boat.  Such  men  were  not  as 
plentiful  in  Macon  County,  Illlinois,  as  they  were  in  Spencer 
County,  Indiana.  He  was  glad  to  meet  Hanks  and  thus  secure 
one  man ;  but  when  he  found  himself  able  through  Hanks  to  se- 
cure two  other  experienced  hands,  whose  knowledge  of  river 
navigation  he  was  able  to  add  to  his  own  business  ability.,  he  was 
greatly  pleased.  After  negotiation,  he  employed  the  three  at  a 
wage  of  fifty  cents  a  day,  and  a  bonus  of  sixty  dollars  each,  a 
liberal  sum  as  they  estimated,  and  one  he  felt  able  to  promise.* 

Offutt  informed  them  that  he  would  procure  a  flat-boat  at 
Beardstown  and  have  it  ready  at  the  mouth  of  Spring  Creek, 
near  the  little  town  of  Springfield. 

Springfield  at  that  time  had  not  conceived  the  ambition  to  be 
the  capital  of  Illinois ;  but  it  had  lately  become  a  county-seat ;  it 
was  one  of  a  number  of  aspiring  river  towns,  a  large  proportion 
of  which  have  now  disappeared  from  the  map,  each  one  of  them 
pinning  its  hope  of  fame  to  the  navigability  of  the  Sangamon. 
The  boat  would  be  ready  near  Springfield  by  the  ides  of  March ; 
the  three  Macon  County  men  were  to  be  on  hand  to  navigate  it. 

It  may  be  that  we  ought  to  revise  our  judgment  of  men  of 


*This  is  the  wage  as  stated  by  John  Hanks.  Lincoln  once  spoke  of 
himself  as  working  on  a  flat-boat  for  ten  dollars  a  month  ;  but  he  was  ap- 
parently speaking  in  round  numbers  and  in  contrast  with  more  affluent 
earnings. 


148  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Offutt's  type,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  doing  justice  to  their  in- 
fluence in  wakening  ambition  in  the  lives  of  other  men.  The 
evil  that  such  men  as  Offutt  do  lives  after  them  in  the  empty 
pockets  and  disappointed  hopes  of  those  who  lend  them  money; 
the  good  is  often  interred  under  the  imprecations  of  their  credi- 
tors. The  Colonel  Sellers  of  Mark  Twain's  Gilded  Age,  the 
"Get-Rich-Quick- Wallingford"  of  more  recent  literature  and 
other  men  of  their  kind,  face  a  day  of  retribution  in  the  wrath  of 
those  who  too  readily  confide  in  them.  But  meantime  something 
ought  to  be  said  of  those  men  whom  these  promoters  waken  from 
lethargy  or  indecision  and  to  whom  they  bring  new  impulse  and 
vision.  If  we  are  to  give  the  devil  his  due,  Denton  Offutt  de- 
serves a  more  gracious  word  than  the  biographers  of  Lincoln 
have  accorded  him.  Other  people  may  have  had  occasion  to 
speak  ill  of  him,  but  to  Abraham  Lincoln  he  was  a  generous 
friend,  and  one  who  blazed  for  him  a  highway  into  larger  things 
than  Lincoln  himself  at  the  time  could  well  have  understood. 

It  has  been  the  custom  of  Lincoln's  biographers  to  speak  in 
terms  of  disrespect  of  Denton  Offutt,  and  some  of  them  have 
snuffed  him  out  with  a  contemptuous  phrase.  He  was  a  noisy 
braggart,  a  vain  and  shallow  pretender,  a  wild  and  reckless  spec- 
ulator who  did  not  disdain  fraud  when  it  served  his  ends,  a  man 
"windy,  rattle-brained,  unsteady  and  improvident."  All  this, 
and  more  to  the  same  effect,  we  learn  from  various  accounts  of 
him.  People  trusted  him  to  their  sorrow,  for  he  borrowed  more 
money  than  he  could  well  repay,  and  enticed  those  who  trusted 
him  into  unprofitable  ventures. 

All  this  may  be  true,  and  it  is  too  late  to  deny  any  of  it.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  if  we  are  to  believe  what  comes  to  us  on  equal- 
ly reliable  authority,  he  was  quick-witted,  far-sighted,  and  had  a 
clear  head  for  business  as  well  as  a  warm  heart  for  friendship. 
Toward  Lincoln,  his  attitude  was  one  of  generous  appreciation. 

For  our  knowledge  of  this  second  and  more  eventful  of  Lin- 
coln's journeys  to  New  Orleans,  we  are  indebted  to  the  recollec- 
tions of  John  Hanks,  who  gave  them  in  detail  to  Herndon  in 


A  WIZARD  OF  FINANCE  149 

later  years.  When  the  time  arrived  for  the  three  men  from 
Macon  County  to  join- Offutt  near  Springfield,  the  country  was 
so  flooded  by  the  melting  of  the  snow  that  it  was  not  found 
practicable  to  make  the  journey  overland.  They  procured  a 
canoe  and  paddled  down  the  Sangamon  to  Judy's  Ferry,  five 
miles  east  of  Springfield.  Only  Hanks  and  Lincoln  made  the 
canoe  voyage;  Johnston  had  preceded  them  and  he  joined  them 
at  that  point.  Together  they  searched  for  Offutt  and  the  boat 
that  was  to  have  been  ready  for  their  use.  Neither  Offutt  nor 
the  boat  appeared,  but  inquiry  disclosed  the  whereabouts  of  Of- 
futt. The  voyagers  walked  to  Springfield,  and  found  Offutt 
greatly  enjoying  the  hospitality  of  the  Buckhorn  Tavern,  whose 
cheerful  host,  Andrew  Elliott,  knew  how  to  make  his  place  attrac- 
tive to  men  of  Offutt's  proclivities.  The  Buckhorn  was  the 
best  of  Springfield's  two  or  three  taverns,  and  Offutt  was  a  man 
who  appreciated  the  best  and  paid  for  it  when  he  had  the  money. 
When  he  was  out  of  money,  he  still  had  the  best  of  entertainment 
which  the  place  where  he  happened  to  sojourn  afforded;  his  face 
and  his  ready  speech  secured  him  ample  credit. 

Recalled  by  the  presence  of  the  three  men  to  his  contract, 
Offutt  proposed  to  them  that  they  should  build  the  boat,  and  re- 
ceive additional  wages  while  doing  it.  Reassured,  the  men 
returned  to  the  shores  of  the  Sangamon  and  began  cutting  down 
trees  on  Congress  lands.  Offutt  arranged  with  Wrilliam  Kirkpat- 
rick,  who  owned  a  saw-mill  at  Sangamontown,  to  saw  the  logs 
into  lumber  of  the  proper  dimensions. 

First  of  all,  the  navigators  erected  a  shanty  for  their  own  shel- 
ter. They  elected  Lincoln  cook,  and  he  is  said  to  have  esteemed 
it  a  compliment.  Diligently  they  labored,  cutting  down  trees, 
rolling  them  to  the  water,  floating  them  to  the  mill,  and  after 
the  lumber  had  been  sawed,  fashioning  it  into  a  boat  such  as  all 
of  them  had  known  on  the  Ohio.  They  were  diligent  because 
the  river  was  falling,  and  they  wanted  to  utilize  the  high  water. 

Four  weeks  were  expended  upon  the  construction  of  the  boat, 
and  when  it  was  completed,  Offutt  bade  farewell  to  his  congenial 


150  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

friends  at  the  Buckhorn,  and  was  present  when  the  new  vessel 
slid  from  her  ways  into  the  welcoming  waters  of  the  Sangamon. 
There  was  oratory  such  as  was  deemed  appropriate  to  the  occa- 
sion ;  and  it  is  declared  by  John  Hanks  that  when  the  speech- 
making  entered  the  political  field  it  was  in  praise  of  the  Whig 
Party  and  of  Andrew  Jackson.  That  was  surely  a  strange  com- 
bination, but  the  strangest  feature  of  it,  and  the  one  on  which 
we  shall  have  occasion  to  comment  briefly,  was  that  the  Whig 
Party  should  have  had  any  share  in  this  celebration. 

Some  day  it  will  be  the  task  of  some  keen  historical  student 
to  go  minutely  into  a  study  of  the  political  conditions  of  that 
period,  and  answer,  if  he  can,  how  and  why  did  Abraham  Lincoln 
become  a  Whig?  We  shall  later  propound  that  question  when 
we  observe  Abraham  Lincoln  entering  politics.  For  the  present 
we  are  concerned  with  the  oratory  that  accompanied  the  launch- 
ing of  the  flat-boat.  Herndon,  deriving  his  information  in  part 
from  Lincoln  himself,  but  mostly  from  John  Hanks,  wrote  of 
this  event : 

Within  four  weeks  the  boat  was  ready  to  launch.  Offutt  was 
sent  for,  and  was  present  when  she  slid  into  the  water.  It  was 
the  occasion  of  much  political  chat  and  buncombe,  in  which  the 
Whig  Party  and  Jackson  alike  were,  strangely  enough,  lauded 
to  the  skies.  It  is  difficult  to  account  for  the  unanimous  approval 
of  such  strikingly  antagonistic  ideas,  unless  it  be  admitted  that 
Offutt  must  have  brought  with  him  some  substantial  reminder  of 
the  hospitality  on  draught  at  the  Buckhorn  inn.* 

That  is  an  inadequate  explanation,  and  Herndon  should  have 
known  it.  He  was  far  from  being  a  stranger  to  such  entertain- 
ment as  the  Buckhorn  afforded;  that  very  bar  was  familiar  to  his 
youth.  But  Herndon  was  never  drunk  enough  to  have  lauded 
the  Democratic  Party. 

Here  is  a  conjecture  which  possesses  at  least  the  merit  of 
originality : 


cHerndon?s  Lincoln,  1:73. 


A  WIZARD  OF  FINANCE  151 

It  is  that  whatever  of  laudation  the  Whig  Party  received  at 
the  launching  of  the  flat-boat  was  contributed  by  Offutt  himself. 
Certainly  John  Hanks  did  not  praise  the  Whig  Party;  he  was 
advertised  throughout  the  nation  in  i860  as  an  old  Democrat  who 
was  to  vote  for  Lincoln,  and  so  far  as  we  know  he  was  the  only 
Hanks  who  did  so.  Neither  Abraham  Lincoln  nor  John  D. 
Johnston  inherited  through  Thomas  Lincoln  any  other  politics 
than  those  of  Andrew  Jackson,  as  interpreted  in  the  Indiana 
woods  by  men  born  in  Kentucky.  But  Denton  Offutt  was  from 
Lexington,  the  home  of  Henry  Clay.  Did  he  on  the  day  of  the 
launching  go  into  a  panegyric  of  that  statesman,  and  did  he  on 
the  long  days  of  the  voyage  relate  to  the  eagerly  listening  Lin- 
coln such  knowledge  as  he  had  of  the  idol  of  the  Wnig  Party 
who  was  destined  to  become  Lincoln's  own  idol? 

We  are  to  thank  Offutt  for  leading  Abraham  Lincoln  a  mile 
or  more  along  the  highway  out  of  obscurity  toward  his  life  mis- 
sion ;  are  we  to  thank  him  for  going  not  one  mile  but  twain,  and 
for  the  beginning  of  those  reflections  that  made  Lincoln  a  Whig? 

In  another  chapter  we  must  return  briefly  to  this  question  in 
its  wider  implications.  We  now  climb  down  the  muddy  bank  of 
the  Sangamon  and  prepare  for  the  journey  to  Xew  Orleans. 

The  boat  was  built  flat  on  the  bottom,  save  for  a  bow  and 
stern  that  took  an  obtuse  upward  angle.  There  was  an  attempt 
to  add  to  the  river  current  auxiliary  power  by  means  of  a  sail 
made  of  planks  and  cloth,  a  feature  which  is  said  to  have  excited 
the  mirthful  contempt  of  river-wise  Beardstown,  which  lies  at 
the  junction  of  the  Sangamon  and  Illinois.  It  is  not  likely  that 
the  sail  was  of  material  assistance.  The  cargo  consisted  partly 
of  grain,  but  more  of  pork  in  barrels,  and  some  live  hogs. 

One  incident  ought  to  be  recorded  before  the  boat  casts  off, 
which  is  that,  shortly  before  they  left,  the  crew  attended  a  per- 
formance given  by  a  strolling  magician,  and  that  he  cooked  eggs 
in  Abraham  Lincoln's  low-crowned,  wide-brimmed  felt  hat.  Lin- 
coln loaned  the  hat  with  real  or  feigned  reluctance,  explaining 
his  hesitation  on  the  ground  that  he  did  not  greatly  value  the  hat 


152  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

but  had  respect  for  the  eggs.  Abraham  Lincoln  had  left  behind 
him  the  days  of  the  coonskin  cap.  He  was  still  a  long  way  from 
the  enormous  stove-pipe  hat  of  his  professional  career,  but  his 
raiment  was  in  the  process  of  evolution. 

The  log  of  this  eventful  voyage  is  somewhat  as  follows: 
About  March  i,  1831,  just  a  year  after  his  entrance  into 
Illinois,  Abraham  Lincoln  and  John  Hanks  launched  their  canoe 
on  the  swollen  water  of  the  Sangamon  and  were  floated  by  the 
melting  flood  of  the  deep  snow  to  Judy's  Ferry.  About  the 
middle  of  April  they  launched  their  flat-boat.  John  Hanks  did 
not  accompany  the  boat  all  the  way  to  New  Orleans.  By  the 
time  they  reached  St.  Louis  his  concern  for  his  family  caused  him 
to  leave  the  party,  and  he  walked  back  to  Decatur.  The  boat 
made  good  progress  down  the  Mississippi.  It  tied  up  for  a  day 
at  Memphis,  and  made  short  stops  at  Vicksburg  and  Natchez. 
Early  in  May  it  tied  up  to  the  levee  in  New  Orleans.  Here 
Offutt  and  his  two  assistants  spent  a  month,  disposing  of  their 
cargo  to  good  advantage,  and  having  ample  time  to  view  the 
sights  of  the  city  already  slightly  familiar  to  Lincoln.  In  June 
they  boarded  a  river  steamer  and  returned  up  the  river  to  St. 
Louis,  where  Lincoln  and  Johnston  left  Offutt  and  made  their 
way  to  Coles  County,  where  Thomas  Lincoln  had  removed,  one 
year's  residence  in  Macon  having  convinced  him  that  that  coun- 
ty was  unhealthy.  About  a  month  Abraham  waited  at  his  fath- 
er's farm  in  Coles  County,  Thomas  Lincoln's  permanent  and 
final  home  on  earth.  While  there  Abraham  whipped  a  bully 
named  Daniel  Needham.  In  August  he  left  his  father's  home  for 
the  last  time,  except  for  short  and  infrequent  visits. 

This  outline  has  omitted  two  or  three  significant  incidents, 
which  call  for  brief  mention.  One  of  these  is  recorded  by  John 
Hanks  as  having  occurred  while  the  crew  of  the  boat  were  in 
New  Orleans,  where  Lincoln  spent  nearly  a  month.  There 
Lincoln  saw  slaves  chained  and  exposed  for  sale.  The  familiarity 
of  the  bidders  in  handling  and  examining  a  mulatto  girl  roused 
his  deep  resentment,  and  the  whole  system  seemed  to  him  wicked 


A  WIZARD  OF  FINANCE  153 

and  debasing.  John  Hanks  declared  many  years  afterward  that 
Lincoln  said  then  and  there  that  if  he  ever  got  a  chance  to  hit 
that  institution,  meaning  slavery,  he  would  hit  it  hard.  We  may 
not  trust  implicitly  to  the  accuracy  of  John  Hanks'  verbal  mem- 
ory, but  we  know  from  other  sources  that  what  Lincoln  saw  of 
slavery  upon  this  voyage  made  an  indelible  impression  upon  his 
mind.  Lincoln  was  not  without  prophetic  intimations  of  his  own 
coming  power.  It  is  not  impossible  that  he  said  what  John  Hanks 
declared  that  he  said.  In  due  time  he  had  his  chance  to  hit  that 
institution,  and  he  did  hit  it  hard. 

In  giving  a  measure  of  credence  to  this  story,  however,  we 
remember  that  if  the  incident  occurred  as  John  Hanks  told  it, 
John  could  not  have  been  a  witness  of  it.  John  Hanks  did  not, 
on  this  journey,  go  all  the  way  to  New  Orleans.*  The  trip  had 
been  delayed  a  month  by  the  necessity  of  building  the  boat,  and 
had  encountered  some  other  delays,  and  Hanks  considered  that, 
having  a  family,  it  was  better  for  him  not  to  be  away  from  home 
so  long;  and  he  left  the  boat  at  St.  Louis,  on  the  way  down,  and 
walked  home.  But  Herndon  relates  that  he  himself  often  heard 
Lincoln  refer  to  this  trip  as  one  on  which  his  experiences  deep- 
ened his  hostility  to  slavery ;  and  the  remark  is  one  that  he  may 
have  made  to  John  as  they  talked  matters  over  after  his  return. 
Granting  that  the  story  has  lost  nothing  in  the  telling,  it  is  not 
inherently  improbable.  We  have  an  account  from  Lincoln's  own 
pen  of  a  journey  made  just  ten  years  later  to  a  point  not  so  far 
south,  and  of  its  effect  upon  him.  Writing  some  fourteen  years 
after  the  event  to  his  friend,  Joshua  F.  Speed,  of  Kentucky, 
Lincoln  said : 

In  1 84 1,  you  and  I  had  together  a  tedious  low-water  trip  on  a 
steamboat  from  Louisville  to  St.  Louis.  You  may  remember,  as 
I  do,  that  from  Louisville  to  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  there  were 
on  board  ten  or  a  dozen  slaves  shackled  with  irons.     The  sight 


*Lincoln  is  specific  on  this  point :  "Hanks  had  not  gone  to  New  Orleans, 
but  having  a  family,  and  being  likely  to  be  detained  from  home  longer  than 
was  first  expected,  had  turned  back  at  St.  Louis."  Autobiography  furnished 
to  J.  L.   Scripps   in   i860. 


154  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

was  a  continual  torment  to  me,  and  I  see  something  like  it  everv 
time  I  touch  the  Ohio  or  any  other  slave  border.  It  is  not  for  you 
to  assume  that  I  have  no  interest  in  a  thing  which  has,  and  con- 
tinually exercises,  the  power  of  making  me  miserable. 

What  Lincoln  remembered  to  have  seen  of  slavery  in  Kentucky 
in  the  years  of  his  childhood  had  little  in  it  that  was  repellent ; 
but  when  he  saw  it  in  its  full  possibility  of  degradation  of  both 
black  and  white,  it  is  little  wonder  that  his  soul  was  roused  in 
righteous  protest. 

Another  fact  that  is  not  to  be  overlooked  is  that,  while  the 
voyage  appears  to  have  been  a  prosperous  one,  it  completely  sat- 
isfied Offutt.  His  career  thenceforth  was  destined  to  be  on  land 
rather  than  on  the  rivers.  He  determined  to  establish  a  vast 
commercial  enterprise  at  a  town  well  located  and  conduct  his 
operations  from  that  center,  leaving  the  boating  to  those  who 
had  greater  fondness  for  water. 

A  third  fact  is  that  Lincoln  and  Offutt  found  themselves  in- 
creasingly attached  to  each  other,  and  each  found  in  the  other  a 
companion  who  might  be  of  material  advantage  to  him.  Lincoln 
himself  was  apparently  proud  when  in  later  years  he  remembered 
Offutt's  liking  for  him.  When  he  furnished  John  Locke 
Scripps  his  campaign  autobiography,  he  wrote : 

During  this  boat  enterprise  acquaintance  with  Offutt,  who  was 
previously  an  entire  stranger,  he  conceived  a  liking  for  Abra- 
ham and  believing  he  could  turn  him  to  account,  he  contracted 
with  him  to  act  as  clerk  for  him  on  his  return  from  New 
Orleans,  in  charge  of  a  store  and  mill  at  New  Salem,  then  in 
Sangamon,  now  in  Menard  County. 

And  finally,  we  must  write  into  the  log  a  date  very  near  the 
beginning  of  the  voyage,  the  nineteenth  of  April.  That  has  been 
a  notable  day  in  American  history.  On  April  19,  1775,  was  fired 
the  shot  heard  round  the  world.  On  April  19,  1861,  was  shed 
the  first  blood  of  the  Civil  War.  On  April  19,  1831,  the  flat- 
boat  commanded  by  Denton  Offutt  and  manned  by  Abraham 
Lincoln,  John  Hanks  and  John  D.  Johnston,  stuck  on  the  dam 
of  Rutledge  mill  at  New  Salem. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  DRIFTWOOD  AND  THE  DAM 
I83I-I832 

Abraham  Lincoln  stood  at  his  watch  at  the  steering-oar  of 
the  flat-boat  that  was  conveying  him  and  Denton  Offutt  and 
John  Hanks  and  John  D.  Johnston  down  the  Sangamon  to  the 
Illinois,  down  the  Illinois  to  the  Mississippi  and  down  the  Mis- 
sissippi to  New  Orleans.  He  watched  the  shore,  the  current  and 
the  passing  river  craft.  He  also  watched  the  flotsam  of  the 
river.  The  high  floods  that  followed  the  deep  snow  carried  in 
their  current  an  unusual  quantity  of  drift.  The  waters  were 
subsiding.  Much  that  floated  down  had  caught  in  the  branches 
of  low-growing  trees,  or  stranded  on  muddy  banks.  There  is  a 
fascination  in  river  drift.  The  plank-and-cloth  sail  of  the  flat- 
boat  proved  no  material  aid  to  navigation,  so  the  boat  floated 
about  as  rapidly  as  the  logs  and  branches.  Some  of  the  logs 
were  recognizable  by  reason  of  projecting  knots  or  upstanding 
stubs  of  limbs  that  took  on  a  grotesque  appearance  of  person- 
ality. Some  of  the  pieces  of  drift  became  old  friends.  They 
would  disappear  for  days,  and  then  reappear  many  miles  farther 
down  the  stream  as  eddying  currents  drifted  them  near  to  the 
boat  again. 

Abraham  Lincoln  came  to  feel  a  strange  kinship  with  these 
floating  logs.  He  thought  it  out  in  phraseology  which  he  after- 
ward remembered,  and  now  and  then  repeated  to  his  friends : 

He  assured  those  with  whom  he  came  in  contact  that  he  was  a 
piece  of  floating  driftwood;  that  after  the  winter  of  deep  snow 
he  had  come  down  the  river  with  the  freshet,  borne  along  by  the 

T-5.S 


156  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

swelling    waters,    and,    aimlessly    floating-   about,    he    had    acci- 
dentally lodged  at  New  Salem.* 

But  there  are  distinctions  even  in  river  driftwood. 

There  is  a  somewhat  recent  story  which  takes  the  character  of 
a  fable,  that  has  made  its  way  through  newspaper  columns  on 
this  wise : 

A  Dead  Rat  and  an  Apple  Core  were  flung  into  the  Mississippi 
at  St.  Paul,  and,  drifting  together,  started  a  voyage  down  the 
great  Father  of  Waters.  Much  of  the  time  they  floated  apart, 
but  occasionally  they  met,  and  sometimes  were  for  hours  or  even 
days  within  hailing  distance  of  each  other.  They  sailed  together 
past  Dubuque,  encountered  each  other  again  at  Alton,  and  after 
a  long  period  of  absence  met  again  below  Cairo.  At  Memphis 
they  were  caught  in  the  churning  wake  of  a  steamboat,  and 
washed  under  a  wharf,  where  for  some  time  they  bobbed  up 
and  down  together  among  the  piles.  As  the  steamer  backed  out 
into  the  stream,  and  its  wash  leveled  down,  they  floated  free 
again.  Then,  and  for  the  first  time,  the  Apple  Core  spoke,  and 
said,  cheerfully,  "We  are  having  an  eventful  voyage."  But  the 
Dead  Rat  lifted  its  aristocratic  nose  in  scorn  at  this  approach 
to  familiarity,  and  asked,  "Where  do  you  get  that  'we'  stuff?" 

Abraham  Lincoln  never  heard  this  story,  and  the  modern  slang 
of  it  would  have  been  unfamiliar  to  him ;  but  he  was  not  too 
fastidious  to  have  enjoyed  hearing  and  telling  this  modern 
^Esopian  tale,  and  he  would  have  instantly  recognized  its  moral. 

He  was  a  piece  of  driftwood.  But  driftwood  is  not  all  alike. 
John  Hanks  and  John  D.  Johnston  floated  down  the  same  stream 
and  stuck  on  the  same  dam  with  Lincoln.  Neither  John  Hanks 
nor  John  D.  Johnston  impressed  Denton  Offutt  as  a  man  with 
whom  he  would  like  to  negotiate  a  permanent  relationship. 

But  what  would  have  happened  to  Abraham  Lincoln  if  there 
had  been  no  dam  at  New  Salem?  The  flat-boat  would  have 
floated  more  or  less  proudly  past  that  enterprising  settlement, 


*Herndon,  i,  79. 


THE  DRIFTWOOD  AXD  THE  DAM  157 

nor  dropped  anchor  till  it  reached  the  farm  of  Squire  Godbey, 
several  miles  below,  where  there  were  live  hogs  to  load.  But 
there  was  a  dam  at  New  Salem,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  lodged 
there  on  the  nineteenth  day  of  April  in  the  year  of  our  Lord, 
1831. 

Leave  the  boat  for  a  moment,  with  its  snub-nose  pushed  out 
over  the  dam,  waiting  for  some  one  to  bring  a  borrowed  auger 
from  the  mill  for  Abraham  Lincoln  to  accomplish  the  boring  of 
a  hole  which,  by  means  which  no  one  quite  understands,  is  to 
let  out  the  bilge  water  and  enable  the  boat  to  float  free  over  the 
dam.  And  consider  for  a  moment  the  significance  of  that  dam  at 
this  moment  in  the  career  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

If  any  event  in  human  history  had  occurred  otherwise  than 
it  did,  very  many  subsequent  events,  some  of  them  very  remote, 
would  have  happened  far  otherwise  than  they  did,  or  would  not 
have  happened  at  all.  If  Arlotta,  the  tanner's  daughter,  had  re- 
mained at  home  on  a  particular  morning  to  prepare  her  father's 
noonday  meal,  instead  of  going  with  the  other  maidens  of  Falaise 
to  wash  the  family  linen  in  the  village  brook  there  would  have 
been  no  William  the  Conqueror,  and  the  whole  history  of  Eu- 
rope since  1066,  and  that  of  America  from  the  time  of  England V 
first  explorations  of  the  coast,  would  have  been  profoundly  modi- 
fied. If  Concord  Creek  had  proved  in  the  summer  of  1828  a 
stream  with  as  good  a  flow  of  water  as  appeared  certain  in  the 
spring  of  that  year,  the  Reverend  James  M.  Cameron  would  have 
been  content  with  the  little  mill  he  established  there,  and  he  and 
James  Rutledge  would  not  have  founded  the  city  of  Xew  Salem. 

James  M.  Cameron  was  born  in  Kentucky  in  1791,  a  son  of 
Thomas  Cameron  and  his  wife  Xancy  Miller,  who  was  a  sister 
of  Mary  Ann  Miller,  wife  of  James  Rutledge.  Rutledge  was  ten 
years  older  than  Cameron,  but  still  was  by  marriage  Cameron's 
uncle.  Cameron  was  a  Cumberland  Presbyterian,  product  of  the 
revival  preaching  of  Reverend  James  McGready.* 


*The  founder  of  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church  spelled  his  name 
McGready.  James  McGrady  Rutledge  and  the  Rutledge  family,  generally, 
adopted  the  shorter  spelling.- 


158  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  Cumberland  Presbyterian  system  combined  the  Presby- 
terian form  of  government  with  a  rejection  of  the  Presbyterian 
Calvinistic  theology.  It  also  emphasized  the  spiritual  as  over 
against  the  intellectual  qualities  of  the  older  Presbyterial  faith  as 
essential  to  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.  Of  this  faith  Cameron 
became  a  preacher.  Cameron  was  a  man  of  great  physical 
strength  and  of  upright  life.* 

James  Rutledge  was  born  in  South  Carolina,  but,  moving 
westward,  came  under  the  same  religious  influence  which  deter- 
mined the  career  of  Cameron.  He  was  married  to  Mary  Ann 
Miller  by  Reverend  James  McGready,  January  25,  1808.  Rut- 
ledge  was  a  man  of  distinguished  family  connections,  a  man  of 
generous  nature  and  impulsive  kindness,  given  to  hospitality, 
and  sincerely  religious. t  Cameron  and  Rutledge  both  entered 
land  on  Sand  Ridge  in  that  part  of  Sangamon  which  is  now 
Menard  County,  Illinois,  February  8,  1828,  and  Cameron  be- 
gan his  mill  on  Concord  Creek.  The  neighborhood  was  attrac- 
tive. The  people  were  nearly  all  Cumberland  Presbyterians,  the 
old  Concord  Church  having  already  been  established  by  Reverend 
John  McCutcheon  Berry,  father  of  the  worthless  William  F. 
Berry  who  was  later  Lincoln's  partner.  The  church  was  located, 
not  where  the  building  now  stands,  but  more  than  a  mile  from 
there,  on  the  farm  of  McGrady  Rutledge,  a  nephew  of  James. 
The  neighborhood  seemed  ideal  to  these  devout  people,  and  they 
would  have  been  content  to  live  and  die  there  if  the  water  of 
Concord  Creek  had  proved  adequate. f 


*After  the  failure  of  New  Salem,  Cameron  and  his  family  moved  to 
Fulton  County,  Illionois,  and  thence  to  Iowa.  They  went  to  California  in 
1849.     Mrs.  Cameron  died  there  in  1875,  and  her  husband  in   1878. 

fjames  Rutledge  died  December  3,  1835,  in  the  Cameron  house  on  Sand 
Ridge,  which,  as  also  his  own  house  and  farm  in  that  locality,  had  become 
the  property  of  John  McNamar.  His  widow  and  her  children  moved  to 
Fulton  County,  Illinois,  and  later  to  Birmingham,  Iowa,  where  she  died 
aged  ninety-one,  December  26,  1878,  in  the  home  of  her  daughter,  Nancy 
Rutledge  Prewitt.     Mary  Ann   (Miller)   Rutledge  was  born  October  21,  1787. 

$John  McCutcheon  Berry  was  born  in  Virginia,  March  22,  1788.  He  was 
a  soldier  in  the  War  of  1812.  He  was  licensed  to  preach  by  Logan  Presby- 
tery in  Tennessee  in  1819,  and  ordained  by  the  same  body  in  1822.  He  re- 
moved to  Illinois   immediately  after  his  ordination,  and   settled  in   the  Rock 


THE  DRIFTWOOD  AND  THE  DAM  159 

But  the  summer  of  1828  proved  to  their  sad  satisfaction  that 
Concord  Creek  was  no  place  for  a  mill;  and  so,  holding  to  their 
farms  on  Sand  Ridge,  Cameron  and  Rutledge  entered  a  new 
tract  of  land,  July  29,  1828,  and  there  projected  their  ambitious 
scheme. 

This  new  venture  had  nothing  less  than  the  damming  of  the 
mighty  Sangamon  itself,  and  establishing  upon  its  banks  a  new 
and  ideal  community,  with  a  Biblical  name,  being  indeed  no 
other  than  the  ancient  name  of  Jerusalem. 

Considerations  of  utility  had  their  place  in  the  selection  of 
the  site  of  New  Salem,  but  neither  Cameron  nor  Rutledge  could 
have  been  blind  to  the  beauty  of  the  spot.  The  Sangamon  flow- 
ing through  level  meadows  varied  with  forests  of  oak,  ash,  hick- 
ory and  basswood,  winds  a  portion  of  its  way  between  bluffs  that 
on  one  side  reach  a  height  of  a  hundred  feet.  The  stream,  flow- 
ing northwesterly,  makes  a  westward  bend  and  strikes  this  bluff 
and  is  deflected  in  an  abrupt  northward  turn,  then  winds  around 
so  that  with  an  inflowing  tributary  it  leaves  a  promontory  which 
is  virtually  a  peninsula.  This  elevation  is  two  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  wide  where  it  fronts  the  stream,  and  gradually  widens  until 
it  finds  the  upland  level  of  the  surrounding  country.  Beautiful 
for  situation,  and  a  joy  to  the  beholder,  was  this  new  Mount 
Zion  on  the  sides  of  the  north,  the  city  of  a  new  hope. 

To  dam  the  Sangamon  was  no  small  undertaking.  First  of 
all,  an  act  of  the  Legislature  must  be  secured,  permitting  the 
construction  of  a  dam.  This  proved  not  to  be  a  difficult  under- 
taking, and  was  accomplished  with  surprising  promptness.  Then 
a  thousand  wagon-loads  of  rock  must  be  hauled  and  sunk  in  log 
cribs.     Even  at  the  low  cost  of  labor  in  those  days,  it  was  a 


Creek  precinct  in  1822  or  1823,  organizing  the  Concord  Church  almost  im- 
mediately. In  1838  he  organized  the  Rock  Creek  Church,  and  became  its 
pastor  also.  The  original  members  were  James  Pantier  and  his  wife  Eliza 
(Armstrong)  Pantier,  William  and  James  Rutledge,  and  their  wives,  Samuel 
Berry  and  his  wife.  Cameron  is  not  known  to  have  held  a  regular  pastorate, 
but  exhorted  at  meetings  conducted  by  the  other  ministers,  and  on  occasion 
himself  preached.  Reverend  John  M.  Berry  sorrowed  deeply  over  his  way- 
ward  son. 


160  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

large  task.  But  it  was  accomplished  by  those  two  men  of  courage 
and  hope,  and  a  saw-  and  grist-mill  was  erected  on  the  new  dam. 

On  October  23,  1829,  after  a  full  year  of  strenuous  toil,  the 
town  was  surveyed,  and  on  Christmas  Day  of  the  same  year  a 
post-office  was  established  with  New  Salem  as  a  place  to  be 
recognized  even  in  Washington. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that,  when  that  piece  of  human  drift- 
wood that  bore  the  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln  came  floating 
down  the  Sangamon  on  the  spring  tide  of  183 1,  New  Salem  was 
on  the  map  of  the  world,  and  the  Rutledge  dam  was  a  reality 
which  not  even  a  boat  of  as  flat  a  bottom  and  light  a  draft  as 
that  which  Lincoln  navigated  could  dispute  or  ignore. 

The  whole  population  of  New  Salem  is  said  to  have  assembled 
to  witness  the  predicament  of  the  flat-boat,  and  to  have  been 
impressed  with  the  ingenuity  of  Lincoln,  who,  with  his  trousers 
rolled  up  "about  five  feet,"  as  Rowan  Herndon  affirmed,  em- 
ployed this  effective  method  by  which  the  boat  at  length  floated 
over.  The  affair  occupied  no  little  time,  and  afforded  oppor- 
tunity for  the  beginning  of  pleasant  acquaintanceships. 

As  Lincoln  and  Offutt  discussed  the  matter  on  their  month's 
voyage  down-stream,  and  their  month's  sojourn  in  New  Orleans, 
and  their  week's  journey  by  steamer  up  to  St.  Louis,  it  became 
evident  to  Offutt  that  river  life  was  too  monotonous  for  a  man 
of  his  active  temperament.  He  determined  to  establish  a  center 
from  which  his  genius  could  radiate,  and  on  occasion  move  up 
and  down  the  Sangamon,  but  not  the  length  of  the  larger  streams. 
And  if  he  did  this,  he  must  have  an  associate  who  would  attend 
to  the  home  base  while  he  moved  freely  about,  conducting  the 
large  enterprises  that  became  so  great  a  man.  And  of  all  the 
places  that  he  had  seen,  there  was  none  that  appeared  to  offer 
so  promising  a  future  as  New  Salem,  and  no  man  who  appeared 
to  combine  so  many  of  the  qualities  that  he  required  as  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

Lincoln  participated  in  all  this  discussion,  and  was  deeply  im- 
pressed by  the  sagacity  and  ability  of  Offutt.     The  plan  was 


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THE  DRIFTWOOD  AND  THE  DAM  161 

wholly  to  his  liking.  So  he  tarried  for  a  month  with  his  father 
and  stepmother  in  Coles  County,  and  then  walked  back  to  Xew 
Salem,  where  he  expected  to  meet  Offutt  and  his  goods. 

But  as  Offutt  had  been  detained  in  Springfield,  so  was  he 
detained  in  St.  Louis.  The  goods  were  not  at  Xew  Salem  when 
Lincoln  arrived.  This  did  not  distress  Lincoln.  He  was  fully 
equal  to  any  emergency  that  called  for  leisure.  He  settled  down 
to  wait  for  the  goods,  and  to  become  acquainted  with  New  Salem 
and  its  population. 

From  the  point  of  view  available  from  our  knowledge  of  his 
subsequent  life,  it  is  now  easily  possible  to  see  that  Lincoln  was 
moving  through  a  series  of  experiences  each  one  of  which  was 
advancing  him  toward  the  high  destiny  of  his  ultimate  great- 
ness. But  it  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  this  was  apparent  even  to 
himself  at  the  time  when  these  experiences  occurred. 

The  plastic  material  of  his  life  was  in  process  of  formation, 
and  even  the  mold  in  which  the  Lincoln  of  history  was  to  be  cast 
was  in  process  of  making.  But  the  mold  was  not  the  man.  Y\  nile 
Lincoln  fitted  into  his  environment,  and  took  shape  from  it,  he 
was,  like  every  strong  man,  master  of  the  forces  that  determined 
the  influence  of  his  environment.  Personality  is  still  the  deter- 
mining factor  in  history. 

While  Lincoln  waited  for  Offutt  at  Xew  Salem,  the  August 
election  occurred.  He  was  a  new  arrival,  but  according  to  law 
and  custom  was  entitled  to  vote,  and  vote  he  did.  It  was  Lin- 
coln's first  vote.  He  voted  for  James  Turney  for  Congress. 
Turney  then  or  later  was  a  Whig;  and  he  was  defeated  by  Joseph 
Duncan,  who  was  then  a  Democrat,  but  some  years  later  follow- 
ing his  election  as  governor  of  Illinois,  he  became  a  Whig.  Lin- 
coln voted  for  Robert  Conover  and  Pollard  Simmons  for  justices 
of  the  peace,  and  for  John  Armstrong  and  Henry  Sinco  for 
constables. 

This  election  was  held  in  the  house  of  John  McNeil  August  i, 
183 1,  and  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  McNeil  did  not  vote,  either 
at  that  or  any  subsequent  election  at  New  Salem,  so  far  as  the 


1 62  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

preserved  election  returns  show.  Mentor  Graham,  the  schoolmas- 
ter, was  clerk  of  the  election,  and  he  needed  help.  He  asked  Lin- 
coln if  he  could  write,  and  Lincoln  replied  that  he  was  able  to 
"make  a  few  chicken-tracks."  He  served  as  assistant  clerk  at 
that  election,  and  at  practically  every  subsequent  election  in  New 
Salem,  except  elections  where  he  was  himself  a  candidate.  There 
were  always  two  and  some  times  three  elections  a  year,  in  April, 
August  and  November.  Local  officers  were  elected  in  the 
spring;  the  legislative  election  was  held  in  the  summer;  and  the 
national  election  occurred  in  November.  In  several  of  these 
elections  appeared  the  names  of  Mentor  Graham*  and  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  as  clerks,  and  their  oaths  were  acknowledged  be- 
fore Bowling  Green,  Justice  of  the  Peace. 

No  device  would  have  been  less  popular  in  New  Salem  than 
the  Australian  ballot.  Every  man  walked  up  to  the  polls  and 
announced  orally  the  names  of  the  candidates  for  whom  he  voted. 
As  he  left,  the  judge  of  election  shouted  in  the  ears  of  all  men 
that  John  Doe  had  voted  for  John  Smith  for  governor,  John 
Jones  for  secretary  of  state,  John  Brown  for  state  treasurer,  and 
so  on.  These  votes  were  visibly  recorded  as  cast.  There  were 
no  printed  ballots. 

And  New  Salem  voted.  All  except  John  McNeil,  who,  prob- 
ably not  to  be  confronted  with  unnecessary  documentary  evidence 
of  a  name  about  which  he  did  not  feel  wholly  comfortable,  some- 
how escaped  voting.  John  McNeil  was  partner  with  Samuel 
Hill  in  one  of  New  Salem's  stores.  John  McNeil  was  saving 
money.  Whenever  any  one  had  anything  to  sell  and  needed 
money  badly,  John  McNeil  had  money  to  pay  for  it  at  a  bargain 
price.  He  was  fast  accumulating  more  than  he  counted  prudent 
to  hold  under  an  assumed  name.  He  was  a  prudent  man,  and 
he  did  not  record  his  name  on  the  election  sheet.  So  though  the 
election  was  held  in  the  house  of  John  McNeil,  John  McNeil  did 
not  vote. 


*He  invariably  signed  it  Mentor  Graham ;  not  Minter,  as  it  is  some- 
times printed,  nor  Menton,  as  Nicolay  and  Hay  give  it.  In  the  Appendix 
are  the  complete  Election  Returns   from  the   New    Salem  precinct. 


THE  DRIFTWOOD  AND  THE  DAM  163 

New  Salem  voted.  It  mattered  little  whether  Andrew  Jackson 
was  running  for  the  presidency  or  Jack  Kelso  was  running  for 
constable,  Xew  Salem  did  its  enthusiastic  duty  at  the  polls.  It  is 
practically  possible  to  determine  just  who  was  resident  in  Xew 
Salem  in  any  year  by  the  election  lists.  We  can  learn  just  when 
Doctor  Allen  moved  in  and  when  Hardin  Bale  moved  out  by  a 
study  of  these  documents,  duly  certified  by  Mentor  Graham  and 
Abraham  Lincoln.  Except  that  we  seek  in  vain  to  determine 
just  when  John  McNeil  went  back  to  New  York  State  and  when 
he  reassumed  his  real  name.  We  must  look  elsewhere  for  that 
information,  for  John  McNeil  was  too  cautious  to  vote.  He  was 
saving  money  and  investing  it  discreetly.  He  was  not  indulging 
in  any  bad  habit,  and  certainly  not  in  any  expensive  habit.  And, 
though  he  had  entered  his  land  in  the  name  of  John  McNeil,  he 
was  considering  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  change  it  soon 
and  resume  his  correct  name.  You  will  search  the  polling  lists 
in  vain  for  his  name.  But  the  rest  of  New  Salem's  adult  male 
population  is  on  record  there. 

While  Lincoln  waited  for  the  arrival  of  Offutt,  he  had  op- 
portunity to  use  his  knowledge  of  navigation.  A  Doctor  Nel- 
son who  had  been  for  a  short  time  a  resident  of  Xew  Salem, 
loaded  his  household  goods  upon  a  boat  and  started  down  the 
river,  his  ultimate  destination  being  Texas.  He  desired  and 
obtained  Lincoln's  service  as  pilot  as  far  as  the  mouth  of  the 
Sangamon.  The  river  still  was  reasonably  high,  and  the  task 
of  navigation  was  not  difficult.  Lincoln  piloted  the  boat  as  far 
as  Beardstown,  was  paid  off,  and  honorably  dismissed. 

Good  fortune  further  awaited  him,  for  he  found  at  Beards- 
town  that  Offutt's  goods  had  arrived  from  St.  Louis.  He 
started  walking  back  to  New  Salem  expecting  to  convey  the 
message  to  teamsters  who  had  been  engaged  to  transport  the 
merchandise,  but  met  the  wagon  as  he  journeyed,  the  drivers 
having  already  been  notified.  So  he  returned  to  Xew  Salem 
with  satisfaction. 

Soon  Denton  Offutt  arrived.     On  July  8,   1831,  he  took  out 


1 64  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

his  license  to  sell  goods  in  New  Salem.  On  September  2,  1831. 
he  purchased  a  lot  as  a  site  for  the  erection  of  his  store,  and  he 
and  Lincoln  went  to  work  at  once  to  construct  a  building.  The 
consideration  named  in  the  deed  was  ten  dollars,  which  was  a 
fair  price  for  the  lot. 

Then  the  career  of  Lincoln  and  Offutt  as  merchants  became  a 
reality,  and  Offutt  added  one  enterprise  after  another  until  he 
rented  the  Rutledge  mill,  and  seemed  likely  to  acquire  a  monop- 
oly of  all  the  business  in  New  Salem.  Some  men  of  Offutt's 
type  become  great  captains  of  industry,  and,  having  accumulated 
millions,  go  about  like  roaring  lions  seeking  what  they  may  en- 
dow ;  others  become  bankrupts  and  are  accounted  visionaries  and 
perhaps  frauds.  Offutt  was  a  promoter.  Some  people  did  not 
believe  in  him,  but  Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  one  of  them. 

In  those  days  a  new  arrival  in  a  frontier  town  was  expected 
early  to  define  his  status  in  the  matter  of  physical  strength. 
Lincoln  was  tall,  muscular  and  strong.  He  did  not  like  to  work, 
but  he  was  capable  of  arduous  labor  when  occasion  arose.  He 
did  not  like  to  fight,  but  when  he  fought  he  was  a  dangerous 
antagonist.  Offutt  had  seen  enough  of  Lincoln's  physical 
strength  to  give  him  occasion  to  boast  about  it.  He  informed 
William  Clary,  who  kept  a  saloon  near  the  Offutt  store,  that 
Lincoln  could  outrun,  outlift  and  outwrestle  any  man  in  the 
community.  Clary  represented  a  group  of  men  known  as  the 
"Clary  Grove  boys,"  named  for  a  strip  of  timber  about  six  miles 
distant  from  New  Salem.  The  champion  of  the  group  was 
one  Jack  Armstrong,  the  man  for  whom  Lincoln  had  already 
voted  as  constable.  Clary  and  Offutt  made  a  bet  of  ten  dollars 
on  a  wrestling  match  between  Lincoln  and  Jack  Armstrong. 
Lincoln  is  said  to  have  been  reluctant  to  engage  in  the  match, 
but  he  found  himself  committed  to  it  by  the  boastfulness  of  his 
employer.  He  soon  outmastered  Armstrong,  and  when  the  lat- 
ter attempted  to  win  by  a  foul,  Lincoln  picked  Armstrong  up 
bodily  and  threw  him  heavily  upon  the  ground.  There  was 
some  danger  that  he  might  have  to  fight  the  whole  Clary  Grove 


THE  DRIFTWOOD  AXD  THE  DAM  165 

contingent  in  consequence  of  this  act,  but  his  strength,  courage, 
fairness  and  good  nature  won  for  him  the  admiration  of  the 
crowd,  including  his  contestant,  and  Lincoln  became  the  popular 
hero  of  the  Clary  Grove  boys.  They  became  his  followers  and 
most  enthusiastic  supporters.  Hannah,  Jack  Armstrong's  wife, 
and  the  pre-matrimonial  mother  of  Bowling  Green,  became  a 
sincere  friend  of  Lincoln,  and  he  later  had  occasion  to  reward  her 
well. 

Lincoln  participated  in  several  wrestling  contests  in  Xew 
Salem,  but  not,  so  far  as  is  known,  in  any  fights.  He  was  referee 
in  wrestling  matches,  and  his  decisions  were  accepted  on  both 
sides  as  fair. 

The  early  spring  of  1832  still  further  increased  Lincoln's  pop- 
ularity by  his  successful  piloting  of  the  steamboat  Talisman  up 
the  Sangamon  from  Beardstown  to  Springfield.  Captain  A. 
Vincent  Bogue,  of  Springfield,  went  to  Cincinnati,  where  he 
procured  the  steamer,  and  her  ascent  of  the  Mississippi  and  the 
Illinois  was  hailed  with  delight.  The  prosperity  of  Springfield, 
Xew  Salem  and  other  towns  along  the  Sangamon  was  believed 
to  depend  on  the  navigability  of  the  river.  The  actual  ascent  of 
the  Sangamon  River  by  a  steamboat  was  expected  to  proA'e  be- 
yond possibility  of  doubt,  not  only  that  the  river  was  navigable, 
but  that  all  towns  located  upon  it  had  before  them  a  career  of 
great  prosperity.  A  number  of  citizens  of  Springfield  and  other 
Sangamon  towns  went  down  to  Beardstown  to  meet  the  vessel 
as  she  came  from  the  Illinois  into  the  Sangamon.  Some  of 
these  carried  axes  with  long  handles  to  cut  away  the  branches  of 
trees  along  the  banks  of  the  Sangamon.  Lincoln  accompanied 
the  group,  and  having  acquired  a  reputation  as  a  navigator  of 
rivers,  he  and  Rowan  Herndon  were  employed  as  pilots.  At  the 
rate  of  about  four  miles  a  day  the  Talisman  ascended  the  nar- 
row stream.  Like  Lincoln's  flat-boat,  she  stuck  at  the  Rutledge 
dam,  but  tore  away  a  part  of  it  and  got  across.  The  damage 
done  at  the  dam  raised  a  vigorous  protest  from  Cameron  and 
Rutledge.  but  it  does  not  appear  to  have  disturbed  their  kindly 


1 66  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

relations  with  Lincoln.  The  vessel  found  safe  anchorage  at 
Springfield,  or  at  the  point  where  the  Sangamon  most  nearly 
approached  that  city.  Celebrations  were  held,  and  the  river 
towns  indulged  in  a  boom.  A  great  ball  was  given  in  Springfield 
to  the  captain  of  the  Talisman  and  his  right  good  crew.*  The 
Talisman  succeeded  in  making  her  way  back  down  the  river,  but 
had  a  warm  controversy  on  hand  with  Rutledge  and  Cameron 
for  damage  done  to  their  dam. 

The  attempt  to  prove  that  the  Sangamon  was  a  navigable 
stream  succeeded  theoretically  but  failed  practically.  The  people 
of  Springfield  shouted  themselves  hoarse  and  declared  that 
henceforth  that  city  "could  no  longer  be  considered  an  inland 
town."  Captain  Bogue  accepted  with  satisfaction  all  the  honors 
thrust  upon  him.  He  knew  they  were  the  last  that  would  ever 
accrue  from  that  source.  He  remained  in  Springfield  while  the 
feasting  lasted,  and  then  prudently  sailed  his  boat  back  down- 
stream, and  left  the  subsequent  navigation  of  the  Sangamon  to 
other  adventurers,  of  whom  there  were  not  many. 

Lincoln  earned  forty  dollars  and  considerable  glory  by  his 
share  in  this  apparently  successful  undertaking.  He  walked  back 
from  Beardstown  to  New  Salem  with  his  money  in  his  pocket, 
richer  in  purse  and  reputation  than  he  had  been  before  since  his 
arrival  at  the  village.  But  the  Talisman  never  came  back  up  the 
river.  Not  long  afterward  she  was  burned  at  the  dock  in  St. 
Louis.  Suits  in  attachment  were  filed  against  Captain  Bogue, 
who  prudently  disappeared.  One  other  attempt  to  navigate  the 
river  was  made,  this  one  by  the  steamboat  Utility.  She  did  not 
succeed  in  getting  above  the  dam,  but  remained  at  New  Salem 
and  was  sold  and  broken  up.  Gradually  it  became  clear  even  to 
the  most  optimistic  proponent  of  the  thesis  that  the  Sangamon 
was  a  navigable  stream  that  this  claim  must  be  abandoned.  Lin- 
coln and  Rowan  Herndon,  with  their  forty  dollars  apiece,  were 
the  only  men  who  made  any  money  out  of  the  navigability  of  the 
Sangamon.     But  a  note  which  Lincoln  gave  to  Captain  Vincent 


*Herndon  says  that  Lincoln  was  not  invited  to  the  ball. 


THE  DRIFTWOOD  AXD  THE  DAM  167 

A.  Bogue.  on  which  Lincoln  was  afterward  sued,  raises  a  ques- 
tion whether  Lincoln  did  not  subscribe  to  the  enterprise  more 
money  than  he  got  out  of  it. 

During  Lincoln's  employment  by  Offutt  it  appears  that  his 
work  was  largely  at  the  mill.  In  the  announcement  of  his  can- 
didacy for  the  Legislature,  March  9,  1832,  he  said: 

From  my  peculiar  circumstances,  it  is  probable  that  for  the 
last  twelve  months  I  have  given  as  particular  attention  to  the 
stage  of  the  water  in  this  river  as  any  other  person  in  the  coun- 
try. In  the  month  of  March,  1831,  in  company  with  others,  I 
conceived  the  building  of  a  flat-boat  on  the  Sangamon,  and  fin- 
ished and  took  her  out  in  the  course  of  the  spring.  Since  that 
time,  I  have  been  concerned  in  the  mill  at  Xew  Salem.  These 
circumstances  are  sufficient  evidence  that  I  have  not  been  very 
inattentive  to  the  stages  of  the  water. 

His  future  hopes,  commercial  and  political,  depended  upon  the 
navigability  of  the  Sangamon. 

Misfortunes  never  come  singly.  Importunate  creditors  began 
to  press  the  optimistic  Offutt,  and  he  had  no  money  to  pay  them. 
Whatever  his  qualifications  in  the  sphere  of  finance,  they  were 
not  such  as  fitted  him  to  settle  down  to  the  keeping  of  a  country 
store,  and  Lincoln,  to  whom  he  had  trusted  local  matters,  was 
not  a  successful  merchant.  There  were  too  many  stores  in  Xew 
Salem  for  its  population  and  that  of  Offutt,  located  near  the  ex- 
pected steamboat  wharf,  was  farthest  from  the  main  source  of 
revenue,  if  New  Salem  had  to  depend  on  commerce  from  the 
landward  side.  There  came  a  sad  day  when  Offutt  had  to  con- 
fess that  he  could  not  meet  his  bills.  His  creditors  took  over  his 
stock;  Cameron  and  Rutledge  took  back  their  mill,  and  Offutt 
departed,  never  to  return  to  New  Salem. 

Doubtless  his  competitors  and  other  wise  men  of  New  Salem 
were  ready  to  affirm  that  they  had  felt  sure  all  the  time  that 
Offutt  was  too  much  of  a  braggart  to  be  a  good  business  man. 
Offutt's  name  after  his  downfall  was  held  in  little  regard  in  New 
Salem.     In  the  day  of  his  glory  it  might  have  stood  against  all 


1 68  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

competitors,  but  after  his  failure  there  was  none  so  poor  to  do 
him  reverence.  But  Lincoln  parted  from  him  in  real  sorrow. 
Whatever  losses  others  had  suffered  through  trusting  him,  Lin- 
coln knew  that  Offutt  had  rendered  him  a  lasting  service.  He 
had  given  Lincoln  a  larger  vision  of  life  and  inspired  him  with 
a  new  confidence  in  his  own  powers. 

Offutt  was  heard  from  in  New  Salem  now  and  again.  He 
went  south,  and  devoted  his  energies  to  the  training  of  wild 
and  refractory  horses.  He  gave  public  exhibitions  of  his  own 
skill  in  subduing  horses  brought  to  him,  and  then  imparted  the 
secret  to  farmers  at  five  dollars  each,  requiring  an  oath  not  to 
reveal  the  secret.  It  was  said  that  he  had  a  magic  word  that  he 
whispered  in  the  horse's  ear.  A  modern  psychologist  might  ex- 
plain the  potency  of  this  word  by  the  reflex  action  upon  the  farm- 
er, giving  him  new  confidence  which  the  beast  felt  and  sub- 
mitted to.  It  was  said  that  Offutt  went  from  town  to  town, 
and  appearing  on  the  street,  wore  over  his  well  cut  coat  a  sash 
that  decorated  his  right  shoulder  and  fastened  with  a  rosette 
under  his  left  arm.  Wherever  he  went,  he  was  a  life-sized  ad- 
vertisement of  Denton  Offutt. 

It  is  pleasant  to  be  able  to  add  one  authentic  incident  to  those 
on  record  concerning  Denton  Offutt.  In  the  year  1856  a  young 
man  from  Petersburg  named  Thomas  W.  McNeeley,  went 
south  to  teach  a  select  school  on  a  Mississippi  plantation.  On  a 
Saturday  he  went  with  his  employer  to  the  town  of  Woodworth 
some  miles  away,  a  part  of  the  attraction  being  the  exhibition 
advertised  to  be  given  by  a  tamer  of  wild  horses.  Each  planter 
who  had  a  vicious  horse  took  him  to  town,  and  the  tamer  had 
remarkable  success  with  them  all.  He  used  his  whip  and  spur 
very  sparingly ;  but  began  with  a  little  preliminary  petting,  then 
whispered  something  in  the  horse's  ear  and  mounted.  The 
planters  knew  their  own  and  each  other's  horses  and  knew  that 
whatever  Offutt's  secret  might  be,  there  was  no  question  about 
his  control  over  the  animals  he  rode.  Five-dollar  notes  in  con- 
siderable numbers  went  to  his  hospitable  pockets,  and  Offutt  im- 


THE  DRIFTWOOD  AND  THE  DAM  169 

parted  his  secret  to  each  man  who  paid  him.  Whether  the  farm- 
ers got  their  money's  worth  may  have  depended  on  whether 
they  approached  men  and  horses  with  the  same  happy  assurance 
that  characterized  Offutt. 

After  the  exhibition  was  over  McNeeley  sought  Offutt,  whose 
name  he  had  often  heard,  and  told  him  that  he  was  from  Peters- 
burg, and  knew  many  people  whom  Offutt  had  known.  Offutt 
expressed  great  delight  in  meeting  him,  and  inquired  about  his 
old  neighbors,  and  especially  about  Lincoln,  of  whom  he  had 
heard  now  and  then.  McXeeley  told  him  that  Lincoln  had  be- 
come quite  a  famous  man  in  central  Illinois,  and  Offutt  was  quite 
ready  to  believe  it.  He  sent  a  verbal  message  to  Lincoln.  Soon 
after  his  return  to  Petersburg,  the  young  man  had  occasion  to 
ride  over  to  Springfield,  and  seeking  out  a  friend  who  had  an 
office  in  the  court-house  he  asked  for  an  introduction  to  Lin- 
coln. Lincoln  welcomed  news  from  Offutt,  and  greatly  enjoyed 
the  story  of  Offutt's  performance.  The  young  man  still  had 
his  message  to  deliver,  and,  as  he  talked  with  Lincoln,  he  had  a 
growing  reluctance  to  deliver  it ;  for  he  began  to  fear  that  Lin- 
coln would  be  displeased  with  a  message  that  reflected  on  his  own 
profession.     Said  he : 

"Mr.  Offutt  gave  me  a  message  to  deliver  to  you,  but  I 
hardly  know  whether  I  ought  to  deliver  it  or  not." 

"Tell  it  to  me,"  said  Lincoln.  "Tell  it  just  as  Offutt  said 
it." 

"He  told  me  to  say  to  you,  Tell  Lincoln  to  get  out  of  his  ras- 
cally business  of  politics  and  law,  and  do  something  honest,  like 
taming  horses.'  " 

Lincoln  laughed  immoderately  at  this  word  from  his  old 
friend : 

"That's  Offutt,"  he  said.     "That's  just  like  Offutt." 

Lincoln,  out  of  employment,  or  soon  to  become  so,  decided  to 
enter  politics.  That  was  a  simple  matter  in  1832.  One  had  no 
need  to  wait  for  nomination  by  convention ;  nor  did  a  man  feel 


170  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

shame  in  publishing  in  the  local  newspapers  an  announcement 
that  he  was  a  candidate.  A  candidate  was  expected  to  declare  his 
convictions,  and  it  was  the  custom  to  issue  a  circular  setting" 
forth  the  candidate's  principles.  This  Lincoln  proceeded  to  do 
in  a  circular  probably  printed  in  Springfield,  and  bearing  date 
of  March  9,  1832.  In  this  declaration  of  principles  he  under- 
took to  discuss  the  leading  questions  of  the  day  as  understood 
by  his  constituents.  Although  he  had  been  reared  a  Jackson 
Democrat,  he  favored  national  banks,  which  was  a  distinctive  test 
of  the  Whigs.  Yet  one  does  not  discover  in  his  political  career 
any  indications  that  his  principles  at  this  time  were  those  which 
distinguished  the  Whigs  from  the  Locofoco  Democrats.  He 
favored  a  high  protective  tariff,  and  of  course,  was  an  ardent 
advocate  of  internal  improvements  and  river  navigation.  This 
wras  Lincoln's  strong  point.  He  favored  a  law  against  usury; 
but  considering  that  men  who  had  the  most  need  of  money  could 
not  obtain  it  unless  they  paid  usurious  interest,  he  wrote  this 
amazing  paragraph: 

In  cases  of  extreme  necessity,  there  could  always  be  found 
means  to  cheat  the  law ;  while  in  all  other  cases  it  would  have  its 
intended  effect.  I  would  favor  the  passage  of  a  law  on  this  sub- 
ject which  might  not  be  very  easily  evaded.  Let  it  be  such  that 
the  labor  and  difficulty  of  evading  could  only  be  justified  in 
cases  of  the  greatest  necessity.* 

From  this  and  other  portions  of  his  circular,  it  is  evident  that 
Lincoln  had  not  thought  through  all,  or  perhaps  any,  of  the  ques- 
tions which  in  this  first  political  pronunciamento,  he  felt  com- 
pelled to  discuss.  The  remarkable  fact  is,  not  that  his  letter  an- 
nouncing his  candidacy  was  a  crude  performance,  but  that  it  was 
not  far  more  crude.  It  can  but  surprise  us  to  remember  that  this 
uncouth  backwoodsman,  barely  twenty-three  years  of  age,  who 


*John  McNeil,  subsequently  known  by  his  true  name  of  John  McNamar, 
later  professed  to  have  assisted  Lincoln  in  preparing  this  circular.  I  think 
the  statement  not  wholly  untruthful,  and  it  is  my  opinion  that  this  para- 
graph on  money  shows  the  influence  of  John  McNamar. 


THE  DRIFTWOOD  AND  THE  DAM  171 

less  than  a  year  before  had  stepped  off  a  flat-boat  into  New 
Salem,  should  have  announced  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the 
General  Assembly.  He  proclaimed  himself  as  in  favor  of  edu- 
cation, which  he  called  the  most  important  subject  before  the 
people.  He  believed  that  every  man,  no  matter  how  poor,  should 
be  able  to  procure  for  himself  and  his  children  at  least  sufficient 
education  "to  read  the  Scriptures  and  other  works  both  of  a 
moral  and  religious  nature."  The  concluding  paragraphs  of  his 
address  are  the  most  personal  and  most  interesting  part  of  this 
strange  but  remarkable  document.  They  have  in  them  real 
promise  of  the  Lincoln  of  the  future. 

But,  fellow-citizens,  I  shall  conclude.  Considering  the  great 
degree  of  modesty  which  should  always  attend  youth,  it  is 
probable  I  have  already  been  more  presuming  than  becomes  me. 
However,  upon  the  subjects  of  which  I  have  treated,  I  have 
spoken  as  I  have  thought.  I  may  be  wrong  in  regard  to  any  or 
all  of  them;  but,  holding  it  as  a  sound  maxim  that  it  is  better 
only  sometimes  to  be  right  than  at  all  times  to  be  wrong,  so  soon 
as  I  discover  my  opinions  to  be  erroneous,  I  shall  be  ready  to  re- 
nounce them. 

Every  man  is  said  to  have  his  peculiar  ambition.  Whether  it 
be  true  or  not,  I  can  say,  for  one,  that  I  have  no  other  so  great 
as  that  of  being  truly  esteemed  of  my  fellow-men  by  rendering 
myself  worthy  of  their  esteem.  How  far  I  shall  succeed  in 
gratifying  this  ambition  is  yet  to  be  developed.  I  am  young, 
and  unknown  to  many  of  you.  I  was  born,  and  have  ever  re- 
mained, in  the  most  humble  walks  of  life.  I  have  no  wealth  or 
popular  relations  or  friends  to  recommend  me.  My  case  is 
thrown  exclusively  upon  the  independent  voters  of  the  county; 
and,  if  elected,  they  will  have  conferred  a  favor  upon  me  for 
which  I  shall  be  unremitting  in  my  labors  to  compensate.  But 
if  the  good  people  in  their  wisdom  shall  see  fit  to  keep  me  in 
the  background,  I  have  been  too  familiar  with  disappointments 
to  be  very  much  chagrined. 

But  hardly  had  Lincoln  announced  his  candidacy  for  the  Legis- 
lature when  an  event  occurred  which,  if  it  did  not  modify,  at 
least  postponed  his  adventure  into  politics. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    BLACK    HAWK    WAR 
APRIL- JULY,     1832 

This  earth  has  no  nook  or  cranny  where  savagery  may  lurk 
secure  from  the  ultimate  inrush  of  progress.  Civilization  ad- 
vances upon  savagery  with  a  pistol  in  its  belt  and  a  pill-box  in  its 
pocket,  a  Bible  in  one  hand  and  a  bottle  of  rum  in  the  other. 
Savagery  has  its  choice,  but  it  must  be  civilized  by  the  one  meth- 
od or  the  other,  or  move  beyond  the  borders  of  the  map.  This 
is  a  painful  process,  often  fatal  to  the  savage  and  demoralizing 
to  the  man  who  undertakes  to  civilize  him.  What  Kipling  calls 
"the  White  Man's  Burden"  is  indeed  a  burden.  It  is  the  burden 
of  making  the  world  safe  for  civilization ;  and  that  process  goes 
on  more  rapidly  than  the  process  of  making  civilization  safe  for 
the  world.  All  in  all  we  pay  a  high  price  for  what  we  call  culture. 
Said  Thoreau,  "We  exterminate  the  deer,  and  we  cultivate  the 
hog."    That  is  only  a  part  of  what  we  do. 

The  American  Indian  is  the  most  picturesque  savage  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  The  French  managed  to  live  among  the  In- 
dians more  successfully  than  the  English  and  Americans  have 
even  yet  learned  to  do.  From  the  beginning  the  English  immi- 
grants regarded  the  Indians  with  terror  and  hatred;  and  the 
story  of  their  relationships  has  been  long  and  bloody,  and  it  does 
not  make  pleasant  reading. 

Black  Hawk  was  in  many  respects  a  truly  noble  red  man.  He 
compels  the  reluctant  admiration  of  the  student  of  history.  Long 
after  the  white  man  had  settled  in  Southern  Illinois,  scorning  the 
treeless   prairies   of   the   northern   portion   of   the    state,    Black 

172 


THE  BLACK  HAWK  WAR  173 

Hawk  lived  secure  in  the  Rock  River  country,  and  came  and 
went,  and  believed  that  territory  to  be  his  own.  He  had  what 
Fitz  Greene  Halleck  attributed  to  Red  Jacket — 

4 'Love  for  thy  land  as  if  she  were  thy  daughter," 
without  possessing  to  quite  the  same  degree  Red  Jacket's 
"Hatred   of  missionaries  and   cold   water." 

The  time  came  when  Black  Hawk  and  the  white  man  could 
not  equally  own  the  Rock  River  country,  and  then  came  the 
trouble. 

Black  Hawk,  whose  Indian  name  as  given  in  his  Autobiography 
was  Ma-ka-tai-she-kia-kiak,  was  born  in  1767,  on  the  north  bank 
of  the  Rock  River,  about  three  miles  above  where  it  empties  into 
the  Mississippi.  Illinois  has  few  spots  more  beautiful.  Black 
Hawk  was  a  full-blooded  Sac  Indian,  five  feet  and  eleven  inches 
tall  in  his  moccasins,  rather  broad  and  very  powerful,  but  slender, 
weighing  only  about  one  hundred  forty  pounds.  He  had  a  high 
forehead  and  a  Roman  nose,  high  cheek-bones  and  a  sharp  chin. 
The  height  of  the  forehead  was  emphasized  by  the  plucking  of 
the  hair  from  the  entire  scalp  except  the  scalp-lock,  in  which  he 
wore  a  bunch  of  eagle  feathers.  His  mouth  was  full,  and  tended 
to  remain  open.  At  fifteen  he  distinguished  himself  by  wound- 
ing an  enemy,  and  thenceforth  became  a  brave,  and  was  per- 
mitted to  paint  and  to  wear  feathers.  In  1783  he  took  his  first 
scalp,  and  had  a  share  in  the  scalp-dance.  From  this  time  on  he 
kept  his  tomahawk  red. 

By  the  Treaty  of  1804,  the  Illinois  lands  of  the  Sacs  were 
ceded  to  the  United  States  Government.  Black  Hawk  maintained 
that  the  Indians  who  signed  this  treaty  had  no  authority  to  do 
so.  Moreover,  he  maintained,  his  reason  taught  him  that  land 
could  not  be  sold :  the  Great  Spirit  gave  it  to  his  children  for 
their  equal  enjoyment.  Black  Hawk,  if  he  were  now  living,  could 
find  many  men  of  learning  who   would  share  his  view.      The 


174  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Indians  removed  beyond  the  Mississippi,  but  were  accustomed  to 
return  every  year,  to  follow  up  the  Rock  River,  and  spend  some 
time  at  their  old  village  near  its  mouth.  There  was  the  grave 
of  Black  Hawk's  daughter;  and  there  he  mourned  long  for  her. 

"The  white  people  brought  whiskey  to  our  village,"  said  Black 
Hawk  in  his  Autobiography,  "they  made  our  people  drunk  and 
cheated  them  out  of  their  horses,  guns  and  traps.  I  visited  all 
the  whites  and  begged  them  not  to  sell  my  people  whiskey.  One 
of  them  continued  the  practise  openly;  I  took  a  party  of  my 
young  men,  went  to  his  house,  broke  in  the  head  of  the  barrel, 
and  poured  out  the  whiskey.  I  did  this  for  fear  some  of  the 
whites  might  get  killed  by  my  people  when  they  were  drunk."* 

The  white  people  also  had  their  grievances,  and  very  real  ones. 
They  were  endeavoring  to  make  homes  on  land  which  they  had 
preempted  from  the  government,  to  which  it  had  been  conveyed 
by  treaty  from  the  Indians.  And  when  the  break  came,  it  was 
bloody  and  cruel. f 

The  year  1831  brought  increasing  friction  between  the  Indians 
and  white  men.  In  the  spring  of  1832  it  became  evident  not  only 
that  Black  Hawk  would  return  to  the  lands  from  which  the 
treaty  and  subsequent  orders  had  'prohibited  his  occupation,  but 
that  he  was  organizing  for  war.  On  April  16,  1832,  Governor 
John  Reynolds  issued  a  call  for  the  militia  of  the  State  of  Illi- 
nois to  rendezvous  at  Beardstown  on  the  twenty-second.  The 
governor  himself,  proud  of  a  military  career  and  the  popular 
soubriquet  of  "the  Old  Ranger,"  accompanied  the  expedition 
whose  purpose  was  to  move  from  the  southern  and  central  por- 
tions of  the  state,  where  the  population  chiefly  was,  into  the 
Rock   River  country,   and  to   drive   the   Indians  back   to   their 


* Autobiography  of  Black  Hawk,  p.  73. 

tThis  work  attempts  no  history  of  the  Black  Hawk  War.  Its  story  has 
been  written  by  others.  Honorable  Perry  A.  Armstrong  wrote  it  in  a  spirit 
of  sincere  appreciation  of  the  Indian's  wrongs,  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
the  white  man.  A  more  discriminating  work  is  that  by  Frank  E.  Stevens. 
The  Autobiography  of  Black  Hawk,  in  which  the  editor,  J.  B.  Patterson, 
modestly  called  himself  the  ?manuensis,  must  owe  not  a  little  to  the  editor; 
but  it  is  a  work  of  remarkable  interest. 


THE  BLACK  HAWK  WAR  175 

reservation  across  the  Mississippi.  Black  Hawk  came  for  war, 
and  he  began  at  once  his  movement  up  the  Rock  River.  The 
troops  gathered  at  Dixon,  where  the  pioneer  John  Dixon  had  a 
ferry.  The  first  fight  was  at  Stillman  Valley,  and  resulted  in 
the  killing  of  eleven  white  men,  and  the  precipitate  retreat  of  the 
rest  back  to  Dixon.  Then  came  the  Indian  Creek  massacre,  and 
the  captivity  of  the  Hall  sisters,  and  the  attack  on  Apple  River. 
In  the  first  conflicts  the  Indians  had  matters  their  own  way.  The 
stories  of  their  atrocities  terrified  the  settlers,  and  gave  to  Illi- 
nois a  fright  that  was  hardly  less  than  a  panic.  But  the  war  had 
begun,  and  it  could  have  but  one  end. 

The  events  connected  with  the  Black  Hawk  War  appear  small 
through  the  mists  of  the  years.  A  forlorn  band  of  Indians 
undertook  a  completely  hopeless  attempt  to  win  back  their  land 
by  bloodshed,  and  they  went  down  to  inevitable  defeat.  It 
might  seem  to  us  that  no  community  living  a  day's  march  out- 
side the  actual  field  of  probable  encounter  need  have  disturbed 
itself  greatly  over  a  situation  that  must  so  soon  be  settled  and 
in  the  only  way  in  which  it  could  be  settled.  But  that  was  not 
as  matters  looked  in  Illinois  in  1832.  The  settlers  confronted 
what  seemed  to  them  the  most  terrible  uprising  of  Indians  since 
the  massacre  at  Fort  Dearborn.  All  their  hereditary  fear  and 
hatred  of  the  Indians  awoke.  All  the  savage  instincts  which  lie 
dormant  in  the  civilized  breast  broke  forth  with  the  first  sug- 
gestion of  actual  conflict  with  savages.  The  volunteers  were 
filled  with  valor  and  were  ready  to  bring  back  the  scalps  of  as 
many  savages  as  might  be. 

Abraham  Lincoln  had  returned  from  Xew  Orleans,  and  had 
taken  up  his  abode  in  Xew  Salem,  and  distributed  his  hand-bills 
announcing  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature  when  the 
proclamation  of  the  governor  turned  his  thought  toward  a  dif- 
ferent kind  of  employment  and  another  sort  of  glory.  He  vol- 
unteered immediately,  and  so  did  a  considerable  number  of  his 
associates  in  and  about  Xew  Salem.  The  Clary  Grove  gang  was 
there  almost  to  a  man.    An  election  was  held  for  captain.    Will- 


176  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

iam  Kirkpatrick,  the  man  for  whom  Lincoln  had  worked  in  a 
saw-mill  as  the  Offutt  flat-boat  was  in  process  of  construction, 
and  who  had  treated  Lincoln  ungenerously  in  the  matter  of  the 
furnishing  of  a  cant-hook  to  lighten  his  labor,  was  a  candidate. 
Lincoln  entered  the  lists  against  him,  and  had  the  great  joy  of 
winning.  No  victory  in  later  life  ever  gave  him  so  much  satis- 
faction. Lincoln's  first  sergeant  was  Jack  Armstrong,  his  early 
rival  in  New  Salem,  and  ever  since  his  thrashing,  Lincoln's  firm 
friend. 

In  the  Black  Hawk  War  Lincoln  may  have  met  Captain  Zach- 
ary  Taylor,  whom  later  he  warmly  supported  as  president  of  the 
United  States.  He  certainly  met  Major  Robert  Anderson,  who 
later  came  into  prominence  as  the  defender  of  Fort  Sumter. 
Persistent  tradition  declares  that  he  was  mustered  into  service  by 
a  young  officer  in  the  Regular  Army,  Lieutenant  Jefferson 
Davis.  This  tradition  has  been  repeated  so  often  it  is  almost 
cruel  to  deny  it.  Lincoln  himself  is  said  to  have  come  to  think 
that  it  might  be  true.  On  May  ninth,  Lincoln's  company  was  sworn 
into  the  service  of  the  United  States  Government  by  General 
Henry  Atkinson.*  Twenty  days  later,  when  he  again  enlisted, 
and  was  sworn  in  at  Ottawa,  it  was  Lieutenant  Robert  Ander- 
son who  administered  the  oath. 

The  end  of  the  Black  Hawk  War  came  in  the  battle  of  Bad 


*Mr.  Stevens  in  his  book  on  the  Black  Hawk  War  reluctantly  disproved 
the  Jefferson  Davis  story,  saying  that  he  gave  it  up  with  great  regret,  as 
his  early  home  was  in  Dixon  and  he  had  heard  and  believed  that  story  all 
his  life.  I  was  born  in  the  same  county.  The  "army  trail"'  through  Knox 
Grove  was  still  visible  in  my  boyhood.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  his  company, 
on  their  first  night  out  of  Ottawa,  May  twenty-seventh,  camped  a  little  south 
and  east  of  my  birthplace.  Shabbona,  the  devoted  friend  of  the  white  man, 
camped  often  on  Bureau  Creek  on  the  land  of  my  grandfather;  and  my 
father  as  a  boy  participated  in  one  wolf-hunt  with  Shabbona,  and  once  after- 
ward, meeting  him  in  Chicago,  went  with  him  to  buy  fish-hooks,  and  fished 
with  him  in  Chicago  River.  Stories  of  the  Black  Hawk  War  were  abundant 
in  my  youth,  three  years  of  which  were  spent  on  the  site  of  Stillman's 
first  battle.  I  would  be  very  glad  to  believe,  what  I  heard  a  hundred  times 
in  my  youth,  that  the  first  time  Abraham  Lincoln  had  occasion  to  make  oath 
that  he  would  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  oath  was 
administered  by  Jefferson  Davis.  But  even  though  the  oath  was  admin- 
istered by  another  officer,  Abraham  Lincoln  kept  his  promise,  and  Jefferson 
Davis  discovered  the  fact. 


THE  BLACK  HAWK  WAR  177 

Axe  in  Wisconsin,  August  1,  1832.  The  Indians  were  sur- 
rounded and  defeated  with  great  slaughter.  Black  Hawk  escaped, 
but  later  was  captured.  The  Indians  were  forever  driven  from 
the  Rock  River  country.  Illinois  became  the  undisputed  land 
of  the  white  man. 

Black  Hawk  made  two  journeys  to  the  East.  He  witnessed  a 
balloon  ascension  in  New  York  City  and  had  a  reception  at 
Philadelphia  and  another  in  Washington.  Thoroughly  impressed 
with  the  vastness  of  the  country  and  the  impossibility  of  the  In- 
dians driving  the  white  man  out  of  it,  he  returned  to  Iowa  where 
a  reservation  had  been  assigned  to  him,  and  was  released  from 
imprisonment.  He  died  in  October,  1838.  It  had  been  well  for 
him  if  he  had  continued  to  remember  the  earnest  protest  which 
he  made  in  earlier  years  against  the  white  man's  furnishing 
liquor  for  the  Indians.  Black  Hawk  now  and  then  in  his  later 
years  was  the  worse  for  drink.  In  his  last  days  his  relations  with 
the  white  man  were  friendly,  but  he  never  forgave  his  Indian 
associate  Keokuk  for  not  standing  by  him  in  his  fight  against 
the  white  man.  Black  Hawk's  widow,  Singing  Bird,  did  not 
long  survive  her  husband. 

Lincoln's  military  experience  was  brief.  His  election  as  cap- 
tain was  confirmed  at  Beardstown,  April  21,  1832.  His  company 
formed  a  part  of  the  fourth  regiment  of  mounted  volun- 
teers in  General  Whitesides'  brigade.  They  moved  from  Beards- 
town  to  Rock  Island,  and  thence  up  Rock  River  to  Dixon,  and 
thence  to  the  site  of  Stillman's  battle  and  defeat  in  Ogle  County. 
Returning  to  Dixon,  they  were  marched  south  to  Ottawa  at  the 
mouth  of  Fox  River,  where,  their  term  of  enlistment  having  ex- 
pired, the  company  was  disbanded  on  May  27,  1832.  Lincoln 
immediately  reenlisted  as  a  private  in  Captain  Alexander  White's 
company,  where  his  name  appears  on  the  roll  as  of  May  twenty- 
sixth.  For  some  reason  Lincoln  did  not  go  out  with  this  company 
but  on  the  following  day  he  enrolled  in  Captain  Elijah  lies'  com- 
pany for  a  period  of  twenty  days.  On  June  sixteenth,  this  com- 
pany was  mustered  out.     On  the  same  day,  Lincoln  reenlisted  in 


V/S  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Captain  Jacob  M.  -Earley's  company.  He  was  honorably  dis- 
charged and  mustered  out  at  Whitewater,  Wisconsin,  July  10, 
1832. 

Lincoln  was  not  in  any  battle.  His  company  arrived  at  Kel- 
logg's  Grove  on  June  twenty-fifth,  shortly  after  a  skirmish  in 
which  five  men  were  killed.  He  helped  to  bury  these  men.  As  a 
disciplinarian  he  was  not  a  pronounced  success.  He  was  once 
arrested  and  deprived  of  his  sword  for  a  day  for  firing  his  gun 
within  fifty  yards  of  camp.  On  another  occasion  he  was  com- 
pelled to  wear  a  wooden  sword  for  two  days  because  some  mem- 
bers of  his  company  broke  into  the  officers'  quarters,  and  con- 
sumed a  quantity  of  liquor  and  were  unable  to  march  with  the 
regiment  on  the  following  morning.  He  himself  afterward  told 
amusing  stories  of  his  own  ignorance  of  military  terms.  Many 
stories,  supposed  to  be  amusing,  are  related  of  this  campaign, 
but  most  of  them  are  spurious.  He  was  not  a  great  soldier;  but 
lie  was  popular  both  as  officer  and  private. 

The  only  incident  which  has  come  down  to  us  out  of  Lincoln's 
military  experience  which  shows  the  full  quality  of  his  manhood, 
relates  to  a  friendly  Indian,  said  to  have  been  Shabbona,  who  had 
come  to  the  camp  with  a  pass  from  General  Cass.  Lincoln's  men 
held  to  the  theory  that  the  only  good  Indian  was  a  dead  one,  and 
proposed  to  kill  this  visitor.  Lincoln  intervened  and  saved  the 
life  of  this  virtuous  and  heroic  chief,  beloved  as  the  white  man's 
friend.  The  undisciplined  hatred  of  the  militia  nearly  cost  him 
his  life,  but  Lincoln's  humanity  and  courage  saved  it.  The  story 
appears  to  be  well  authenticated,  and  it  is  characteristic  of  Lin- 
coln. It  deserves  to  be  true,  and  there  is  good  reason  to  believe 
that  it  is  true. 

On  the  night  preceding  his  final  discharge,  Lincoln's  horse,  a 
borrowed  one,  was  stolen,  and  he  was  obliged  to  walk  from 
Whitewater,  Wisconsin,  to  Dixon,  and  thence  to  Peoria,  except 
as  now  and  then  he  was  helped  by  a  ride  of  a  mile  or  two  by 
some  more  fortunate  friend.  At  Peoria,  he  and  a  comrade,  who 
appears   to  have  been   Major  John  T.    Stuart,   of   Springfield, 


THE  BLACK  HAWK  WAR  179 

bought  a  canoe,  and  paddled  down  the  Illinois  River  to  Havana, 
where  they  sold  the  canoe,  and  walked,  Stuart  to  Springfield  and 
Lincoln  back  to  New  Salem. 

The  Black  Hawk  War  does  not  appear  to  have  been  one  of 
the  great  turning  points  of  Lincoln's  career.  It  was  soon  over, 
and  he  went  back  to  Xew  Salem,  and  took  up  his  then  uneventful 
career  just  where  he  had  left  it.  His  military  experience  did  not 
measurably  enhance  his  political  popularity,  nor  did  it  open  for 
him  any  other  avenue  into  life  than  those  that  were  already  avail- 
able. 

But  the  war  was  not  without  advantage  to  him.  He  made 
friends  who  continued  to  be  his  associates  in  subsequent  years, 
including  his  first  law-partner,  John  T.  Stuart.  He  learned 
something  of  the  handling  of  troops,  and  of  the  difficulties  of 
providing  them  with  munitions  and  supplies.  In  the  Civil  War 
his  scant  but  suggestive  military  experience  came  to  him  and 
sometimes  made  him  wiser  than  his  generals.  It  was  a  small  and 
short  war,  and  at  the  time  it  did  not  seem  greatly  to  have  affected 
the  career  of  Lincoln ;  but  it  had  its  value  in  his  training. 

Lincoln  never  pretended  that  his  enlistment  and  service  in  the 
Black  Hawk  War  was  conclusive  evidence  of  his  patriotism.  Of 
that  patriotism  he  was  able  to  give  other  and  larger  proof.  He 
was  young,  strong,  free  and  unemployed  when  the  call  for  volun- 
teers came,  and  he  did  his  duty.  Years  afterward,  in  Congress, 
he  made  a  speech  in  which  he  talked  humorously  of  his  military 
bravery,  and  told  of  the  blood  he  had  lost  through  mosquito  bites 
in  his  experience  as  a  soldier.  The  experience  was  good  for 
him.  It  gave  him  new  proof  of  his  power  to  command  the  admir- 
ation and  loyal  support  of  men.  It  gave  him  employment  for  a 
few  weeks  when  he  was  out  of  wTork.  It  sent  him  back  to  Xew 
Salem  in  time  for  the  election  which  was  to  determine  whether 
his  first  venture  into  politics  would  be  as  successful  as  his  first 
appearance  as  a  military  leader.  For  Lincoln  was  still  a  candi- 
date for  the  Legislature.  One  only  reference  to  his  campaign  ap- 
pears to  have  been  made  in  the  Springfield  papers,  and  that  was 


180  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

a  statement  that  Captain  Lincoln  was  serving  with  his  company 
in  the  war,  and  had  left  the  issues  of  the  campaign  in  the  hands 
of  his  friends.  That  was  a  safe  place  in  which  to  leave  them, 
even  if  he  could  not  win  his  first  election.  In  the  long  run,  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  ran  little  risk  in  trusting  his  future  to  the  people. 


CHAPTER  XII 

POLITICIAN    AND    POSTMASTER 
l832-l833 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  popular  opprobium  which 
gathered  about  the  memory  of  Denton  Of  futt  in  New  Salem  did 
not  attach  itself  also  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  Of futt's  clerk.  Lincoln 
was  still  popular  in  New  Salem.  That  is  a  significant  fact.  It 
speaks  much  for  his  qualities  of  solid  worth  that  his  association 
with  the  now  discredited  Of  futt  did  not  cause  New  Salem  to 
suggest  to  him  that  he  pack  his  few  belongings  and  leave  when 
Offutt  left.  New  Salem  and  its  Clary  Grove  suburb  had  effec- 
tive ways  of  making  a  suggestion  of  this  character.  New  Salem 
liked  Lincoln,  and  Lincoln  liked  New  Salem.  He  cast  about  for 
employment.  The  commercial  condition  of  New  Salem  offered 
him  no  immediate  opening  as  a  storekeeper,  and  the  river  gave 
him  no  promise  as  a  navigator.  It  was  less  than  a  year  since  he 
first  had  seen  New  Salem,  and  he  had  no  acquaintance  in  the 
legislative  district  outside  of  that  microscopic  municipality,  but 
he  unblushingly  announced  himself  a  candidate  for  the  Legisla- 
ture. Those  do  greatly  err  who  believe  that  at  any  period  in  his 
career  Abraham  Lincoln  was  handicapped  by  modesty. 

Rudyard  Kipling  in  an  address  at  Oxford  in  1924,  cautioned 
the  Rhodes  scholars  then  there  assembled  against  the  infection 
of  weak  souls  with  "the  middle-aged  failings  of  toleration,  im- 
partiality or  broad-mindedness."  There  were  no  such  symptoms 
of  premature  senility  in  New  Salem.  It  was  a  place  of  opinions, 
not  held  in  the  poise  of  static  toleration,  but  fought  for  in  the  free 
arena  of  public  discussion.  New  Salem  did  not  want  its  candi- 
dates to  be  modest. 

181 


1 82  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

As  has  already  been  noted,  Lincoln  announced  himself  a  candi- 
date for  the  Legislature  on  March  9,  1832.  His  absence  from 
New  Salem  on  account  of  the  Black  Hawk  War  covered  the 
period  from  about  April  nineteenth  to  an  unknown  date  in  the 
end  of  July.  The  election  for  which  he  announced  himself  a 
candidate  took  place  August  sixth.  Lincoln  had  little  time  for 
electioneering.  He  probably  had  not  lost  anything  of  his  politi- 
cal popularity  by  his  military  career,  although  to  his  credit  it  de- 
serves to  be  said  that  he  never  afterward  attempted  to  make 
political  capital  out  of  his  military  experience,  and  that  he  never 
assumed  for  political  effect  or  traded  in  his  title  of  captain. 

His  first  political  speech  was  at  Pappsville,  following  an  auc- 
tion sale.  The  speech  was  interrupted  by  a  fight,  and  Lincoln 
left  the  platform  to  interfere  on  behalf  of  one  of  his  friends  who 
was  getting  the  worst  of  it.  Lifting  his  enemy  bodily,  he  flung 
him  flat  upon  the  ground,  remounted  the  platform,  and  finished 
his  speech.  This  incident  helped  him  more  than  any  oratory 
could  have  done.  A  few  days  later  he  made  a  speech  at  Spring- 
field with  Major  John  T.  Stuart  as  a  candidate  with  him  on  the 
same  ticket. 

Lincoln's  opponent  in  this  election  was  Reverend  Peter  Cart- 
wright,  an  able  itinerant  Methodist  preacher,  and  a  politician  of 
experience  and  ability.  Lincoln  was  defeated,  and  he  afterward 
said  it  was  the  only  time  in  his  life  when  he  was  defeated  by  a 
direct  vote  of  the  people.  The  surprising  fact  is,  not  that  Lincoln 
did  not  succeed  in  his  first  political  venture,  but  that  he  should 
have  run  so  well  against 'so  able  and  so  justly  popular  an  oppo- 
nent. Although  Lincoln  was  a  Whig,  if  his  political  status  could 
be  defined  at  that  period  of  his  development,  and  Lincoln's 
friends  at  New  Salem  and  Clary's  Grove  were  Democrats,  he  re- 
ceived two  hundred  and  seventy-seven  out  of  the  two  hundred 
and  ninety  votes  cast  at  New  Salem,  and  he  laid  the  foundation 
for  subsequent  political  success. 

The  morning  of  the  seventh  of  August,  1832,  found  Lincoln 
a  defeated  candidate  for  the  Legislature.    His  career  as  a  military 


POLITICIAN  AND  POSTMASTER  183 

hero  was  also  at  an  end.  His  commercial  venture  with  Denton 
Offutt  had  terminated  disastrously.  Lincoln  was  out  of  em- 
ployment. He  sought  again  to  become  a  clerk  in  a  retail  store. 
There  were  no  vacant  clerkships.  The  small  stocks  of  merchan- 
dise in  Xew  Salem,  however,  changed  hands  with  rapidity,  and 
though  he  might  not  be  a  clerk,  he  easily  found  opportunity  to 
become  a  proprietor.  Two  of  the  Herndon  brothers,  cousins  of 
his  subsequent  law  partner,  owned  a  store  in  New  Salem.  One 
brother  sold  his  half  interest  to  William  F.  Berry.  The  other 
brother,  Rowan  Herndon,  who  had  been  Lincoln's  co-partner  as 
a  pilot  on  the  Talisman,  became  dissatisfied  with  Berry  as  a  part- 
ner, and  sold  his  interest  to  Lincoln,  who  gave  his  note  in  payment 
of  the  purchase  price.  Another  store,  owned  by  the  Chrisman 
brothers,  had  failed,  and  James  Rutledge  had  taken  a  portion  of 
their  stock  of  groceries  on  a  debt.  This  stock  was  purchased  by 
Berry  and  Lincoln,  who  gave  their  note  in  payment.  A  little 
later,  Reuben  Radford,  another  merchant,  incurred  the  enmity 
of  the  Clary  Grove  boys,  and  found  it  profitable  to  move.  Berry 
and  Lincoln  acquired  this  stock  also,  and  gave  more  notes. 
Berry  and  Lincoln  ought  to  have  made  a  success  of  their  approach 
to  monopoly.  But  they  still  had  competition  in  Samuel  Hill,  and 
Berry  was  his  own  best  customer  in  the  consumption  of  liquor. 
After  a  time  Lincoln  sold  his  interest  in  the  store  to  Berry,  accept- 
ing Berry's  notes  in  payment.  ■  Not  long  after  this  Berry  dropped 
out  of  the  business  and  later  died  insolvent.  Lincoln  assumed 
the  debts  of  the  firm,  and  it  was  many  years  before  he  succeeded 
in  paying  them. 

The  Offutt  failure  must  have  had  a  depressing  effect  upon 
nearly  every  one  in  New  Salem.  That  and  the  hopelessness  of 
expecting  the  navigation  of  the  Sangamon,  must  have  warned 
some  far-visioned  men  that  the  town  was  doomed.  One  man 
appears  to  have  appreciated  the  danger.  That  was  John  McNeil, 
the  thrifty  partner  of  Samuel  Hill.  Their  store  had  been  in 
operation  for  three  successful  years,  doing  business  at  a  profit  of 
about  seventy-five  per  cent.,  and  John  McNeil  had  saved  his  share 


184  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  the  money.  Trade  had  fallen  off  with  the  advent  of  Of futt's 
competition;  and  McNeil  saw  that  even  with  Offutt  out  of  the 
way,  business  was  not  likely  to  be  what  it  had  been.  He  told  his 
partner  that  he  had  left  his  aged  parents  in  New  York  State,  and 
felt  it  his  duty  to  return  to  them.  He  sold  out  his  half  of  the 
store  to  Hill,  and  sold  while  the  price  was  good.  John  McNeil 
was  accustomed  to  do  things  that  way. 

Rutledge  and  Cameron  took  back  the  mill,  and  they  were 
pressed  for  working  capital.  They  had  to  sell  either  their  inter- 
ests in  New  Salem  or  their  farms  on  Sand  Ridge.  They  chose 
the  latter,  and  chose  unwisely.  There  was  one  man  who  had 
ready  money  to  assist  men  in  the  situation  of  Cameron  and  Rut- 
ledge.  That  man  was  John  McNeil.  He  bought  both  farms  at 
rock-bottom  prices  and  provided  the  money  with  which  the  found- 
ers of  New  Salem  kept  afloat  a  little  longer  their  hopeless 
enterprise. 

John  McNeil  did  not  go  to  Bowling  Green  to  have  him  make 
out  the  deeds.  Abraham  Lincoln  had  begun  to  study  law,  and 
would  do  it  cheaper.  To  him,  and  thereafter  to  others,  John 
McNeil  had  now  to  make  an  explanation. 

His  name,  he  told  Lincoln,  was  not  McNeil  but  McNamar. 
He  had  left  home  when  his  father  failed  in  business,  and  had 
changed  his  name  to  prevent  his  unfortunate  relatives  finding 
him  and  hindering  him,  by  their  appeals  for  assistance,  in  his 
ambition  to  become  rich.  He  was  rich  now ;  for  he  had  accumu- 
lated ten  thousand  dollars  in  three  years,  and  he  proposed  to  re- 
sume his  true  name,  go  back  to  New  York  State,  find  his  parents 
and  return  with  them  to  New  Salem.  He  wanted  the  deeds  made 
out  to  John  McNamar. 

We  shall  have  occasion  in  due  time  to  relate  the  story  of  Ann 
Rutledge.  The  point  which  now  should  be  definitely  fixed  in  mind 
is  that  according  to  legal  papers  in  which  his  name  appears,  John 
McNamar  was  living  in  New  Salem  under  the  name  of  McNeil 
as  late  as  November  4,  1831.  Cameron  became  hard  pressed  for 
money  and  sold  his  Concord  land  to  "John  McNamar,  Jr.,"  De- 


POLITICIAN  AND  POSTMASTER  185 

cember  9,  1831.  The  same  enterprising  man,  John  McNamar, 
bought  the  Rutledge  farm  at  Sand  Ridge,  at  a  bargain  price, 
July  26,  1832.  The  change  of  name  appears  to  have  been  held  in 
confidence  after  the  first  and  until  the  second  deed.  Soon  after 
the  second  purchase  McNamar  left.  New  Salem.  He  was  careful 
afterward  not  to  be  too  certain  about  the  date,  saying,  "I  left  the 
county  in  1832  or  1833 — I  returned  in  1835."  He  left  in  the 
summer  or  early  autumn  of  1832.  We  now  know  within  five 
weeks  the  time  when  McNamar  resumed  his  lawful  name.  It  was 
between  November  4  and  December  9,  1831.  After  the  date  of 
December  9,  1831,  Abraham  Lincoln  knew  and  the  Rutledge  and 
Cameron  families  knew,  and  by  July  26,  1832,  all  New  Salem 
must  have  known,  that  John  McNamar  had  been  living  among 
them  under  an  assumed  name ;  but  by  the  time  this  knowledge  had 
become  public,  John  McNamar's  concern  for  his  parents  had 
tardily  occurred  to  him,  and  he  had  ridden  away  to  New  York 
State  to  bring  them  back  and  share  with  them  the  prosperity  of 
New  Salem. 

He  made  no  haste  about  returning.  Like  the  Detroit  colored 
man  who,  hearing  that  the  world  was  coming  to  an  end,  prepared 
to  move  across  into  Canada  until  the  world  got  done  ending,  John 
McNamar  resolved  to  trust  no  penny  of  his  ten  thousand  dollars 
in  New  Salem,  nor  to  return  till  its  fortunes  got  better  or  worse. 
As  for  the  land  he  owned  on  Concord  Creek  and  Sand  Ridge  and 
elsewhere,  that  would  not  suffer  by  reason  of  his  absence ;  it 
was  steadily  rising  in  value. 

Thus  John  McNamar  was  not  among  those  who  suffered  by 
the  failing  fortunes  of  New  Salem ;  nor  did  he,  like  Lincoln,  pro- 
ceed to  invest  in  grocery  stores  in  that  place  after  Offutt  failed. 
Neither  did  he  sell  his  half  of  the  Hill  stock  to  Lincoln.  Lincoln 
could  only  give  his  notes ;  John  McNamar  was  accustomed  to  sell 
for  cash. 

So  Lincoln  and  Berry  had  only  one  competitor  in  the  retail 
business  in  New  Salem,  and  that  one  was  Samuel  Hill. 

Lincoln's  position  as  a  merchant  brought  him  appointment  as 


1 86  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

postmaster  at  New  Salem.  The  post-office  was  established  on 
December  25,  1829,  with  Samuel  Hill  as  postmaster.  He  was 
succeeded  by  Isaac  P.  Chrisman,  who  began  his  duties  on  No- 
vember 24,  1 83 1.  On  the  failure  of  Chrisman  Brothers  Hill 
again  became  postmaster.  He  grew  unpopular  with  the  women 
of  New  Salem,  who  claimed  that  he  neglected  them  while  he  was 
attending  to  the  sale  of  liquor.  Lincoln's  appointment  grew  out 
of  a  petition  asking  for  the  removal  of  Hill  and  the  appointment 
of  Lincoln.  Lincoln's  commission  was  dated  May  7,  1833,  and 
he  continued  to  be  postmaster  until  the  office  was  discontinued 
in  1836.  The  business  of  the  office  was  small,  and  the  remunera- 
tion trifling,  but  Lincoln  was  in  no  position  to  despise  the  day 
of  small  things.  Gladly  he  accepted  the  few  dollars  which  the 
office  paid,  and  when  his  partnership  with  Berry  failed,  he  trans- 
ported the  post-office  to  the  store  of  Samuel  Hill,  in  which  store 
Lincoln  became  a  clerk. 

There  was  not  very  much  to  transport.  Lincoln  was  in  the 
habit  of  carrying  the  letters  in  his  hat.  If  the  people  to  whom 
they  were  addressed  were  not  at  the  post-office  when  the  mail 
arrived,  Lincoln  provided  a  free  rural  delivery  of  his  own.  He 
carried  the  letters  around  to  their  several  owners,  in  no  wise 
reluctant  to  make  a  little  visit  and  swap  a  story  or  two  in  connec- 
tion with  the  process. 

He  was  never  very  anxious  to  have  newspapers  called  for 
promptly.  He  liked  to  have  time  to  read  the  papers  before  he 
delivered  them. 

His  service  as  postmaster  gave  to  the  community  various  op- 
portunities of  proving  his  honesty.  Several  incidents  are  related, 
which,  however  they  may  vary  in  detail  from  strict  accuracy, 
have  this  at  least  to  justify  them,  that  they  show  how  well  estab 
lished  was  Lincoln's  reputation  in  this  early  day  for  truthfulness 
and  honor.  It  was  in  New  Salem  that  he  acquired  the  popular 
name  of  "Honest  Abe."    That  name  he  never  lost. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

SURVEYOR   AXD    LAWMAKER 

i 834- i 83 5 

The  compensation  of  the  postmaster  of  New  Salem  was  pro- 
portionate to  the  responsibilities  of  the  office.  No  one  connected 
with  the  Post  Office  Department  is  now  able  to  tell  what  remun- 
eration Lincoln  actually  received  for  his  services.  But  it  was 
small,  and  Lincoln  picked  up  a  day's  work  wherever  he  could  to 
help  him  to  pay  his  board.  He  considered  becoming  a  black- 
smith, but  decided  instead  to  study  surveying.  Already  he  knew 
a  little  about  law;  and  he  was  studying  with  an  ardor  greater 
than  he  had  known  before. 

Among  the  friendships  which  Lincoln  formed  in  New  Salem, 
one  of  the  most  important  was  that  of  Mentor  Graham,  the 
school-teacher.  From  the  date  of  the  election,  August  1,  1831, 
Graham  became  interested  in  him  and  directed  his  studies  in 
grammar  and  other  subjects.  Kirkham's  grammar  is  a  volume 
which  makes  a  modern  text-book  on  the  subject  look  like  a  trea- 
tise for  the  feeble-minded.  Lincoln  studied  this  volume  with 
some  protest  at  the  beginning,  but  with  increasing  appreciation  of 
its  value.  A  self-educated  young  man  who  could  take  up  and 
master  that  work  with  only  incidental  assistance  deserves  credit 
for  no  small  power  of  application. 

Lincoln  at  this  time  was  given  to  writing  treatises  on  a  rather 
wide  variety  of  subjects;  some  of  these  Graham  read  and 
corrected. 

Partly  under  Graham's  instructions,  Lincoln  obtained  his 
knowledge  of  surveying.  Graham  taught  him  the  rudiments  of 
this  science,  and  Lincoln  learned  as  he  labored.  John  Calhoun, 
at  that  time  surveyor  of  Sangamon  County,  appointed  Lincoln 

187 


i88  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

his  deputy.  Lincoln  became  a  skilful  and  accurate  surveyor.  A 
number  of  his  surveys  are  preserved,  and  the  work  shown  in  his 
handwriting  is  painstaking  and  neat.  Both  the  county  surveyors 
under  whom  Lincoln  served  were  men  who  rose  to  distinction." 

Lincoln's  surveying  was  remunerative ;  it  enabled  him  to  make 
some  small  payments  on  the  Lincoln  and  Berry  notes.  But  all  of 
his  fees  as  surveyor  and  his  emoluments  as  postmaster  and  the 
small  sums  he  received  for  drawing  contracts  and  other  legal 
papers,  were  less  than  enough  to  pay  his  very  modest  living  ex- 
penses and  to  meet  the  notes  which  from  time  to  time  matured 
and  were  presented  for  payment.  Now  and  then  Lincoln  per- 
formed manual  labor  in  the  harvest  field  and  was  very  glad  of 
the  small  wage  which  his  toil  brought  him. 

Lincoln  was  now  in  a  position  where  he  could  have  made  a 
living,  but  he  was  burdened  with  the  debts  incurred  through  his 
partnership  with  Berry.  The  firm  of  Lincoln  and  Berry  pur- 
chased a  stock  of  goods  from  Reuben  Radford,  and  executed  the 
firm's  note,  October  19,  1833,  for  $379.82.  This  note  was 
assigned  by  Radford  to  Peter  Van  Bergen.  He,  alone  of  Lin- 
coln's creditors,  declined  to  wait  for  payment,  and  on  April  7, 
1834,  he  brought  suit.f 


*John  Calhoun,  under  whom  Lincoln  had  his  first  opportunity  as  deputy- 
surveyor,  was  born  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  October  14,  1806.  In  1830  he 
removed  to  Springfield,  Illinois,  and  after  serving  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 
was  appointed  surveyor  of  Sangamon  County.  He  was  a  Democratic  repre- 
sentative in  the  Legislature  of  1838  and  an  unsuccessful  candidate  for  gov- 
ernor in  1846.  He  served  as  mayor  of  Springfield  for  three  years,  1849- 
1851.  In  1854,  President  Pierce  appointed  him  surveyor  general  of  Kansas, 
and  he  became  a  leader  in  political  affairs  in  that  territory,  presiding  at  the 
Lecompton  Convention.     He  died  in  St.  Joseph,  Missouri,  October  25,  1859. 

He  was  succeeded  as  surveyor  of  Sangamon  County  by  Thomas  M.  Xeale, 
who,  on  September  12,  1835,  announced  through  the  Sangamo  Journal  the 
appointment  of  John  Calhoun  and  Abraham  Lincoln  as  his  deputies.  Xeale 
was  born  in  1796  in  Fauquier  County,  Virginia.  He  removed  to  Kentucky, 
where  he  studied  law,  and  in  1824  removed  to  Sangamon  County,  Illinois. 
He  made  the  survey  on  the  basis  of  which  in  1825  the  town  of  Springfield 
was  laid  out  as  the  prospective  county-seat  of  Sangamon  County.  He  was 
three  times  elected  county  surveyor,  and  held  that  position  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  August  7,  1840. 

iYarious  biographers  assert  that  this  suit  was  brought  before  Lincoln's 
friend,  Bowling  Green  ;  but  Honorable  William  H.  Townsend  discovered  the 
original  papers  in  the  Sangamon  Circuit  Court  at  Springfield,  as  shown  in 
his  Lincoln   the  Ligitant. 


SURVEYOR  AND  LAWMAKER  189 

It  is  generally  supposed  that  by  the  time  of  this  suit  Bern- 
was  dead;  but  he  was  alive  and  was  summoned  August  15,  1834. 
Lincoln  was  summoned  five  days  later.  The  note  had  been  re- 
duced by  part  payments  to  $204.82,  of  which  under  the  assign- 
ment Van  Bergen  was  entitled  to  Si 54  and  Radford  to  the  bal- 
ance. On  October  II,  1834,  a  horse  was  credited  by  Radford 
on  the  note,  at  an  agreed  value  of  $35.00.  When  the  case  came 
to  trial  Berry  was  able  to  pay  the  small  balance  due  Radford, 
but  Lincoln  was  not  able  to  pay  Van  Bergen.  Accordingly,  judg- 
ment was  rendered  against  Lincoln  for  $154  and  costs.  To 
satisfy  this  judgment  the  small  worldly  wealth  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln was  taken  from  him  by  process  of  law,  his  horse,  saddle  and 
bridle,  and  his  surveying  instruments — the  means  by  which  he 
had  expected  to  be  able  to  pay  the  debt. 

But  Lincoln  always  had  friends.  On  the  day  of  the  sale, 
''LTicle  Jimmy"  Short,  of  Sand  Ridge,  bid  in  the  property,  and 
gave  it  back  to  Lincoln.  With  tears  in  his  eyes,  Lincoln  thanked 
him.  In  time  he  repaid  the  debt  in  full.  Years  afterward,  when 
Lincoln  was  president,  he  heard  that  "Uncle  Jimmy"  was  in  Cali- 
fornia and  penniless.  Thereupon,  without  solicitation,  James 
Short  received  an  appointment  as  Indian  agent. 

But  the  horse  which  had  been  taken  on  the  Van  Bergen  execu- 
tion was  not  fully  paid  for  at  the  time.  Thomas  Watkins,  of 
Petersburg,  had  sold  the  horse  to  Lincoln  for  fifty  dollars,  and  of 
this  amount  ten  dollars  remained  unpaid.  Although  few  men 
in  Sangamon  County  were  better  able  to  risk  ten  dollars,  and 
few  men  more  likely  to  pay  it  than  Abraham  Lincoln,  Watkins 
brought  suit  against  Lincoln  in  the  court  of  Squire  Edmund 
Greer.  Fortunately,  Lincoln  was  able  to  borrow  ten  dollars  and 
to  settle  with  Watkins  before  the  case  came  to  trial. 

Those  were  anxious  days  for  Lincoln.  The  weekly  board-bill 
had  to  be  met,  and  his  friends  in  New  Salem  were  not  in  position 
to  extend  him  credit.  It  required  his  best  efforts  to  find  money 
for  his  daily  needs,  and  the  Lincoln-Berry  obligation  was  a 
mill-stone  constantly  round  his  neck.  Then  and  years  afterward 
he  called  it  "the  National  debt." 


igo  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

If  John  McNamar  had  been  in  New  Salem,  he  would  have 
had  money.  Whether  he  would  have  loaned  it  to  Lincoln,  and 
if  so  on  what  terms,  we  do  not  know.  McNamar  had  been 
away  since  the  autumn  of  1832.  It  was  said  that  one  of  the 
Rutledge  girls  had  cared  for  him  and  was  anxiously  looking  for 
a  letter  from  him ;  but  the  letter  did  not  arrive.  Her  parents, 
and  for  that  matter,  the  people  of  New  Salem  generally,  had 
come  to  think  ill  of  McNamar ;  and  they  were  inclined  to  believe 
that  the  poor  excuse  he  had  given  for  living  three  years  among 
them  under  a  false  name  was  not  his  only  reason  for  leaving 
New  York  State.  But  Lincoln  knew  that  no  letter  came  from 
McNamar  to  Ann  Rutledge. 

In  1834  Lincoln  again  announced  himself  as  a  candidate  for 
the  Legislature,  and  devoted  a  considerable  part  of  the  summer 
to  his  canvass.  Lincoln  told  Herndon  that  it  was  more  of  a 
hand-shaking  campaign  than  anything  else.  Lincoln,  however, 
definitely  committed  himself  to  the  Whig  platform,  and  that  in  a 
Democratic  district.  He  won  by  a  very  large  plurality.  Sanga- 
mon was  a  large  county,  and  entitled  to  four  representatives  in 
the  Legislature.  Lincoln  stood  second  among  the  successful  can- 
didates. It  usually  has  been  stated  that  Lincoln's  name  led  the 
list,  but  Herndon  shows  that  while  Lincoln  had  thirteen  hundred 
and  seventy-six  votes,  Dawson  had  thirteen  hundred  and  ninety. 
The  error  of  those  historians  who  gave  Lincoln  first  place  was 
in  reading  Dawson's  total  vote  of  1390  as  1370.  Even  with  this 
slight  and  unimportant  correction,  Lincoln's  vote  is  surprisingly 
large.  From  this  time  forth  he  never  was  defeated  when  his  re- 
quest for  office  was  made  to  the  people. 

Lincoln  had  to  borrow  money  to  go  to  Vandalia,  which  was 
then  the  state  capital.  It  has  been  alleged  that  he  walked  to  his 
first  session  of  the  Legislature.  Instead,  he  rode  there  in  the 
stage,  and  was  attired  in  a  new  suit  of  clothes.  A  friend  loaned 
him  two  hundred  dollars,  and  he  reached  the  capital  reasonably 
well  clothed,  and  in  as  good  a  degree  of  physical  comfort  as 
traveling  facilities  of  that  day  permitted. 


SURVEYOR  AND  LAWMAKER  191 

Lincoln  was  placed  upon  the  Committee  on  Public  Accounts 
and  Expenditures.  It  was  a  position  for  which  he  was  singularly 
ill  fitted.  The  Assembly  which  he  entered  was  composed  of 
eighty-one  members.  The  Senate  contained  twenty-six  and  the 
House  of  Representatives  fifty-five.  The  most  of  these  men 
had  been  born  in  Kentucky,  Tennessee  or  Virginia.  There  were 
few  Frenchmen  and  fewer  Yankees.  The  French  were  destined 
almost  wholly  to  disappear  and  the  Yankees  to  increase  as  the 
northern  part  of  the  state  was  settled. 

Vandalia  at  this  time  was  a  town  of  about  eight  hundred 
inhabitants.  The  Methodists  and  Presbyterians  had  meeting- 
houses. There  were  two  newspapers  in  the  town,  and  three 
taverns,  besides  five  lawyers  and  four  physicians.  The  capitol 
building,  now  the  court-house,  was  erected  while  Lincoln  was  in 
the  Legislature,  and  is  a  dignified  colonial  building  with  a  belfry. 
The  first  session  attended  by  Lincoln  was  in  the  Methodist 
Church. 

This  Xinth  General  Assembly,  in  which  Lincoln  had  his  first 
experience  as  a  lawmaker,  held  two  sessions.  The  regular  ses- 
sion in  1834-35  was  important.  An  extra  session,  called  in  De- 
cember, 1835,  devoted  itself  in  good  part  to  the  matter  of  internal 
improvements.  Lincoln  made  no  marked  impression  upon  this 
legislative  body. 

Perhaps  the  most  important,  and  certainly  the  most  interesting, 
event  in  connection  with  Lincoln's  first  experience  as  a  lawmaker 
is  that  there  for  the  first  time  he  met  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who 
was  present  as  a  lobbyist.  Lincoln's  first  impression  of  Douglas 
had  chief  regard  to  his  diminutive  stature.  Lincoln  said  of 
him,  "He  is  the  least  man  I  ever  saw." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

Lincoln's  alma  mater 
1831-1837 

Lincoln  went  to  school,  as  he  said,  "by  littles."  His  two  short 
terms  of  schooling  in  Kentucky  and  his  three  in  Indiana  totaled 
less  than  a  year  of  formal  instruction..  When  he  went  to  Con- 
gress in  1848,  and  filled  out  a  concise  blank  whose  catch  words 
were  intended  to  suggest  the  outlines  of  a  brief  biography,  he 
entered  opposite  the  title  "Education,"  the  single  word  "Defec- 
tive." But  when  we  consider  him  as  he  was  toward  the  end  of 
his  experience  in  New  Salem,  we  are  impressed  not  so  much  by 
the  meagerness  of  his  equipment  as  by  the  extent  of  his  prepara- 
tion for  a  successful  life. 

We  can  not  account  for  Lincoln's  education  on  the  theory  that 
he  was  an  omnivorous  reader.  To  his  associates  in  Indiana  he 
thus  seemed.  Probably  he  was  never  as  diligent  or  systematic  as 
his  admirers  thought.  In  any  event  he  ceased  to  be  a  great 
reader.  Herndon  repeatedly  declares  that  he  read  less  and 
thought  more  than  any  man  in  public  life  in  his  generation. 

Abraham  Lincoln  had  lived  at  different  periods  not  far  from 
Utopian  cities.  In  1794  a  magnificent  paper  city  named  Lystra, 
was  projected  on  Rolling  Fork,  eight  or  ten  miles  above  where 
Thomas  and  Nancy  Lincoln  later  lived  on  Knob  Creek.  Another 
dazzling  city  named  Ohiopoimingo,  exceeding  even  Lystra  in 
magnificence,  was  planned  to  be  located  in  Meade  County  only 
sixty  miles  from  the  Lincoln  home.  When  in  Indiana  he  was 
not  very  far  from  New  Harmony.  It  is  not  known  that  any  of 
these  dream  cities  affected  him  appreciably.     But  in  Illinois  he 

192 


LINCOLN'S  ALMA  MATER  193 

was  destined  to  be  profoundly  influenced  by  the  prairie  Utopia, 
New  Salem.  New  Salem  greatly  encouraged  his  love  of 
learning.  We  can  not  pursue  the  history  of  Lincoln's  six  years 
at  New  Salem  intelligently  and  confine  our  study  to  the  financial 
adventures  of  the  firm  of  Lincoln  and  Berry,  or  the  vicissitudes 
oi  Denton  Offutt  and  his  rough-and-tumble  encounters  with  the 
Clary  Grove  boys.  Lincoln  was  in  an  environment  that  gave 
him  adequate  mental  stimulus  and  encouragement. 

Among  Lincoln's  friends  was  Jack  Kelso,  a  peculiar,  unpracti- 
cal genius,  who  bore  the  reputation  of  having  a  fine  education. 
Kelso  introduced  him  to  Shakespeare,  Burns  and  Byron.  Kelso 
was  married  but  childless.  He  was  not  fond  of  labor,  but  was 
a  good  fisherman.  Fishing  was  about  the  only  job  at  which  he 
worked  industriously,  and  he  rather  resented  it  when  any  one 
intruded  upon  his  vocation  with  an  offer  of  remunerative  em- 
ployment. Lincoln  had  no  musical  ability,  but  had  an  ear  for 
rhythm.  He  fished  now  and  then  with  Kelso,  and  oftener  sat 
with  Jack  and  visited  in  the  evening.  Lincoln's  taste  in  poetry  up 
to  this  time  had  been  principally  for  jingles,  and  rhymed  non- 
sense. He  began  to  appreciate  some  of  the  real  beauties  to  be 
found  in  the  writings  of  great  poets. 

Lincoln  early  formed  the  acquaintance  and  close  friendship  of 
Bowling  Green.  Green  was  a  half-brother  of  Jack  Armstrong. 
His  father  had  lived  in  Tennessee,  and  his  mother,  whose  maiden 
name  was  Nancy  Potter,  bore  him  prior  to  her  marriage  to  Robert 
Armstrong  by  whom  she  had  eight  children.  Bowling  Green 
was  a  very  large  man,  weighing  over  two  hundred  pounds,  and 
had  a  singularly  pink  and  white  skin,  his  complexion  being  like 
that  of  a  woman.  He  was  easy-going  and  hospitable,  and  Lin- 
coln was  much  in  his  home.  Green  and  Lincoln  both  were  in- 
clined to  be  Whigs  in  a  community  where  most  men  were 
Democrats.  Green  was  a  justice  of  the  peace,  and  had  a  few  law 
books  which  he  willingly  loaned  to  Lincoln.  Lincoln  for  a  time 
boarded  in  the  home  of  Bowling  Green.     When,  somewhat  later, 


194  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Green  died,  in  1842,  Lincoln  was  to  have  delivered  an  address  at 
his  funeral,  but  was  overcome  by  emotion  and  could  not  speak. 

How  Lincoln  acquired  his  first  law  book  is  disputed.  Arnold 
affirms  that  in  1832,  Lincoln  bought  at  auction,  in  Springfield, 
a  second-hand  Blaekstone's  Commentaries  and  began  to  study 
law.  A  few  weeks  of  hard  study,  and  he  had  mastered  his  ele- 
mentary work,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  a  good  lawyer's  educa- 
tion; he  then  resolved  to  make  the  law  his  profession.* 

The  story  which  survives  in  the  neighborhood  of  Petersburg, 
is  that  a  mover  passing  through  New  Salem  stopped  in  front  of 
Berry  and  Lincoln's  store,  and,  having  in  his  wagon  a  barrel 
which  took  up  room  that  he  needed  for  other  purposes,  offered  to 
sell  it  and  its  contents  for  fifty  cents.  Lincoln  bought  it  and 
found  in  it,  among  other  contents,  a  badly  worn  set  of  Black- 
stone. 

By  whatever  process  he  obtained  the  book,  he  mastered  it. 
Sometimes  he  lay  upon  the  counter  with  his  head  upon  a  bolt  of 
jeans  cloth,  diligently  perusing  the  book.  Sometimes  he  lay  in 
the  shade  of  a  tree,  moving  around  with  the  shadow.  Sometimes 
he  lay  upon  the  floor,  using  as  a  sloping  support  the  back  of  a 
chair  turned  down  and  with  its  four  legs  in  the  air.  When  Rich- 
ard Yates  first  met  him  he  was  lying  on  the  slope  of  a  cellar  door, 
studying  law.     He  preferred  to  read  lying  down. 

In  this  study  he  was  not  without  encouragement.  In  his  brief 
canvass  for  membership  in  the  Legislature,  he  had  met  Stephen 
T.  Logan  and  William  Butler,  both  of  Springfield,  and  they  had 
encouraged  him  to  persevere  in  politics  and  to  study  law.  In 
the  Black  Hawk  War  he  had  come  to  know  Major  John  T. 
Stuart,  who  afterward  became  his  law  partner,  and  who  now 
loaned  him  books.  Lincoln  rode  to  Springfield  to  obtain  these. 
He  borrowed  them  one  by  one,  beginning  to  read  each  one  as 
he  rode  homeward,  and  reviewing  it  as  he  rode  back  to  exchange 
it  for  another.     The  number  of  books  which  he  read  was  not 


*Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  40. 


LINCOLN'S  ALMA  MATER  195 

large,  but  it  included  the  volumes  deemed  requisite  in  that  day 
for  a  law  student's  preparation. 

Lincoln  never  supposed  that  his  preparation  had  been  ideal. 
He  was  accustomed  to  refer  to  himself  as  a  "mast-fed  lawyer." 
It  sometimes  fell  to  him  by  appointment  of  a  judge  to  examine 
young  men  for  admission  to  the  bar.  On  such  occasions  he  was 
a  very  lenient  examiner,  and  was  accustomed  to  say,  "Your 
Honor,  I  think  this  young  man  knows  as  much  about  law  as  I  did 
when  I  began  to  practise,  and  I  recommend  his  admission  to  the 
bar." 

Among  the  agencies  which  affected  Lincoln  during  his  resi- 
dence in  New  Salem  was  a  debating  society,  organized  under  the 
direction  of  James  Rutledge,  and  including  in  its  membership  the 
literary  lights  of  the  community.  Lincoln  attained  considerable 
skill  as  a  debater  and  he  set  himself  to  the  work  of  preparation 
of  essays  on  a  wide  variety  of  themes,  philosophical,  scientific 
and  religious. 

Although  one  of  the  founders  of  New  Salem  was  a  preacher  of 
the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  faith,  and  the  coming  of  the  Bale 
family  brought  two  Baptist  preachers,  Abraham  and  Jacob  Bale, 
as  residents  of  the  town,  and  although  Peter  Cartwright  and 
other  Methodist  preachers  came  frequently  and  preached  in  the 
schoolhouse  or  in  the  Rutledge  tavern,  there  was  in  New 
Salem  a  rather  strong  tendency  toward  what  was  called  infidelity. 
Paine's  Age  of  Reason  and  Volney's  Ruins  were  in  active  cir- 
culation. Lincoln  read  them,  and  they  were  not  without  their 
influence  upon  his  thinking.  Among  other  essays  which  Lincoln 
wrote  at  this  time  was  one  a  portion  of  whose  subject-matter  he 
derived  from  the  reading  of  these  books.  It  is  alleged  that  Sam- 
uel Hill  burned  this  manuscript  out  of  tender  concern  for  Lin- 
coln's political  future,  but  after  a  thorough  investigation  of  the 
evidence  upon  which  the  story  rests,  I  do  not  credit  this  tradition. 
The  essay  was  one  of  a  number  which  Lincoln  wrote  in  that 
period,  and  none  of  them  is  preserved.  We  have  no  reason  to 
assume  that  their  destruction  involves  any  serious  loss.     If  we 


196  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

may  judge  from  Lincoln's  extant  compositions  from  this  period, 
they  were  the  rather  sophomoric  attempts  of  a  young  man  to 
define  his  opinions,  and  his  writings  had  a  certain  value  in  help- 
ing him  to  put  his  thoughts  on  paper ;  but  none  of  them  deserve 
to  be  considered  too  seriously.* 

One  of  Lincoln's  best  friends  in  New  Salem,  and  one  of  the 
strongest  forces  for  righteousness,  was  Doctor  John  Allen,  who 
came  to  New  Salem  from  Vermont  before  August  28,  1831.  He 
was  a  strict  Sabbatarian,  whose  principles  in  this  regard  were, 
strengthened  by  an  incident  that  occurred  on  his  westward  jour- 
ney. Coming  down  the  Ohio  River,  he  stopped  on  Saturday 
night  and  waited  for  the  next  boat.  The  boat  on  which  he  had 
been  traveling  sank  next  day  with  loss  of  life.  Doctor  Allen 
practised  his  profession  on  Sunday,  but  gave  his  fees  for  that 
day  to  religion  and  charity.  He  organized  the  first  Sunday- 
school  in  New  Salem,  and  was  its  superintendent.  He  organized 
a  Temperance  Society,  which  was  looked  upon  with  disfavor. 
Mentor  Graham  became  a  member ;  and  for  his  membership  in  it 
was  expelled  from  the  New  Salem  Baptist  Church;  the  same 
church  meeting,  by  way  of  even-handed  justice,  expelled  three 
other  members  for  drunkenness. 

New  Salem  had  musical  aspirations.  Besides  the  usual  back- 
woods music,  it  had  copies  of  The  Missouri  Harmony ,  the  most 
pretentious  of  musical  books  then  in  circulation  in  that  region. 
It  is  of  record  that  about  this  time  Peoria  introduced  The  Mis- 
souri Harmony  into  its  church  choir,  and  prided  itself  on  having 
so  notable  a  book.  It  contained  a  first  part  for  use  in  singing 
schools  and  for  general  instruction  in  the  art  of  singing  by  note, 
and  "a  choice  collection  of  Psalm  Tunes,  Hymns  and  Anthems." 
It  is  recorded  that  Abraham,  who  was  not  musical,  now  and  then 
essayed  a  song  out  of  this  book,  and  there  is  a  legend  that  he 
sang  out  of  it  with  Ann  Rutledge.f     But  the  only  song  men- 


*This  subject  I  have  discussed  in  detail  in  the  chapter  on  "Lincoln's 
Burnt  Book"'   in   The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

fThc  Missouri  Harmony,  compiled  by  Allen  D.  Carden,  was  published 
at  Cincinnati  in  1827.     I  have  a  first  edition,  and  it  does  not  contain  the  song 


LINCOLN'S  ALMA  MATER  197 

tinned  in  connection  with  Lincoln's  use  is  a  mournful  drinking 
song  called  "Legacy"  on  which  Lincoln  is  said  to  have  made  a 
rather  coarse  parody. 

The  social  life  of  New  Salem  in  those  days  was  a  revelation  to 
Lincoln.  It  was  far  beyond  anything  he  had  known  in  Spencer 
County,  Indiana.  Gentryville  never  supposed  that  it  was  go- 
ing to  become  a  great  city.  It  never  cherished  a  hope  that 
brought  to  it  any  such  group  of  people  as  made  up  the  popula- 
tion of  New  Salem.  This  mushroom  village  on  the  Sangamon, 
which  disappeared  from  the  map  almost  as  soon  as  it  found  a 
place  there,  combined  in  itself  during  its  short  lifetime,  those 
elements  which  made  it  for  Lincoln  the  portal  to  newr  experiences. 
It  had  almost  as  many  different  types  of  people  as  it  had  log 
cabins.  There  were  preachers  and  infidels,  earnest  advocates  of 
temperance  like  Doctor  Allen,  and  swaggering  bullies  of  the 
backwoods  like  the  Clary  Grove  boys.  There  were  men  who 
drifted  along  the  river,  "half  horse,  half  alligator,''  not  all  of 
them  gamblers  and  thugs,  but  men  who  regarded  the  life  of  the 
river  as  providing  a  law  of  its  own.  There  were  people  who 
made  a  cross  instead  of  signing  their  names,  and  there  were 
others  who  read  the  classics  and  were  at  home  among  the  poets. 


"Legacy."  The  supplement  "by  an  amateur"  adding  twenty-three  pieces  of 
varied  character  to  the  two  hundred  pages  of  the  original  edition,  was  added 
in  1835,  the  year  of  Ann's  death.  The  Rutledge  copy  was  printed  in  1844. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  copy  belonged,  as  it  still  belongs,  to  the 
Rutledge  family,  but  it  can  not  have  been  owned  by  them  during  Ann's  life- 
time, or  Lincoln's  residence  in  New  Salem,  or  the  residence  of  the  Rutledges 
in  Illinois.  This  book  was  for  a  time  in  my  possession,  kindly  loaned  to  me 
by  Reverend  A.  M.  Prewitt,  son  of  Nancy  Prewitt,  Ann's  sister.  We  are 
not  at  liberty  to  suppose  that  Ann  and  Abraham  sang  "Legacy"  out  of  the 
earlier  edition,  and  that  its  place  was  taken  later  by  a  new  copy,  for  the 
earlier  edition  does  not  contain  this  song.  However,  it  was  probably  a  song 
that  was  sung  in  Xew  Salem,  the  old  tune  being  that  now  sometimes  used 
to  the  words  "If  I  were  a  cassowary,  on  the  plains  of  Timbuctoo."  Lincoln 
may  or  may  not  have  composed  or  known  the  parody.  The  story  is  not 
confirmed  by  the  dates  on  the  title  pages  of  the  book.  However,  the 'book 
was  in  use  in  Xew  Salem,  and  indicates  some  degree  of  musical  culture. 
It  employed  "patent  notes."  I  have  a'  third  and  completed  edition  printed 
in  1850.  The  shape  of  the  book,  long  and  narrow,  made  it  easily  destructi- 
ble :  and  copies  now  are  rare.  One  may  find  the  words  of  "Legacy"  and 
Lincoln's  alleged  parody  in  several  Lives  of  Lincoln ;  but  I  do  not  quote 
them,  for  the  evidence  of  the  book  does  not  confirm  Lincoln's  use  of  it. 


198  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  all  of  this  remarkable  heterogeneity  there  was  a  strange  kind 
of  social  unity.  The  Rutledges  were  known  to  be  related  to  a 
signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  there  were  other 
people  in  New  Salem  who  might  have  some  difficulty  in  naming 
their  own  fathers.  But  it  was  a  place  where,  to  quote  the  not 
over-nice  but  accurately  expressive  language  of  the  period,  "kin 
and  kin-in-law  did  not  count  a  cuss."  It  was  no  disgrace  to  be 
poor,  and  there  was  little  to  encourage  a  man  in  making  any 
hypocritical  pretense  of  more  piety  than  he  actually  possessed. 

It  is  an  interesting  question  whether  Lincoln  made  the  best 
possible  use  of  his  educational  advantages.  Judged  from  one 
point  of  view  he  certainly  did  not.  Abraham  Lincoln  might  have 
obtained  a  college  education. 

Twenty-five  miles  south  of  New  Salem  was  Illinois  College, 
established  at  Jacksonville  in  1830.  Edward  Beecher,  son  of  Ly- 
man and  brother  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  was  its  president.  Of 
its  faculty  were  four  graduates  of  Yale,  two  of  them  besides  the 
president  being  men  of  outstanding  ability,  Julian  M.  Sturtevant 
and  Jonathan  Baldwin  Turner.  Illinois  did  not  possess  at  the 
time  three  men  of  finer  mind  or  nobler  character  than  Beecher, 
Sturdevant  and  Turner. 

Besides  this  there  were  two  other  colleges,  one  Methodist  and 
the  other  Baptist.  McKendree  College  was  at  Lebanon,  founded 
by  the  Methodists.  Peter  Cartwright,  who  was  not  himself  a 
man  of  college  education,  expected  to  found  and  head  a  Metho- 
dist Academy,  but  gave  up  that  scheme  and  threw  himself  ar- 
dently into  the  support  of  McKendree.  Shurtleff  College,  at 
Upper  Alton,  was  established  by  Reverend  John  Mason  Peck,  a 
Baptist  missionary  and  agent  for  the  American  Bible  Society, 
and  author  of  the  first  Gazetcer  of  Illinois.  Peck  represented  the 
progressive  element  in  the  Baptist  church,  and  was  bitterly  op- 
posed by  the  reactionaries  in  his  own  denomination,  the  "hard- 
shells"  as  they  were  called. 

Lincoln  knew  of  all  these  colleges.  Their  founders  and  pro- 
ponents came  to  Vandalia  seeking  charters  for  these  new  institu- 


NEW  SALEM  RESTORED 

The  Rutledge  Tavern  and  the  Museum 

The  Lincoln  and  Berry  store 

Photographed  for  this  work 


;■&«$■*&:  tS^y 


LINCOLN'S  ALMA  MATER  199 

tions.  Lincoln  had  opportunity  to  know  these  educated  Christian 
gentlemen,  to  hear  them  preach,  and  to  learn  of  the  advantages 
offered  by  their  respective  schools.  Why  did  not  he  himself  go 
to  college?  The  ready  answer  might  be  that  he  was  too  old  or 
too  poor,  or  that  he  lacked  the  necessary  preparation.  None  of 
these  answers  is  satisfactory.  All  these  schools  had  preparatory 
departments;  each  of  them  had  students  entering  who  were  as 
old  as  he.  Not  only  had  each  of  them  students  as  poor  as  he., 
but  it  would  have  been  an  exceptional  student  who  was  any 
richer.     Why  did  not  Lincoln  go  to  college  ? 

Some  of  Lincoln's  associates  in  Illinois  politics  were  college- 
bred  men.  Some  of  his  friends  in  and  about  New  Salem  were 
college  students.  William  Graham  Greene,  his  long  time  and 
intimate  friend,  was  a  student  in  Illinois  College  in  1834-35. 
David  Rutledge  was  a  student  in  Illinois  College  for  a  part  of 
his  training  in  preparation  for  his  career  as  a  lawyer.  Ann 
Rutledge,  his  sister,  intended  to  go  to  the  Jacksonville  Female 
Academy,  now  a  department  of  Illinois  College,  but  died  shortly 
before  the  opening  of  school  in  1835.  If  Lincoln  had  attended 
any  college  it  would  have  been  Illinois.  There  he  would  have 
come  to  know  intimately  Edward  Beecher,  Julian  M.  Sturdevant 
and  Jonathan  Baldwin  Turner.  His  anti-slavery  convictions 
would  have  been  strengthened,  perhaps  prematurely  developed. 
What  would  have  happened  if  he  or  both  he  and  Ann  Rutledge 
had  gone  to  Jacksonville  to  school? 

Lincoln  has  left  us  no  record  of  his  own  mental  processes  re- 
garding this  decision.  We  may  not  cherish  too  confident  assur- 
ance that  we  know  what  he  thought  about  it.  We  are  certain 
those  are  wrong  who  suppose  that  Abraham  made  the  most  of 
every  educational  opportunity,  if  by  making  the  most  we  are  to 
understand  that  he  would  gladly  have  availed  himself  of  oppor- 
tunity for  further  schooling.  He  was  not  too  old.  He  was  not 
too  poor.  He  was  not  definitely  obligated  to  the  support  of  de- 
pendent parents.  He  was  not  too  remote.  He  could  have  entered 
McKendree  or  Shurtleff  or  Illinois,  or  even  Knox  College,  which 


200  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

was  organized  and  in  full  operation  while  he  was  selling  goods 
at  New  Salem. 

The  most  probable  answer  would  seem  to  be  that  Lincoln  had 
already  committed  himself  to  a  political  career,  which  seemed  to 
promise  him  almost  immediate  reward,  and  a  college  course 
would  have  postponed  his  political  activity. 

If  Lincoln  had  gone  to  Illinois  College  he  would  have  re- 
quired perhaps  two  years  in  the  preparatory  department,  and 
four  more  to  complete  the  college  course.  He  would  have  been 
twenty-eight  when  he  graduated.  That  would  have  been  a  long 
time  to  wait  for  the  beginnings  of  a  career  upon  whose  threshold 
he  seemed  already  to  stand. 

Six  years  Lincoln  lived  in  New  Salem.  Those  same  six  years 
would  have  won  for  him  a  degree  as  Bachelor  of  Arts,  at  Illinois 
or  Knox.* 

Equally  interesting  is  the  question,  What  would  a  college 
course  have  done  for  Lincoln?  If  Abraham  Lincoln  had  entered 
Illinois  or  Knox,  what  could  either  of  them  have  done  for  him? 
Would  they  have  made  a  minister  of  him  instead  of  a  lawyer; 
and  if  so  would  that  have  been  a  change  worth  making?  Would 
they  have  made  him  a  more  ardent  and  outspoken  anti-slavery 
man,  and  if  so  would  the  ultimate  interests  of  the  anti-slavery 
cause  have  been  furthered  ?  They  would  have  given  him  a  much 
more  liberal  and  reasonable  theology  than  that  which  he  had 
learned  from  backwoods  Baptist  preachers,  and  might  have 
made  it  possible  for  him  in  consistency  with  his  convictions  to 
have  united  with  the  church,  but  would  they  have  made  him  any 
better  Christian?     They  would  have  taught  him  a  great   deal 


*Mrs.  Eleanore  Atkinson  in  an  interesting  and  valuable  article  in 
Harper's  Magazine  in  May,  1913,  said: 

"Illinois  College  opened  in  the  fall  of  1830  as  a  full-fledged  college,  with 
Dr.  Edward  Beecher  for  its  president,  and  a  faculty  of  four  graduates  from 
the  Divinity  School  at  Yale.  No  allowances  were  made  for  the  pioneer 
youth's  supposed  lack  of  advantages.  The  entrance  requirement  and  the 
four  years'  work  in  the  classic  languages,  mathematics,  and  philosophy  were 
practically  identical  with  those  of  Yale  at  that  day.  But  as  there  was  little 
money  in  that  region,  all  these  infant  institutions  were  obliged  to  smooth  the 
financial  path  to  learning." 


LINCOLN'S  ALMA  MATER  201 

which  he  never  learned  and  the  lack  of  which  he  felt  throughout 
his  life,  but  would  they  have  made  him  in  the  large  sense  a  better 
educated  man?  If  the  six  years  which  he  spent  in  New  Salem 
had  been  spent  upon  a  college  campus  would  he  have  gone  forth 
better  equipped  for  the  great  work  he  had  to  do  than  he  was 
when  he  left  New  Salem  penniless,  burdened  with  debt  and  with 
his  whole  library  and  wardrobe  in  his  saddle-bags? 

These  are  questions  we  can  not  answer.  But  this  we  know, 
that,  defective  as  was  his  formal  instruction,  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  in  the  larger  sense  of  the  term,  an  educated  man. 

All  in  all,  the  best  thing  which  a  college  education  gives  to  a 
man  is  his  association  with  his  teachers  and  fellow-students. 
There  in  the  free  republic  of  the  campus  he  is  learning  how  to 
deal  with  men.  Lincoln  learned  that  lesson  in  New  Salem.  New 
Salem  has  been  rightly  called  "Lincoln's  Alma  Mater." 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  LONG   NINE 
1836-1837 

In  the  campaign  of  1834  in  which  Lincoln  was  elected  a 
member  of  the  Legislature,  he  was  understood  to  be  a  Whig. 
The  question  has  already  been  propounded,  why  did  he  become 
a  Whig?  Not,  certainly,  because  he  inherited  that  faith  from  his 
father;  and  not  because  the  majority  of  his  constituents  in  and 
about  New  Salem  were  Whigs.  His  principles  as  announced  at 
the  beginning  were  no  more  those  of  the  Whigs  than  they  were 
of  the  Locofoco  Democrats.  To  his  relatives,  the  Hankses,  who 
were  Democrats,  he  seemed  "Whiggish,  but  not  a  Whig."  How 
had  he  become  Whiggish?    And  why  did  he  become  a  Whig? 

A  possible  answer  to  the  first  of  these  questions  has  already 
been  suggested.  The  friendships  which  Lincoln  found  in  the 
Black  Hawk  War,  with  men  like  Major  John  T.  Stuart,  may 
suggest  the  answer  to  the  second.  Whatever  the  reason,  Lin- 
coln's choice  of  a  party  was  deliberate  and  honest. 

In  1834,  Lincoln  sought  and  obtained  the  support  of  Demo- 
crats as  well  as  Whigs.  Lamon  affirms  that  he  did  this  with 
the  consent  of  Whig  leaders  such  as  John  T.  Stuart  and  Ninian 
W  Edwards.*  But  after  1834  the  increase  in  the  Whig  vote  in 
Sangamon  County  showed  that  Lincoln  had  made  no  mistake. 
The  split  in  the  Democratic  Party  between  "Whole-hog"  and  the 
"Locofoco"  factions,  resulted  in  a  delivery  of  the  county  to  the 
Whigs  in  1836. 

On  June  13,  1836,  Lincoln  published  in  the  Sangamo    Journal^ 


*Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  155. 

fAs  there  must  be  frequent  mention  of  this  newspaper  under  its  several 
titles,  and  of  the  river  and  county  bearing  the  name  of  Sangamon,  I  am 
giving,  in  the  Appendix,  a  note  on  the  name  and  the  newspaper. 

202 


THE  LONG  NINE  203 

the  announcement  of  his  candidacy  for  reelection  to  the  Legisla- 
ture, to  be  chosen  in  August  of  that  year.  His  platform  was 
short,  and  again  definitely  committed  him  to  the  principles  of 
the  Whig  Party.  He  also  announced  himself  as  in  favor  of  the 
distribution  of  a  portion  of  the  proceeds  of  the  public  land  among 
the  several  states,  in  order  that  they  might  be  able  to  carry  out 
their  schemes  of  public  improvement  without  borrowing  money. 
This  campaign  was  much  more  exciting  than  either  of  the  pre- 
vious contests  in  which  Lincoln  had  engaged.  Party  lines  were 
beginning  to  be  drawn  more  tightly,  and  personal  abuse  became  a 
more  marked  characteristic  of  the  contest.  For  the  first  time 
Lincoln  was  made  the  subject  of  an  attack,  the  precise  character 
of  which  is  not  known.  But  the  method  of  his  meeting  the 
attack  is  known.  He  addressed  an  open  letter  to  the  man  who 
had  claimed  to  know  facts  that  would  discredit  Lincoln.  The 
letter  was  so  manly,  so  thoroughly  characteristic,  and  proved  so 
unanswerable  that  it  deserves  to  be  recorded  here.  The  man 
addressed  never  came  forward  with  his  charges  against  Lincoln, 
and  the  latter  was  left  triumphant: 

New  Salem,  June  21,  1836. 
Dear  Colonel. 

I  am  told  that  during  my  absence  last  week  you  passed  through 
the  place  and  stated  publicly  that  you  were  in  possession  of  a  fact 
or  facts  which,  if  known  to  the  public,  would  entirely  destroy  the 
prospects  of  N.  W.  Edwards  and  myself  at  the  ensuing  election ; 
but  that  through  favor  to  us  you  would  forbear  to  divulge  them. 
Xo  one  has  needed  favors  more  than  I,  and  generally  few  have 
been  less  unwilling  to  accept  them ;  but  in  this  case  favor  to  me 
would  be  injustice  to  the  public  and  therefore  I  must  beg  your 
pardon  for  declining  it.  That  I  once  had  the  confidence  of  the 
people  of  Sangamon  County  is  sufficiently  evident ;  and  if  I  have 
done  anything,  either  by  design  or  misadventure,  which  if  known 
would  subject  me  to  a  forfeiture  of  that  confidence,  he  that 
knows  of  that  thing  and  conceals  it  is  a  traitor  to  his  country's 
interest. 

I  find  myself  wholly  unable  to  form  any  conjecture  of  what 
fact  or  facts,  real  or  supposed,  you  spoke;  but  my  opinion  of  your 


204  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

veracity  will  not  permit  me  for  a  moment  to  doubt  that  you  at 
least  believed  what  you  said.  I  am  flattered  with  the  personal 
regard  you  manifested  for  me ;  but  I  do  hope  that  on  mature  re- 
flection you  will  view  the  public  interest  as  a  paramount  consid- 
eration and  therefore  let  the  worst  come. 

I  assure  you  that  the  candid  statement  of  facts  on  your  part, 
however  low  it  may  sink  me,  shall  never  break  the  ties  of  personal 
friendship  between  us. 

I  wish  an  answer  to  this,  and  you  are  at  liberty  to  publish  both 
if  you  choose. 

Very  respectfully, 

A.  Lincoln. 
Colonel  Robert  Allen. 

To  this  campaign  also  belongs  the  famous  incident  of  his 
reply  to  George  Forquer.  Forquer  had  been  a  Whig,  but  had 
changed  politics,  his  change  occurring  simultaneously  with  his 
appointment  as  Register  of  the  Land  Office.  Forquer  had  at- 
tained further  celebrity  in  local  circles  by  his  purchase  of  a 
lightning  rod,  the  first  or  one  of  the  first  in  Springfield.  It 
was  an  object  of  great  interest.  Forquer  was  well  known  and 
a  man  of  ability.  His  attack  upon  Lincoln  at  a  great  mass  meet- 
ing was  ingenious.  It  made  its  impression  upon  those  who 
heard,  and  Lincoln  was  at  considerable  disadvantage  when  he 
arose  to  answer  this  opponent.  Joshua  F.  Speed  has  told  the 
story.  He  later  became  one  of  Lincoln's  most  intimate  friends. 
At  this  time  Lincoln  was  little  known  to  him,  but  the  impression 
made  upon  him  was  lasting : 

'T  was  then  fresh  from  Kentucky,"  says  Mr.  Speed,  "and  had 
heard  many  of  her  great  orators.  It  seemed  to  me  then,  as  it 
seems  to  me  now,  that  I  never  heard  a  more  effective  speaker. 
He  carried  the  crowd  with  him,  and  swayed  them  as  he  pleased. 
So  deep  an  impression  did  he  make  that  George  Forquer,  a  man 
of  much  celebrity  as  a  sarcastic  speaker  and  with  a  great  repu- 
tation throughout  the  state  as  an  orator,  rose  and  asked  the  peo- 
ple to  hear  him.  He  began  his  speech  by  saying  that  this  young 
man  would  have  to  be  taken  down,  and  he  was  sorry  that  the 


THE  LOXG  NINE  205 

task  devolved  upon  him.  He  made  what  was  called  one  of  his 
'slasher-gaff1  speeches,  dealing  much  in  ridicule  and  sarcasm. 
Lincoln  stood  near  him,  with  his  arms  folded,  never  interrupting 
him.  When  Forquer  was  done,  Lincoln  walked  to  the  stand,  and 
replied  so  fully  and  completely  that  his  friends  bore  him  from 
the  court-house  on  their  shoulders. 

"So  deep  an  impression  did  this  first  speech  make  upon  me 
that  I  remember  its  conclusion  now,  after  a  lapse  of  thirty- 
eight  years.     Said  he : 

;  'The  gentleman  commenced  his  speech  by  saying  that  this 
young  man  would  have  to  be  taken  down,  and  he  was  sorry  the 
task  devolved  upon  him.  I  am  not  so  young  in  years  as  I  am  in 
the  tricks  and  trade  of  a  politician ;  but  live  long  or  die  young,  I 
would  rather  die  now  than,  like  the  gentleman,  change  my  poli- 
tics and  simultaneous  with  the  change  receive  an  office  worth 
three  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  then  have  to  erect  a  lightning- 
rod  over  my  house  to  protect  a  guilty  conscience  from  an  of- 
fended God.'  " 

This  was  one  of  Lincoln's  most  famous  campaign  replies,  and 
his  reputation  was  vastly  enhanced  by  it. 

The  election  of  1836  resulted  in  the  choice  of  a  notable  dele- 
gation from  Sangamon  County.  A  new  apportionment  had 
been  made,  and  that  county's  delegation,  the  largest  in  the  state, 
consisted  of  nine  men.  The  candidates  elected  were  Abraham 
Lincoln,  John  Dawson,  Daniel  Stone,  Xinian  W.  Edwards,  Will- 
iam F.  Elkins,  R.  L.  Wilson,  Andrew  McCormick,  Archer 
Herndon  and  Job  Fletcher.  Each  of  these  men  stood  over  six 
feet  in  height.  They  were  known  as  the  ''Long  Nine."  They 
went  to  Yandalia  determined  to  move  the  capital  to  Springfield. 
They  were  ready  to  swap  votes  with  any  delegations  which  were 
not  striving  for  the  capital,  but  that  wanted  other  concessions 
for  their  own  localities.  The  extent  of  the  log-rolling  had  prob- 
ably lost  little  in  the  telling,  but  it  seems  quite  certain  that  Lin- 
coln and  his  associates  traded  votes  on  the  general  theory  that 
anything  not  positively  dishonorable  was  justified  if  necessary 


206  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  secure  the  removal  of  the  state  capital.  The  effort  was  suc- 
cessful. Springfield  became  the  capital  city  of  the  state.  It 
became  popular  after  that,  to  charge  all  the  bad" legislation  ot 
the  Tenth  and  subsequent  Assemblies  to  the  influence  of  the 
"Long  Nine." 

Of  this  session  of  the  Legislature  one  incident  is  remembered 
in  which  Lincoln  appears  in  an  undignified  light.  In  a  close  con- 
test in  which  his  side  was  evidently  about  to  be  defeated,  Lin- 
coln and  Joseph  Gillespie,  another  Whig,  jumped  out  of  the 
window  of  the  church*  in  which  the  Legislature  was  sitting 
and  so  broke  the  quorum.  This  was  not  corrupt  or  dishonorable. 
but  it  was  undignified.  Lincoln  afterward  regretted  that  he  had 
participated  in  this  arrangement. 

It  is  rather  remarkable  that  we  have  so  little  information  con- 
cerning Lincoln's  activities  as  a  member  of  the  Legislature  and 
a  parliamentary  debater.  He  was  a  member  of  important  com- 
mittees, and  chairman  of  some,  but  his  speeches  were  not  re- 
ported. In  December,  1840,  he  made  a  speech  in  support  of  a 
motion  which  he  introduced  as  chairman  of  the  Finance  Commit- 
tee. Evidently  the  excessive  expenditure  for  printing  appeared 
to  him  a  matter  of  party  politics,  and  was  one  concerning  which 
Lincoln  wished  an  investigation.  Simeon  Francis,  owner  of  the 
Journal,  which  presumably  had  not  been  awarded  the  printing 
contract  by  a  Democratic  administration,  was  doubtless  more 
than  willing  to  print  an  outline  of  Lincoln's  speech.  I  have  no 
doubt  Lincoln  himself  prepared  this  summary  of  his  argument : 

Mr.  Lincoln  offered  for  adoption  a  resolution  raising  a  select 

*Although  Herndon,  and  others  who  ought  to  have  known,  assert  that 
Lincoln  was  humiliated  when  he  remembered  this  incident,  it  is  of  interest 
to  note  that  his  associate  in  this  adventure,  Honorable  Joseph  Gillespie,  re- 
membered it,  and  thought  that  Lincoln  remembered  it  as  an  unimportant 
event.  "It  is  doubtful  whether  either  one  of  them  ever  attached  any  im- 
portance to  it,"  says  Gillespie's  daughter.  (Joseph  Gillespie,  by  his  daughter, 
Mrs.  Josephine  Gillespie  Prickett ;  Transactions  of  the  Illinois  State  Histori- 
cal Society  for  1912,  p.  105.)  I  find  most  contradictory  accounts  of  this  in- 
cident current  in  Yandalia,  some  persons  denying  that  it  ever  occurred,  and 
others  proudly  pointing  out  the  window  through  which  Lincoln  and  Gillespie 
escaped.  It  may  be  noted  also  that  Gillespie  remembered  it  as  having  oc- 
curred  in   Springfield. 


THE  LOXG  NINE  207 

committee,  to  inquire  into  the  causes  which  have  produced  so 
large  an  expenditure  for  public  printing,  and  to  report  a  bill  for 
the  purpose  of  reducing-  the  expenditure  of  that  item,  if  in  their 
opinion  it  can  be  done  without  detriment  to  the  public  good. 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  he  did  not  offer  the  resolution  by  wray  of 
attack  upon  the  public  printer,  or  any  one  else.  He  was  in  pos- 
session of  no  fact  which  would  justify  him  in  so  doing.  He  did 
not  expect  that  more  was  printed  than  was  ordered,  or  more  was 
charged  for  it  than  the  law  allowed.  He  was  disposed  to  be- 
lieve, if  there  was  any  fault,  it  was  at  our  own  door.  He  had 
just  read  the  message  of  the  Governor  of  Indiana,  in  which  he 
called  the  attention  of  their  legislature  to  the  enormous  expen- 
diture of  twelve  thousand  dollars  for  public  printing.  Thus  it 
would  seem  in  our  sister  state,  with  a  population  doubling  ours, 
twelve  thousand  dollars  was  called  an  enormous  expenditure, 
whilst  we,  with  only  half  the  population  and  doubly  more  em- 
barrassed, were  paying  twenty  thousand  for  the  same  object. 
To  remove  all  suspicion  of  his  having  the  management  of  this 
committee  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  party  matter  of  it,  he  de- 
sired that  the  chair  would  not  appoint  him  upon  the  committee. 

The  state  just  at  this  time  was  in  the  midst  of  a  mania  for  spec- 
ulation. Not  only  individuals,  but  the  state  government  went 
mad  on  the  scheme  of  internal  improvements.  Money  wras  bor- 
rowed wTith  the  utmost  recklessness,  and  squandered  upon  pro- 
posed railroads  and  canals,  some  of  which  have  never  yet  been 
built.  Lincoln  was  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Finance.  He 
declared  it  was  his  ambition  to  be  "the  DeWitt  Clinton  of 
Illinois."  Xo  suspicion  of  personal  dishonor  attaches  to  Lincoln 
through  all  this  period  of  wild  legislation.  He  did  nothing  to 
enrich  his  own  pocket.  He  sincerely  believed  that  the  extrava- 
gant measures  which  the  State  Legislature  adopted  were  for  the 
well  being  of  the  state.  He  and  his  associates  were  mistaken. 
The  day  of  disaster  was  not  far  away. 

In  all  these  matters  of  finance,  Lincoln  was  as  wrise  as  his 
associates,  and  no  wiser.  It  is  pleasant  to  turn  from  this  record 
of  mistaken  zeal  to  another  in  which  Lincoln  took  a  brave  stand 
on  a  moral  issue.     The  slavery  question  was  exciting  violent  de- 


208  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

bate.  In  1837,  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy  was  killed  by  a  mob  at  Alton, 
and  the  press  upon  which  his  anti-slavery  paper  was  published 
was  destroyed.  This  murder  excited  little  official  protest  at  the 
time.  On  the  contrary,  the  anti-slavery  advocates  were  quite  gen- 
erally condemned  as  those  whose  agitation  had  produced  this  not 
unnatural  reaction.  The  pro-slavery  vote  in  Illinois  was  too 
large  and  influential  for  politicians  needlessly  to  offend.  On 
March  3,  1837,  the  Illinois  General  Assembly  passed  the  following 
resolution  in  condemnation  of  abolition  societies  and  their 
doctrines : 

Resolved  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State  of  Illinois : 

That  we  highly  disapprove  of  the  formation  of  Abolition  so- 
cieties, and  of  the  doctrines  promulgated  by  them. 

That  the  right  of  property  in  slaves  is  sacred  to  the  slave- 
holding  states  by  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  that  they  can  not 
be  deprived  of  that  right  without  their  consent. 

That  the  General  Government  can  not  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  against  the  consent  of  the  citizens  of  said 
district,  without  a  manifest  breach  of  good  faith. 

That  the  governor  be  requested  to  transmit  to  the  states  of 
Virginia,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  New  York  and  Connecticut  a 
copy  of  the  foregoing  report  and  resolutions. 

Lincoln  was  one  of  the  few  members  of  the  General  Assembly 
who  did  not  vote  for  these  resolutions.  He  sought  to  discover 
what  other  members  would  join  in  with  him  in  a  protest  against 
these  resolutions  and  at  the  same  time  in  a  protest  against  intem- 
perate abolitionists,  and  he  found  but  one  such  member.  These 
two  members  of  the  General  Assembly,  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
Dan  Stone,  joined  in  placing  upon  the  record  of  that  body  this 
righteous  protest,  being  Abraham  Lincoln's  first  public  testimony 
against  slavery  on  both  economic  and  moral  grounds : 

Resolutions  upon  the  subject  of  domestic  slavery  having  passed 
both  branches  of  the  General  Assembly  at  its  present  session,  the 
undersigned  hereby  protest  against  the  passage  of  the  same. 

They  believe  that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  founded  on  both 


THE  LONG  NINE  209 

injustice  and  bad  policy,  but.  that  the  promulgation  of  abolition 
doctrines  tends  rather  to  increase  than  abate  its  evils. 

They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  no 
power  under  the  Constitution  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  the  different  states. 

They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  power 
under  the  Constitution  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Co- 
lumbia, but  that  the  power  ought  not  to  be  exercised  unless  at  the 
request  of  the  people  of  the  district. 

The  difference  between  these  opinions  and  those  contained  in 
the  above  resolutions,  is  their  reason  for  entering  this  protest. 

Dan  Stone, 
A.  Lincoln, 
Representatives  from  the  County  of  Sangamon. 

It  must  not  be  assumed  from  this  protest  that  Lincoln  was  an- 
nouncing himself  as  an  abolitionist ;  on  the  contrary,  he  was  much 
opposed  to  abolition  agitation,  and  took  pains  to  say  in  this  pro- 
test that  "the  promulgation  of  abolition  doctrines  tends  rather  to 
increase  than  abate"  the  evils  of  slavery.  The  protest  wras  hon- 
estly, but  very  shrewdly  drawn.  One  of  Lincoln's  chief  concerns 
then  and  for  many  years  afterward  was  to  avoid  being  known  as 
an  abolitionist.  But  he  and  Dan  Stone  were  unwilling  to  go  with 
a  multitude  to  do  evil,  or  to  permit  the  murder  of  Love  joy  to 
pass  with  a  censure  of  the  men  who  loved  freedom  enough  to  die 
for  it  and  no  word  of  condemnation  for  the  system  which  these 
abolitionists,  wisely  or  unwisely,  were  opposing.  He  registered 
his  honest  and  his  abiding  conviction  that  "the  institution  of 
slavery  is  founded  on  both  injustice  and  bad  policy."  From  that 
position  thus  early  taken,  Abraham  Lincoln  never  receded. 

It  would  perhaps  be  but  fair  to  add  that  the  standards  which 
obtained  in  Illinois  politics  were  the  more  favorable  to  the  ad- 
vancement of  Lincoln  because  the  mistakes  of  politicians  in  his 
day,  in  which  mistakes  he  participated,  were  so  largely  the  mis- 
takes of  the  whole  body  of  the  people  and  of  Lincoln's  constitu- 
ents, that  a  public  official  was  not  too  summarily  condemned  to 
oblivion  for  his  errors  of  judgment.     Governor  Ford  comments 


210  THE  LIFE  OE  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

on  this  matter  with  characteristic  severity,  condemning  the 
"Long  Nine"  whose  log-rolling  in  connection  with  the  removal 
of  the  capital  from  Vandalia  to  Springfield  cost  the  state,  as  he 
maintained,  more  than  the  value  of  all  the  real  estate  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  Springfield,  and  he  records  the  names  of  those  members 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  who  voted  for  the  disastrous 
"internal  improvement  system."  He  was  especially  unhappy 
when  he  considered  how  many  of  these  men,  who,  as  he  believed, 
ought  to  have  been  retired  by  the  people,  were  continued  in 
office.  Ninian  W.  Edwards  and  others  were  "since  often  elected 
or  appointed  to  other  offices,  and  are  yet  all  of  them  popular 
men.  .  .  .Dement  has  been  twice  appointed  Receiver  of  Public 
Moneys.  .  .  .  Shields  to  be  Auditor,  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office,  and  Brigadier  Gen- 
eral in  the  Mexican  War.  .  .  .  Lincoln  was  several  times  elected  to 
the  Legislature  and  finally  to  Congress,  and  Douglas,  Smith 
and  McClernand  have  been  three  times  elected  to  Congress,  and 
Douglas  to  the  United  States  Senate.  Being  all  of  them  spared 
monuments  of  popular  wrath,  evincing  how  safe  it  is  to  be  a 
politician,  and  how  disastrous  it  may  be  to  the  country  to  keep 
along  with  the  present  fervor  of  the  people."* 

We  need  not  claim  for  Lincoln  in  these  matters  wisdom  su- 
perior to  that  of  his  associates,  but  may  remind  ourselves  that 
his  errors  of  judgment  were  not  only  shared  by  his  associates  in 
office,  but  that  they  did  not  prevent  his  repeated  reelection, 
much  to  the  disgust  of  Governor  Ford,  who  counted  him  one 
of  the  "spared  monuments  of  popular  wrath." 

Into  this  state,  whose  early  political  affiliations  were  with 
the  South,  Abraham  Lincoln  entered  at  a  period  when  condi- 
tions were  ready  for  a  significant  change :  and  he  came  into  a 
position  of  commanding  leadership  just  when  that  change  was 
ready  to  occur. 


^History  of  Illinois,  pp.  195,  196. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

ANN    RUTLEDGE 
1834-1835 

Honorable  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  whose  Life  of  Lincoln  is  a 
valuable  source  of  information,  reminds  his  readers  that  Lincoln 
was  unlike  Washington  in  that  the  latter  very  early  manifested  a 
fondness  for  women,  and  that  Lincoln  became  a  lover  at  a  much 
later  period  in  his  young  manhood.  He  quotes  Washington  Irv- 
ing, who  said  concerning  Washington  that  ' 'Be fore  he  was  fifteen 
years  old,  he  had  conceived  a  passion  for  some  unknown  beauty, 
so  serious  as  to  disturb  his  otherwise  well  regulated  mind,  and  to 
make  him  really  unhappy."  Arnold  says,  ''Lincoln  was  less  pre- 
cocious than  Washington,  or  perhaps  his  heart  was  better  shielded 
by  the  hard  labor  to  which  he  was  subjected." 

As  a  schoolboy  in  Indiana,  Lincoln  showed  some  fondness  for 
girls  who  lived  in  the  neighborhood,  but  he  had  nothing  that  can 
properly  be  called  a  love-affair.  This  volume  has  already  noted 
that  there  seems  to  have  been  a  kind  of  boy  and  girl  attachment 
between  him  and  Katie  Roby,  who  afterward  became  Mrs.  Allen 
Gentry,  and  has  also  mentioned  his  attentions,  such  as  they  were, 
to  Polly  Warnick. 

When  Lincoln  first  arrived  in  New  Salem  he  boarded  in  the 
home  of  Reverend  John  M.  Cameron,  who  had  eleven  daughters. 
From  this  interesting  environment  Lincoln  escaped  unmarried. 
There  appears  to  have  been  safety  for  Lincoln's  heart  in  the 
number  of  the  Cameron  girls.  John  McNamar  also  boarded  at 
the  Cameron  home,  and  he  also  escaped  without  embarrassing 
entanglements.  The  Camerons  and  Rutledges  agreed  in  their 
religion  but  disagreed  in  politics.     Rutledge  was  a  Whig;  Cam- 

211 


212  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

eron  was  a  Democrat.  The  Cameron  girls  made  fun  of  Lincoln, 
calling  him  "old  plain  Abe."  When  Lincoln  had  fever  and  ague, 
Mat  Cameron  brought  him  water.  Lincoln  told  her  that  if  she 
kept  him  well  supplied  with  water  when  his  fever  was  on,  he 
would  remember  her  with  a  remunerative  office  when  he  became 
president.  But  not  even  in  this  mirthful  fashion  did  he  offer  to 
reward  her  with  his  heart.  When,  later,  he  transferred  his 
boarding-place  to  the  Rutledge  tavern,  he  took  his  heart  with  him, 
and  the  eleven  Cameron  girls  also  were  heart-whole  and  fancy- 
free. 

James  Rutledge,  uncle  of  John  M.  Cameron,  had  nine  children, 
of  whom  the  third  was  a  daughter,  Ann  Mayes  Rutledge.  She 
was  born  in  Kentucky,  January  7,  181 3,  and  was  nineteen  years 
old  when  she  first  met  Lincoln. 

Tradition  has  endowed  her  with  every  possible  grace  possessed 
by  young  womanhood.  She  had  auburn  hair,  and  a  fair  complex- 
ion. Her  face  must  have  been  attractive,  and  all  that  we  know  of 
her  is  to  her  credit.  Her  youngest  sister,  whom  I  knew  personal- 
ly, was  a  woman  of  attractive  personality,  even  in  her  more  than 
ninety  years.*  She  possessed  vivacity,  intelligence,  and  a  gentle 
and  affectionate  disposition,  all  of  which  qualities  appear  to  have 
been  equally  present  in  her  older  sister  Ann. 

Ann  Rutledge  did  not  lack  for  lovers.  At  least  two  men  besides 
Lincoln  sought  to  win  her  heart.  One  of  them  was  Samuel  Hill, 
proprietor  of  the  store  in  which  Lincoln  was  a  clerk  after  the 
failure  of  the  firm  of  Berry  and  Lincoln.  She  preferred  the 
clerk  to  the  proprietor;  and  such  information  as  I  have  been 
able  to  obtain  leads  me  to  believe  that  she  manifested  good  sense 
in  that  choice.  It  was,  however,  a  second  humiliation  which  Hill 
received  at  the  hand  of  Lincoln,  for  he  lost  the  post-office  in 
response  to  a  petition  circulated  by  the  women  of  New  Salem, 


*Sarah  Rutledge  Saunders,  youngest  child  of  James  and  Mary  Ann 
Rutledge,  was  born  in  the  Rutledge  Tavern  at  New  Salem,  October  20, 
1829.  As  stated  in  the  text,  she  died  at  Lompoc,  California,  May  1,  1922. 
She  was  a  woman  of  clear  mind,  strong  character  and  abiding  faith.  To 
the  end  of  her  life  she  was  a  devout  Cumberland  Presbyterian.  Her  numer- 
ous friends  know  her  as  "Aunt  Sallie"  and  she  liked  the  name.    ■ 


AXX  RUTLEDGE  213 

and  he  lost  the  hand  of  Ann  Rutledge.  However,  Samuel  Hill 
did  not  long  grieve  for  her,  for  on  July  28,  1835,  ne  married 
Parthenia  Nance.  Parthenia  did  not  cherish  lasting  resentment 
against  her  husband  for  first  having  loved  Ann  Rutledge.  and 
in  her  old  age  she  bore  witness  that  Ann  was  a  gentle  and  likable 
girl.  But  she  treated  with  good-humored  scorn  the  story  of 
Ann's  beauty.  "She  was  not  beautiful,"  said  Mrs.  Hill.  "To 
begin  with  she  had  red  hair.'' 

The  other  lover  of  Ann  Rutledge,  if  he  can  be  said  ever  to 
have  loved  anything  except  money,  was  John  McXamar,  who 
entered  Xew  Salem  in  1829  as  has  already  been  stated,  and  for 
nearly  three  years  bore  the  name  of  John  McNeil.  In  1832  he 
returned  to  New  York  State,  professedly  to  relieve  the  poverty 
of  his  parents  and  bring  them  with  him  back  to  Xew  Salem. 
The  three  years  of  silence  which  followed  he  later  explained  by 
three  weeks  of  sickness  which  befell  him  in  Ohio  as  he  was  on 
his  way  home.  It  was  perhaps  as  good  an  explanation  as  the 
others  that  he  gave. 

Arriving  in  New  York  State,  he  found  his  father,  John  Mc- 
Xamar,  Sr.,  near  death,  and  he  died  soon  afterward.  In  the 
autumn  of  1835,  McNamar  returned  to  Illinois,  bringing  with 
him  his  widowed  mother,  who  did  not  long  survive.  He  buried 
her  in  the  old  Concord  graveyard,  about  two  miles  from  his 
home  Two  fresh  graves  were  there,  those  of  Ann  Rutledge  and 
her  father.  When,  some  years  later,  there  was  a  question  as  to 
the  graves,  he  was  unable  to  identify  any  of  them.  He  had  never 
visited  either  Ann's  grave  or  his  mother's. 

In  the  early  part  of  his  residence  in  Xew  Salem,  when  Ann 
Rutledge  was  a  girl  of  seventeen,  John  McNeil,  as  he  was  then 
known,  professed  to  love  her,  and  she  returned  his  affection.  If 
we  are  to  believe  the  Rutledge  family,  her  father,  as  soon  as  he 
knew  that  McXamar  had  been  masquerading  under  a  false  name, 
became  convinced  that  he  could  not  be  trusted,  and  disapproved 
the  match :  Ann  for  a  little  time  after  his  departure  cherished  her 
affection  for  him,  but  not  hearing  from  him,  gave  him  up  utterly, 


2i4  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  later  accepted  Abraham  Lincoln  with  all  her  heart.  If  we 
are  to  believe  McNamar,  Ann  still  loved  him  more  than  she  loved 
Lincoln,  and,  distraught  because  she  could  not  give  to  Lincoln  her 
whole  heart,  worried  herself  into  brain  fever  from  which  she 
died.  The  silly  part  of  the  reading  public  believes  the  latter.  I 
believe  the  former. 

If  Ann  Rutledge  died  of  a  broken  heart  for  love  of  McNamar, 
there  was  no  possible  way  for  him  to  have  known  it,  and  he  is 
our  sole  source  of  information  to  that  effect.  If  he  won  the 
heart  of  Ann  Rutledge  and  broke  it,  he  should  at  least  have  had 
the  decency  to  keep  the  fact  to  himself. 

Early  in  1834  the  affairs  of  the  Rutledges  and  Camerons  be- 
came so  involved  that  they  had  to  move  from  New  Salem.  They 
had  sold  their  farms  on  Sand  Ridge,  and  the  Cameron  house,  a 
double  log  structure,  stood  vacant.  They  moved  back  to  that 
farm,  both  families,  and  there  lived  in  one  house  till  the  spring 
of  1836. 

Those  were  hard  times  for  the  Rutledge  family.  Those  of  die 
children  who  could  secure  employment  did  so.  Ann  worked  for  a 
time  in  the  home  of  James  Short.  It  was  on  Lincoln's  visits  to 
Ann  that  Short  formed  the  favorable  judgment  of  Lincoln  that 
led  him  to  redeem  Lincoln's  horse  and  surveying  instruments  at 
the  Van  Bergen  sale.* 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  Ann  truly  loved  each  other.  For  thirty 
years  after  her  death  no  man  is  known  to  have  alleged  that  any 
shadow  of  her  former  regard  for  McNamar  came  between  them ; 
and  then  the  affirmation  was  made  by  the  one  man  who,  above 
all  others,  should  have  been  silent. 

Poor  as  the  Rutledges  were,  their  ambition  was  unconquered. 
They  did  not  permit  their  son  David  to  give  up  his  course  in 
Illinois  College;  and  they  encouraged  Ann  to  expect  that  she 
might  go  in  the  fall  of  1835,  to  the  Female  Academy  in 
Jacksonville. 

The  last  sister  of  Ann  Rutledge,  Mrs.  Sarah  Rutledge  Saun- 


,amon,   Life   of  Lincoln,  p.    163. 


ANN  RUTLEDGE  215 

ders,  died  in  Lompoc,  California,  May  I,  1922.  For  some  years 
before  her  death  I  was  in  correspondence  with  her,  and,  in  the 
summer  of  192 1,  I  went  to  California  and  visited  her  and  made 
a  photograph  of  her.  She  was  at  that  time  in  bed  with  a  broken 
hip,  but  was  able  to  be  lifted,  and  I  lifted  her  into  a  wheeled 
chair,  rolled  her  out  into  the  sunshine  and  made  a  picture  of  her, 
the  last  that  was  taken,  as  I  suppose,  for  from  that  bed  she  did 
not  arise  thereafter,  except  for  a  few  moments  at  a  time  to  rest, 
and  this  at  infrequent  and  lengthening  intervals. 

I  learned  from  "Aunt  Sally"  that  she  had  one  letter  addressed 
to  Ann,  the  only  letter  the  family  had  that  she  received  from 
any  one,  and  perhaps  the  only  one  that  was  addressed  to  her  by 
any  member  of  her  own  household.  This  letter  she  loaned  to 
me,  with  the  privilege  of  use.  To  my  great  delight,  I  found  it 
had  an  important  bearing  upon  the  question  of  Ann's  plans  for  an 
education.  The  letter  was  written  to  her  from  Jacksonville, 
where  her  brother  David  was  in  college,  and  it  dealt  directly 
with  her  own  purpose  to  go  there  the  next  autumn,  and  he  encour- 
aged the  plan.  It  was  really  three  letters  in  one,  all  on  the  two 
sides  of  one  sheet,  with  room  still  saved  for  the  address.  The 
main  letter  wTas  to  David's  father,  James  Rutledge.  The  first 
postscript  was  to  Ann.  The  second  postscript  was  to  James  Kitt- 
ridge,  concerning  the  district  school  at  Sand  Ridge,  where  the 
Rutledges  had  their  farm.  The  letters  are  in  the  stiff  and  formal 
language  of  the  time.  Postage  cost  a  good  deal,  and  David  had 
opportunity  to  save  postage  by  sending  this  letter  by  a  school- 
mate.    The  letter  to  his  father  read  thus: 

College  Hill,  July  2.J,  1835. 
Dear  Father: — 

The  passing  of  Mr.  Blood*  from  this  place  to  that  affords  me 
an  opportunity  of  writing  you  a  few  lines.  I  have  thus  far  en- 
joyed good  health,  and  the  students  generally  are  well.  I  have 
not  collected  anythings  of  Brooks,  except  that  I  agreed  to  take 

*This  was   Charles  Blood  who  later  became  a  well  known   Presbyterian 
minister. 


216  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

his  paper  as  I  thought  that  that  would  be  better  than  nothing  at 
all,  though  he  says  he  could  pay  the  order  in  about  two  months. 
L.  M.  Greene  is  up  at  home  at  this  time  trying  to  get  a  school, 
and  I  had  concluded  to  quit  this  place  and  goe  to  him  until  the 
commencement  of  the  next  term,  but  I  could  not  get  off  without 
paying  for  the  whole  term,  therefore  I  concluded  to  stay  here. 

If  Mr.  Blood  calls  on  you  to  stay  all  night,  please  to  entertain 
him  free  of  cost,  as  he  is  one  of  my  fellow  students  and  I  believe 
him  to  be  a  good  religious  young  man.  I  add  nomore,  but 
remain  yours  with  respect  untill  death. 

D.  H.  Rutledge. 
To  James  Rutledge. 

It  will  be  noted  also  that  a  year's  subscription  to  a  newspaper, 
though  not  greatly  prized,  was  considered  better  than  nothing, 
and  that  an  editor's  promise  to  pay  in  two  months  was  not  rated 
highly. 

The  Greene  brothers,  to  one  of  whom  this  letter  makes  refer- 
ence, were  friends  of  David  Rutledge,  as  they  were  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  their  home-coming  for  vacation  teaching  must  have 
been  a  matter  of  general  comment. 

The  second  postscript  had  to  do  with  school  teaching.  McGrady 
Rutledge,  a  nephew  of  James  and  cousin  of  David,  had  been 
asked  to  secure  the  teaching  of  the  Sand  Ridge  school  for  another 
student  named  Porter.  The  Sand  Ridge  school  was  near  the 
Rutledge  farm,  though  several  miles  from  New  Salem.  I  quote, 
out  of  its  order,  the  second  postscript,  which  is  to  James 
Kittridge : 

P.  S. — I  wish  you  to  send  McGrada's  letter  to  him  immediately 
as  it  requests  him  to  attend  to  the  school  on  Sand  Ridge  for  Mr. 
Porter  and  also  I  want  intelligence  to  come  the  next  mail  con- 
cerning it.     I  add  nomore. 

D.  H.  Rutledge. 
James  Kittridge. 

David  spelled  "nomore"  as  a  single  word,  and  that  was  the 
way  it  was  pronounced  in  formal  discourse,  a  kind  of  "Amen." 


ANN  RUTLEDGE  217 

It  was  a  word  sometimes  uttered  with  great  solemnity  in  sermons, 
a  word  of  two  syllables,  accented  on  the  second. 

The  first  postscript  is  the  part  of  the  letter  of  the  greatest 
interest.     It  reads : 

To  Anna  Rutledge : 

Valued  Sister.  So  far  as  I  can  understand  Miss  Graves  will 
teach  another  school  in  the  Diamond  Grove.  I  am  glad  to  hear 
that  you  have  a  notion  of  comeing  to  school,  and  I  earnestly  rec- 
ommend to  you  that  you  would  spare  no  time  from  improving 
your  education  and  mind.  Remember  that  Time  is  worth  more 
than  all  gold  therefore  throw  away  none  of  your  golden  moments. 
I  add  nomore,  but  &c. 

D.  H.  Rutledge. 
Anna  Rutledge. 

This  letter  is  in  full  accord  with  the  Rutledge  tradition.  Ann 
Rutledge  and  Lincoln  were  engaged  to  be  married,  and  she  de- 
sired to  wait  at  least  a  year  to  attend  the  Jacksonville  Female 
Academy.  This,  the  only  girls'  seminary  in  Jacksonville  in 
1835,  was  merged  with  Illinois  College  in  1903.  Ann  had  written 
or  sent  to  her  brother  an  inquiry  concerning  the  school,  and  of 
her  hope  to  be  a  student  there  in  the  fall  of  1835,  according  to 
the  Rutledge  tradition.  Lincoln,  as  he  and  Ann  dreamed  over 
the  matter  together,  was  to  have  entered  Illinois  College,  at 
least  for  a  year. 

Ann  Rutledge  must  have  been  sick  when  her  brother  wrote 
this  letter.  It  was  dated  July  27,  1835,  and  she  died  August  25, 
1835,  after  a  sickness  of  about  six  weeks.  Lincoln  was  not  living 
in  the  house  in  which  she  died.  He  went  over,  riding  from 
New  Salem  to  Sand  Ridge,  and  visited  her  once  during  her  ill- 
ness.   What  they  said  to  .each  other  no  one  knows. 

No  one  remembers  the  funeral  of  Ann  Rutledge.  "Aunt  Sally" 
had  an  impression  that  her  cousin,  Reverend  John  Cameron,  con- 
ducted the  service,  though  it  is  quite  as  likely  to  have  been  Rev- 
erend John  M.  Berry. 

What  would  have  happened  if  Ann  Rutledge  had  lived,  and 


218  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

she  had  gone  to  the  Jacksonville  Female  Academy  in  the  autumn 
of  1835,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  at  the  same  time  had  entered 
Illinois  College? 

I  do  not  think  that  Ann  Rutledge  planned  to  go  to  Jackson- 
ville unless  Lincoln  also  went.  She  had  had  one  love-affair  that 
ended  unhappily,  and  she  was  not  likely  to  go  away  deliberately 
and  leave  her  lover  for  a  year.  The  Rutledge  tradition  appears 
to  me  to  have  every  appearance  of  probability,  that  the  plan  of 
Ann  to  attend  the  Female  Academy  was  thought  out  jointly  by 
Abraham  and  Ann,  and  had  joined  to  it  his  plan  for  at  least 
a  year  of  study  at  Illinois  College. 

The  death  of  Ann  Rutledge  from  malarial  fever,  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1835,  was  followed  a  few  weeks  later  by  the  death  of  her 
father,  who  died  of  the  same  disease.  The  sorrowing  family 
remained  through  the  winter  in  the  Cameron  home.  John  Mc- 
Namar  returned  to  Illinois  soon  after  the  death  of  James  Rut- 
ledge. His  generous  heart  forbade  him  to  turn  out  the  widow 
and  her  orphaned  children  before  spring. 

John  McNamar,  having  performed  his  final  filial  duty  in  the 
burial  of  his  mother,  settled  down  and  added  farm  to  farm  until 
he  had  a  large  estate.  He  made  his  home  in  the  Cameron 
house,  and  across  the  road  he  erected  -ample  barns.  In  time  the 
log  house  gave  place  to  one  of  brick ;  and  his  was  known  as  one 
of  the  best  farms  in  the  county.  He  was  elected  county  assessor, 
and  his  assessments  were  just  and  fair.  He  had  a  good  sense  of 
values.  He  paid  his  honest  debts,  and  had  no  bad  or  expensive 
habits.  In  the  latter  part  of  February,  1879,  he  died  on  his  farm, 
in  the  same  dooryard  where  Ann  Rutledge  died,  the  local  paper 
containing  his  obituary  bearing  date  of  March  first  of  that  year. 
His  widow  said  of  him  that  he  was  an  honest  man,  but  utterly 
destitute  of  sentiment.  He  was  twice  married.  So  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  learn,  he  had  no  prejudice  against  ministers  or  reli- 
gion, but  ministers  were  expensive ;  men  sometimes  in  the  excess 
of  matrimonial  generosity,  paid  them  as  much  as  five  dollars  for 
a  wedding  fee,  while  justices  of  the  peace  were  content  with  two 


ANN  RUTLEDGE  219 

dollars.  John  McNamar  was  married  to  Deborah  S.  Latimer, 
February  15,  1838,  by  William  Armstrong,  justice  of  the  peace. 
After  the  death  of  Deborah  he  was  married  to  an  excellent  widow, 
Eliza  McNeal,  April  17,  1855,  by  Jacob  Garber,  justice  of  the 
peace.  By  these  two  marriages  John  McNamar  may  have  saved 
six  dollars.     He  was  not  a  sentimental  man. 

William  H.  Herndon  was  a  diligent  if  not  always  a  discriminat- 
ing gatherer  of  facts  regarding  Abraham  Lincoln.  When  his 
book  states  a  fact,  within  the  range  of  Herndon's  own  observa- 
tion, it  is  reliable ;  when  he  quotes  an  interview,  he  does  it  faith 
fully.  But  when  he  draws  an  inference,  he  is  often  wrong 
Herndon  was  a  man  of  emotional  temperament,  and  his  habits 
rendered  him  yet  more  emotional  at  times.  In  his  later  years  it 
was  his  custom  to  drive  over  to  Petersburg  when  court  was  in 
session,  and  pick  up  a  few  dollars  as  associate  counsel  for  younger 
lawyers.  Herndon  boarded  with  his  brother-in-law  on  these 
visits,  and  had  to  pay  only  for  what  he  drank.  On  one  of  these 
trips  he  determined  to  visit  John  McNamar  and  learn  whether 
he  knew  anything  about  the  location  of  Ann  Rutledge's  grave. 
Herndon's  brother-in-law  drove  Herndon  to  McNamar's  farm 
on  Sunday  morning,  October  14,  1866,  as  Herndon  informs  us, 
not  omitting  even  the  hour  of  his  arrival.  Services  were  in 
progress  at  the  Concord  Church,  and  thither  they  ultimately  had 
to  go  to  find  some  of  the  Berry  sons  w7ho  could  identify  Ann 
Rutledge's  grave.     McNamar  could  not  assist  them  in  the  matter. 

But  he  modestly  ^old  Herndon  that  Ann  Rutledge  loved  him 
more  than  she  ever  loved  Lincoln,  and  died  of  a  broken  heart  for 
love  of  him.  He  pointed  through  the  window  at  a  currant  bush 
in  the  dooryard,  and  said  it  marked  the  site  of  the  log  house 
where  Ann  Rutledge  died.  He  intimated  that  it  was  the  tender- 
ness of  his  sentiment  regarding  Ann  which  led  him  to  buy  the 
farm  where  she  had  died. 

Ann  Rutledge  did  not  die  at  New  Salem.  She  died  on  the 
Cameron  farm  which  then  belonged  to  McNamar.  She  was  never 
buried  in  the   present  Concord  churchyard,   the  alleged  photo- 


220  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

graphs  of  her  original  grave  being  of  another  grave  in  the  newer 
Concord  Cemetery.* 

The  old  Concord  Cemetery,  where  the  Rutledges,  Armstrongs, 
Berrys,  Pantiers  and  their  neighbors  are  buried,  is  a  measured 
acre  of  ground  on  the  McGrady  Rutledge  farm.  There  stood  the 
original  Concord  Church.  The  site  is  now  completely  overgrown, 
but  many  of  the  tombstones  are  erect  and  legible.  It  is  well 
fenced  and  secure  from  cattle,  whose  rubbing  quickly  overturns 
grave-stones ;  and  it  is  almost  never  visited  by  men.  The  curious 
go  to  the  Oakland  Cemetery  in  Petersburg,  where  reposes  the 
handful  of  dust  that  in  1890  was  removed  thither  as  the  body  of 
Ann  Rutledge.  But  more  of  Ann  Rutledge  than  the  covetous 
undertakers  were  able  to  scrape  up  and  remove,  remains  in  God's 
acre  where  the  old  Concord  Church  once  stood,  and  which  is 
now  a  sanctuary  for  the  birds  and  the  home  of  memories. 

William  H.  Herndon  visited  John  McNamar,  as  he  particu- 
larly tells  us,  at  half -past  ten  on  Sunday  morning,  October  14, 
1866;  and  on  the  same  drive  visited  the  site  of  New  Salem.  He 
did  not  waste  any  time  in  the  publication  of  the  information 
which  he  had  received.  On  Friday  evening,  November  16,  1866, 
he  delivered  a  lecture  in  the  old  Court-house  in  Springfield,  on 
"Ann  Rutledge,  New  Salem,  Pioneering,  and  the  Poem  'Oh, 
Why  Should  the  Spirit  of  Mortal  be  Proud/  "  The  Register, 
Democratic  newspaper,  did  not  announce  the  lecture  before  nor 
comment  on  it  after  its  delivery.  The  Journal,  whose  job  depart- 
ment printed  it  in  a  broadside  in  its  newspaper  type,  did  not  admit 
it  to  its  columns,  and  merely  said  that  as  it  was  in  print,  no 
comment  upon  the  lecture  was  necessary. 

About  a  dozen  people,  so  I  am  told,  came  out  to  hear  that  free 
lecture ;  and  next  day  Springfield  was  ablaze  with  wrath.  Lin- 
coln left  no  blood  relatives  in  Springfield;  that  town  belongs  to 
Mrs.  Lincoln's  nieces,  not  one  of  whom  had  ever  heard  of  Ann 
Rutledge. 


*Concerning   the   removal   of   the   body   of  Ann   Rutledge   from  the   old 
Concord  cemetery,  see  the  Appendix. 


THE  GRAVE  OF  AXX  RUTLEDGE 
Petersburg,  Illinois 
The  original  grave  Rutledge  lilac  bush 

Old   Concord   Cemetery  *  McGrady  Rutledge  farm 


ANN  RUTLEDGE  221 

Not  very  far  away,  in  a  lonely  home  on  Washington  Street  in 
Chicago,  in  one  of  those  new  white-front  houses  facing  south 
between  Elizabeth  and  Ann,  a  woman  already  crazed  by  her 
grief,  read  in  the  newspaper  that  her  husband  had  so  deeply  loved 
Ann  Rutledge  (whose  name  she  could  barely  recall  as  a  youthful 
and  long  dead  sweetheart  of  her  husband)  that  he  had  never 
loved  the  mother  of  his  children. 

On  whose  testimony  has  the  world  accepted  this  libel  on  the 
character  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  this  wicked  stab  into  the  broken 
heart  of  his  widow?    On  the  sole  testimony  of  John  McNamar. 

Subsequent  versions  of  the  story  have  done  little  save  to 
make  it  worse.  Now  it  has  come  to  pass  that  the  ring  which 
Lincoln  gave  to  Mary  Todd,  the  only  ring  he  ever  gave  to  any 
woman,  has  been  plucked  from  her  hand  to  adorn  the  hand  of 
Ann  Rutledge;  its  motto,  "Love  is  eternal,"  transferred  from 
Mary  Todd  who  wore  it  to  the  grave  is  given  over  to  Ann  Rut- 
ledge who  never  saw  it.  It  is  high  time  to  recall  the  sentimental 
interest  of  the  American  people  to  some  appreciation  of  the  truth. 

I  sat  beside  the  bed  of  Aunt  Sallie  Saunders.  She  said  my 
questions  brought  back  to  her  memory  things  she  had  not 
thought  about  for  half  a  century.  From  time  to  time  I  left  her, 
and  in  an  adjoining  room,  wrrote  down  on  a  portable  typewriter 
the  substance  of  what  she  told  me.  I  read  it  to  her,  section  by 
section,  and  each  time  it  reminded  her  of  something  else.  When 
it  was  finished  I  read  it  and  she  signed  it  without  glasses. 

" Where  did  Ann  die?"  I  asked  toward  the  end. 

"Didn't  she  die  in  the  old  tavern  at  New  Salem?"  she  asked. 

"No ;  think  again  about  the  house  as  you  remember  it ;  it  was 
not  the  tavern." 

"It  was  a  double  log-house  with  an  open  porch  between,  much 
like  the  tavern.  I  was  only  a  little  girl  of  six.  No,  it  was  not 
the  tavern.  It  was  not  our  house.  The  owner  came  back,  and 
after  father's  death,  we  could  not  pay  the  rent.  He  turned 
mother  out ;  and  we  had  to  move  to  Iowa  and  begin  all  over 
again.  Mother  had  a  hard  time.  I  remember  how  sad  and  how 
brave  she  was." 


222  THE  LIFE  OF- ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

"Think  again,  and  see  if  you  can  remember  whose  house  it 
was." 

"Do  you  know?" 

"Yes,  I  know  who  was  the  owner  at  the  time  of  Ann's  death, 
but  I  should  like  you  to  remember  if  you  can." 

She  thought  a  little  while,  and  then  said: 

"It  was  John  McNamar!  He  was  the  man  who  turned  mother 
out!" 


CHAPTER  XVII 

LAWYER   AND    LOVES. 
1836-1839 

Lincoln  sorrowed  over  the  death  of  Ann  Rutledge.  The 
stories  of  his  frenzied  grief  are  doubtless  exaggerated ;  but  Lin- 
coln's temperament  was  such  that  at  times  emotion  controlled  it. 
His  grief  was  of  a  character  that  deeply  impressed  the  men  of  his 
acquaintance. 

But  none  of  the  women  of  New  Salem  thought  of  his  sorrow 
as  likely  to  last  forever.  With  great  promptness,  and  not  wholly 
without  his  knowledge  and  cooperation,  they  set  about  finding 
him  a  suitable  wife.  Lincoln  was  now  engaged  in  his  campaign 
for  reelection ;  was  supported  by  both  Whigs  and  Democrats,  and 
was  regarded  as  sufficiently  established  in  his  career  to  justify 
popular  interest  in  his  domestic  affairs.  This  story  would  not 
shock  us  greatly  if  it  were  not  for  the  popular  impression  that 
Lincoln  held  the  memory  of  Ann  Rutledge  in  such  perpetual  re- 
gard that  he  could  love  no  other  woman.  Lincoln  did  love  Ann 
Rutledge ;  but  she  was  dead,  and  he  had  no  thought  of  remaining 
single,  as  we  shall  presently  discover. 

Before  we  take  up  the  story  of  Mary  Owens,  there  is  one  other 
fact  of  large  significance  as  to  Lincoln's  supposed  life-long  de- 
votion to  Ann  Rutledge's  memory,  a  devotion  that,  according 
to  Herndon,  kept  Lincoln  from  ever  loving  any  other  woman. 
When  in  1 841-1842,  Lincoln  was  in  the  throes  of  his  uncertainty 
whether  or  not  to  marry  Mary  Todd,  he  unburdened  his  heart 
to  Joshua  F.  Speed.  The  pent-up  reservoir  of  Lincoln's  habitual 
reticence  broke  its  dam,  and  Lincoln  talked  to  Speed  as  men 

223 


224  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

rarely  talk  with  each  other  about  the  most  intimate  details  of 
his  love  and  doubt.  If,  as  has  been  assumed,  the  reason  for  Lin- 
coln's uncertainty  was  that  he  could  not  give  his  heart  to  Mary 
Todd  on  account  of  its  being  buried  with  Ann  Rutledge,  Speed 
would  have  known  about  it  to  the  last  detail,  and  the  letters  of 
Lincoln  to  Speed  and  of  Speed  to  Lincoln  would  have  contained 
inevitable  references  to  it,  as  to  his  superficial  interest  in  Sarah 
Rickard.  Not  only  is  there  no  slightest  suggestion  of  this  situa- 
tion in  the  correspondence,  but  when,  in  1866,  Herndon's  lecture 
was  delivered,  Speed  declared  that  it  "was  all  new  to  him."  It 
was  new  to  Speed  for  only  one  reason,  namely,  that  it  was  not 
true. 

Mary  S.  Owens  came  to  New  Salem  only  a  few  months  after 
the  death  of  Ann  Rutledge.  She  came  intending  to  look  Lin- 
coln over  with  a  view  to  marrying  him,  and  Lincoln  knew  that 
she  was  coming  with  that  thought  in  her  mind,  and  himself  con- 
sented to  her  coming.  Before  she  came,  he  more  than  half  prom- 
ised to  marry  her,  and  he  set  forth  at  once  to  cultivate  her  friend- 
ship with  a  view  to  their  probable  matrimony.  Mary  Owens  was 
cousin  to  a  considerable  fraction  of  the  population  of  New  Salem, 
and  her  married  sister  had  lived  there  through  the  whole  of  the 
Ann  Rutledge  incident.  The  female  relatives  of  Mary  Owens 
talked  to  her  of  little  else  than  Lincoln  and  of  what  he  had  said 
and  done  since  he  became  a  resident  of  the  town.  She  had  a 
good  mind  and  a  good  memory;  she  preserved  all  of  Lincoln's 
letters,  and  she  treasured  in  her  heart  the  memories  of  his  court- 
ship and  the  gossip  of  her  friends.  As  she  recalled  these  things 
in  later  years,  she  was  unable  to  remember  that  she  had  ever 
heard  herself  spoken  of  as  the  successor  of  Ann  Rutledge  in  the 
affections  of  Lincoln,  or  that  any  one  had  ever  spoken  of  Ann 
Rutledge  except  as  a  girl  of  the  village  whom  Lincoln  had  liked 
and  who  had  died. 

Ann  Rutledge  died  August  25,  1835.  In  the  following  sum- 
mer Mrs.  Bennett  Able  of  New  Salem,  told  Abraham  Lincoln 
that  she  was  going  on  a  visit  to  her  old  home  in  Kentucky,  and 


LAWYER  AND  LOVER  225 

she  proposed  to  Lincoln  to  bring  her  sister  Mary  back  with  her 
on  condition  that  Abraham  should  marry  her.  Mary  Owens  had 
spent  a  month  in  New  Salem  in  1833,  and  Lincoln  remembered 
her  as  a  handsome  and  attractive  woman.  He  told  Mrs  Able 
that  it  she  would  bring  Mary  back  with  her  he  would  marry  her. 
This,  of  course,  was  understood  to  be  a  joke,  but  it  was  not  whol- 
ly a  joke.  Lincoln  was  twenty-seven  years  old  and  a  member  of 
the  Legislature.  Mary  Owens  was  between  four  and  five 
months  older ;  she  was  born  in  Green  County.  Kentucky.  Sep- 
tember 29,  1808.  When  Mrs.  Able  told  her  sister  Mary  of  the 
contract  she  had  entered  into,  and  Mary  accepted  the  proposition 
and  returned  with  her  sister,  Lincoln  also  knew  that  the  arrange- 
ment was  less  than  half  a  joke  on  Mary's  side. 

Ann  Rutledge  had  auburn  hair,  was  delicate  and  slender,  and 
had  a  limited  education.  She  was  a  Presbyterian  of  the  Cumber- 
land group.  Mary  Owens  differed  from  her  in  these  and  other 
respects;  she  was  tall  and  large,  had  dark  curling  hair,  and  in- 
herited wealth.  She  was  reared  a  Baptist,  and  herself  belonged 
to  that  church.  But  her  father  was  a  man  of  wealth  and  influ- 
ence and  had  sent  her  to  a  Catholic  convent  where  she  received 
an  education  well  in  advance  of  other  women  in  Xew  Salem. 
She  had  an  excellent  mind  and  keen  wit.  She  was  pleasing  in  her 
address,  and  her  manners  showed  cultivation.  She  was  a  good 
reader,  had  a  cheerful  disposition,  and  was  rather  brilliant  in  con- 
versation. She  had  a  little  dash  of  coquetry  in  her  intercourse 
with  young  men,  but  still  she  held  them  at  a  distance.  She  had 
just  passed  her  twenty-eighth  birthday,  and  she  was  well  aware 
that  it  was  time  for  her  to  marry,  but  she  did  not  intend,  having 
gone  so  far  through  the  woods,  to  cut  a  crooked  stick.  She  in- 
tended to  select  her  husband  with  care. 

We  know  very  little  about  the  Ann  Rutledge  incident.  If  Lin- 
coln wrote  any  letters  to  Ann  they  were  not  preserved.  If 
there  is  any  other  documentary  proof  of  their  love-affair,  it  is 
unknown.  We  know  that  much  that  has  been  told  about  it 
is  unreliable.     It  is  not  so  with  the  Mary  Owens  courtship ;  we 


226  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

have  Lincoln's  letters  to  her,  preserved  and  loaned  to  Herndon 
who  copied  them  verbatim  and  published  them.  We  have  her 
own  story  of  the  courtship,  also,  and,  unfortunately,  we  have 
Lincoln's  account  of  it.  He  wrote  this  narrative  to  Mrs.  O.  H. 
Browning-  on  April  i,  1838.  In  all  essential  particulars  his  story 
agrees  with  that  of  Miss  Owens.  From  this  threefold  record  we 
have  no  difficulty  in  making  a  correct  narrative  of  the  affair. 

When  Mary  Owens  arrived  in  New  Salem  in  the  fall  of  1836, 
Lincoln  began  immediately  and  paid  her  more  ardent  attention 
than  he  had  ever  paid  any  woman  before.  She  made  her  home 
with  her  sister,  Mrs.  Bennett  Able,  who  lived  just  outside  the 
corporate  limits  of  New  Salem.  She  had  a  habit  of  going  in  the 
afternoon  to  visit  some  cousins  and  meeting  Lincoln  by  appoint- 
ment there,  and  they  walked  home  together  in  the  evening.  They 
saw  each  other  almost  constantly,  and  Lincoln  began  to  feel  some- 
what surfeited.  His  habitual  indecision  came  over  him.  He 
began  to  eye  critically  the  woman  who  seemed  to  him  almost  too 
willing  to  be  his  wife.  He  noticed  how  large  she  was,  and  that 
she  had  passed  her  first  youth.  He  began  to  consider  that  before 
many  years  she  would  be  old  and  fat.  On  the  other  hand  she 
was  a  woman  of  fine  character,  excellent  education,  good  social 
standing  and  considerable  wealth.  He  hesitated ;  he  was  already 
committed,  but  he  was  inclined  to  withdraw. 

While  he  was  in  this  state  of  indecision,  Lincoln  went  to  Van- 
dalia  to  attend  the  winter  session  of  the  Legislature.  He  wrote 
to  her  from  Vandalia  under  date  of  December  13,  1836,  telling 
her  that  he  had  been  ill  and  was  depressed,  and  was  disappointed 
in  not  hearing  from  her.  He  told  her  of  the  prospects  of  removal 
of  the  state  capital.  He  was  impatient  at  the  thought  of  remain- 
ing ten  weeks  at  Vandalia,  and  hoped  she  would  write  him  as 
soon  as  she  received  his  letter.  Their  correspondence  during 
this  absence  did  not,  however,  bring  about  an  engagement,  and 
Lincoln  was  soon  busy  with  his  plan  for  the  removal  of  the  seat 
of  government  to  Springfield;  and  then  followed  other  matters. 

Lincoln  returned  from  Vandalia  at  the  close  of  his  second  term 


LAWYER  AND  LOVER  227 

in  the  Legislature  a  popular  and  successful  man.  He  had  man- 
aged the  log-rolling  of  the  Long  Nine  so  successfully  as  to  secure 
the  removal  of  the  state  capital  from  Vandalia  to  Springfield. 
New  Salem  received  him  with  evidence  of  popular  approval. 

But  there  was  not  much  left  of  New  Salem.  Situated  as  it  was 
on  a  peninsula,  approachable  only  from  the  west  and  from  the 
river,  it  was  on  the  road  to  nowhere.  When  the  river  failed,  the 
town  began  to  disappear.  A  new  town,  Petersburg,  grew  up  two 
miles  away,  and  in  due  time  became  the  county-seat  of  a  new 
county,  Menard.  Xew  Salem,  as  Lincoln  expressed  it,  "winked 
out."  Even  the  post-office  was  discontinued.  Lincoln  was  its 
last  postmaster. 

If  Xew  Salem  had  to  "wink  out"  its  expiring  wink  came  at  an 
opportune  moment  for  Lincoln.  He  was  so  constituted  as  not 
willingly  to  make  any  new  ventures,  and  he  might  not  have 
consented  to  a  removal  of  his  few  effects  to  Springfield  with 
the  risks  of  that  new  venture  if  Xew  Salem  had  continued  to  live, 
and  he  had  been  able  to  continue  there  in  a  practise  of  law  that 
would  have  yielded  him  a  living,  and  the  assurance  that  as  long 
as  he  chose  to  do  so  he  could  return  to  the  Legislature. 

On  his  return  from  Vandalia  to  Xew  Salem,  and  before  his  de- 
parture for  Springfield,  Lincoln  saw  more  or  less  of  Mary 
Owens,  but  their  meetings  were  unsatisfactory  and  led  to  a 
break,  which,  however,  did  not  end  the  matter. 

An  incident  occurred  which  was  alleged  to  have  been  the  basis 
of  their  rupture.  Miss  Owens,  writing  in  1866  under  her  mar- 
ried name  as  Mrs.  Jesse  Vineyard,  denied  that  a  certain  story  as 
circulated  in  the  vicinity  of  Xew  Salem  was  strictly  accurate,  at 
least  so  far- as  its  having  been  the  direct  cause  of  her  break  with 
Lincoln.  Apart  from  that  feature,  the  story  appears  to  have  been 
substantiallv  correct.  One  day  she  and  Mrs.  Bowline:  Green 
were  climbing  the  hill  to  the  Able  house.  It  is  a  steep  climb,  as  I 
can  testify,  and  Mrs.  Green  was  carrying  a  baby  as  fat  as  its 
father.  Lincoln  walked  along,  talking  and  joking,  and  paying 
no  attention  to  the  heavy  load  which  his  friend's  wife  was  carry- 
ing.    Miss  Owens  did  not  fail  to  notice  Lincoln's  neglect. 


228  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

These  unsettled  conditions  in  Lincoln's  love-affairs  affected  his 
state  of  mind  in  the  period  when  he  was  leaving  New  Salem  be- 
hind and  transferring  his  residence  to  Springfield. 

In  March,  1837,  just  a  few  days  after  his  and  Dan  Stone's 
protest,  Lincoln  was  admitted  to  the  practise  of  law.  The  state 
capital  had  been  removed  from  Vandalia  to  Springfield.  Lin- 
coln, as  we  shall  later  remind  ourselves,  had  no  small  part  in  ef- 
fecting this  transfer.  Springfield  offered  him  an  opportunity 
such  as  New  Salem  could  not  possibly  afford.  Lincoln  left  New 
Salem,  and  established  an  office  in  the  capital  city  of  the  state. 
There  we  shall  presently  find  him,  and  shall  continue  the  narra- 
tive of  his  fortunes.  Before  doing  so  we  pause  to  consider  some 
special  topics  which  relate  themselves  to  this  part  of  his  career. 

Lincoln  arrived  in  New  Salem  in  April,  1831,  alone,  without 
money  and  except  for  Offutt  without  friends.  He  left  in  March, 
1837,  poorer  than  when  he  arrived.  He  was  not  only  without 
money  but  he  was  heavily  in  debt.  He  had  not  achieved  any 
large  success  in  any  undertaking. 

But  he  had  won  friends,  and  they  were  true  and  loyal.  Few 
men  have  had  more  friends  than  Lincoln,  or  utilized  them  more 
freely.  He  had  physical  strength,  which  was  ever  an  element  in 
his  power  with  men.  He  had  an  education,  such  as  it  was,  and 
it  was  of  a  kind  not  to  be  despised.  He  had  character.  He  was 
honest,  generous,  just  and  kind.  He  had  qualities  which  caused 
men  to  say  of  him  that  he  would  some  day  be  a  great  man ;  and 
sometimes  he  himself  believed  it.  But  there  were  other  times 
when  the  future  looked  blank  or  black  to  him.  As  he  rode  out  of 
New  Salem  on  his  borrowed  horse  to  begin  in  Springfield  his 
uncertain  career  as  a  lawyer,  his  own  hope  for  the  -future  was 
neither  bright  nor  certain.  But  we  know  that  there  were  even 
then  in  Abraham  Lincoln  qualities  destined  to  win  recognition. 
The  recognition  came,  and  when  it  came  he  was  prepared  for  it. 

It  was  a  solemn  day  for  Lincoln  when  he  bade  farewell  to  his 
friends  in  New  Salem  and  departed  to  become  a  resident  of 
Springfield.     He  had  come  to  New  Salem  as  he  himself  said  "as 


LAWYER  AND  LOVER  229 

a  piece  of  driftwood  floating  down  the  Sangamon."  There  he 
had  found  shelter  and  companionship  and  a  widened  horizon. 
He  was  going  forth  to  face  he  knew  not  what.  Lincoln  shrank 
from  the  necessity  of  making  decisions.  In  deciding  to  leave 
Xew  Salem  he  knew  that  he  was  entering  upon  a  new  epoch,  and 
he  did  not  face  it  with  wholly  pleasant  anticipations. 

On  the  other  hand,  Springfield  offered  to  Lincoln  exceptional 
opportunity.  Its  politicians  were  very  grateful  to  him  for  his 
share  in  the  removal  of  the  capital.  They  promised  him  assist- 
ance if  he  would  move  thither.  Lincoln  had  just  procured  his 
license  as  a  lawyer.  His  old  friend  and  comrade,  Major  John  T. 
Stuart,  offered  to  take  Lincoln  in  as  a  partner.  So  Lincoln  packed 
all  his  belongings  into  a  pair  of  saddle-bags,  borrowed  a  horse, 
and  rode  to  Springfield. 

We  are  fortunate  in  possessing  an  account  of  his  arrival  in 
Springfield.  His  friend,  Joshua  Fry  Speed,  thus  told  the  story 
of  his  arrival : 

He  had  ridden  into  town  on  a  borrowed  horse,  with  no  earthly 
property  save  a  pair  of  saddle-bags  containing  a  few  clothes.  I 
was  a  merchant  at  Springfield,  and  kept  a  large  country  store, 
embracing  dry-goods,  groceries,  hardware,  books,  medicines, 
bed-clothes,  mattresses — in  fact,  everything  that  the  country 
needed.  Lincoln  came  into  the  store  with  his  saddle-bags  on  his 
arm.  He  said  he  wanted  to  buy  the  furniture  for  a  single  bed. 
The  mattress,  blankets,  sheets,  coverlid,  and  pillow,  according 
to  the  figures  made  by  me,  would  cost  seventeen  dollars.  He 
said  that  perhaps  was  cheap  enough ;  but  small  as  the  price  was, 
he  was  unable  to  pay  it.  But  if  I  would  credit  him  till  Christmas, 
and  his  experiment  as  a  lawyer  was  a  success,  he  would  pay  then; 
saying  in  the  saddest  tone,  "If  I  fail  in  this  I  do  not  know  that 
I  can  ever  pay  you."  As  I  looked  up  at  him  I  thought  then,  and  I 
think  now,  that  I  never  saw  a  sadder  face. 

I  said  to  him :  "You  seem  to  be  so  much  pained  at  contracting 
so  small  a  debt,  I  think  I  can  suggest  a  plan  by  which  you  can 
avoid  the  debt,  and  at  the  same  time  attain  your  end.  I  have  a 
large  room  with  a  double  bed  up-stairs,  which  you  are  very  wel- 
come to  share  with  me." 


230  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

"Where  is  your  room?"  said  he. 

"Upstairs,"  said  I,  pointing  to  a  pair  of  winding  stairs  which 
led  from  the  store  to  my  room. 

"He  took  his  saddle-bags  on  his  arm,  went  upstairs,  set  them 
on  the  floor,  and  came  down  with  the  most  changed  expression 
of  countenance.     Beaming  with  pleasure,  he  exclaimed : 

"Well,  Speed,  I'm  moved." 

Thus  was  Lincoln  furnished  with  a  roof  above  his  head,  and 
his  partnership  with  Stuart  afforded  him  a  law  office.  But  that 
did  not  guarantee  him  food  and  clothing.  Fortunately,  this 
also,  was  provided.  William  Butler,  State  Treasurer  and  a  most 
astute  politician,  had  taken  a  liking  to  Lincoln  during  his  first 
campaign  for  the  Legislature,  and  had  seen  much  of  him  in  Van- 
dalia.  He  was  of  those  who  encouraged  Lincoln  to  remain  in 
Sangamon  County  and  run  again,  not  doubting  that  two  years 
later,  if  his  influence  continued  to  grow,  he  could  be  elected  to 
the  office  for  which  he  was  in  the  beginning  defeated.  Butler 
was  a  hospitable,  warm-hearted  Kentuckian.* 

William  Butler  took  Lincoln  into  his  home,  and  not  only 
boarded  him,  but  on  occasion  loaned  him  money  for  clothing. 
Lincoln  made  payments  as  he  could,  but  the  system  of  accounting 
was  rather  loose  and  irregular.  Lincoln  had  a  home  with  the 
Butlers  for  five  and  a  half  years  from  the  time  of  his  arrival  in 
Springfield  in  March,  1837,  until  he  married  Mary  Todd.,  No- 
vember 4,  1842. 

Lincoln  deserves  great  credit  for  his  own  part  in  his  making ; 
but  those  who  knov  °f  the  beginnings  of  his  life  in  Springfield, 
are  disposed  to  say  that  there  has  never  been  adequate  recognition 
of  the  assistance  which  in  those  days  Lincoln  received  from  his 
friends.  "No  man  had  more  or  better  friends  than  Abraham 
Lincoln,"  said  one  of  these  men,  "and  no  man  was  more  willing 
to  accept  the  kindness  of  his  friends;  but  he  deserved  it  and  jus- 
tified their  faith  in  him." 


*His  grandson,  William  J.  Butler,  who  has  given  me  much  information, 
has  fighting-cocks  descended  from  those  which  his  grandfather  owned,  and 
some  of  them  trace  their  lineage  farther  back  to  the  fighting  stock  of  Andrew 
Tackson  and  George  Washington. 


LAWYER  AND  LOVER  231 

Lincoln's  partnership  with  John  T.  Stuart  formally  began  on 
April  2~^  1837,  and  continued  until  April  14,  184 1.  This  was 
the  first  of  three  law  partnerships  of  Lincoln.  The  business  of 
the  office  of  Stuart  and  Lincoln  was  primarily  politics,  and  inci- 
dentally was  law.  In  this  respect  it  did  not  differ  greatly  from 
other  law  offices  in  that  city.  When  Blackstone  declared  the  law 
to  be  a  jealous  mistress,  he  did  not  know  how  much  flirting  with 
politics  an  Illinois  lawyer  might  do  unrebuked. 

When  Lincoln  entered  Stuart's  office,  Stuart  was  just  recov- 
ering from  the  effects  of  a  campaign  for  Congress,  in  which  he 
had  been  defeated.  His  main  interest  at  the  time  was  in  pre- 
paring for  the  next  canvass,  in  which  he  was  finally  successful, 
defeating  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  Stuart  was  giving  the  office 
only  incidental  attention.  He  desired  Lincoln  as  a  partner  largely 
that  Stuart  might  be  free  to  give  more  time  to  politics.  Lin- 
coln did  not  enjoy  this,  but  it  was  good  for  him.  Herndon  says 
of  the  beginnings  of  Lincoln's  partnership: 

In  consequence  of  the  political  allurements,  Stuart  did  not  give 
to  the  law  his  undivided  time  or  the  full  force  of  his  energy  and 
intellect.  Thus  more  or  less  responsibility  in  the  management  of 
business  and  the  conduct  of  cases  soon  devolved  upon  Lincoln. 
The  entries  in  the  account  book  of  the  firm  are  all  in  the  hand- 
writing of  Lincoln.  Most  of  the  declarations  and  briefs  are  writ- 
ten by  him  also.  This  sort  of  exercise  was  never  congenial  to 
him,  and  it  was  the  only  time,  save  for  a  brief  period  under 
Judge  Logan,  that  he  served  as  a  junior  partner  and  performed 
the  labor  required  of  one  who  serves  in  that  rather  subordinate 
capacity.  He  had  not  yet  learned  to  love  work.  The  office  of 
the  firm  was  in  the  upper  story  of  the  building  opposite  the 
northwest  corner  of  the  present  court-house  square.  In  the  room 
underneath,  the  county  court  was  held.  The  furniture  was  in 
keeping  with  the  pretentions  of  the  firm — a  small  lounge,  or 
bed,  a  chair  containing  a  buffalo  robe,  in  which  the  junior  mem- 
ber was  wont  to  sit  and  study,  a  hard  wooden  bench,  a  feeble 
attempt  at  a  bookcase,  and  a  table  which  answered  for  a  desk. 

Stuart  had  need  of  all  the  time  he  could  spare  from  his  office 


232  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

if  he  intended  to  defeat  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  Illinois  at  that 
time  had  but  three  congressional  districts.  Sangamon  County 
was  included  in  the  third,  which  was  made  up  of  the  twenty-two 
northernmost  counties.  In  the  spring  and  summer  of  1838, 
Stuart  and  Douglas  rode  together  from  town  to  town,  all  over 
this  great  district,  speaking  six  days  a  week.  The  election  oc- 
curred in  August,  1838.  Stuart,  the  Whig  candidate,  won  by  a 
majority  of  fourteen.  The  total  vote  cast  was  thirty-six  thou- 
sand. This  election  foretokened  the  coming  power  of  Illinois 
as  a  possible  Whig  state.  The  growth  of  the  northern  end  in 
population  bid  fair  in  time  to  transfer  the  state  from  the  Demo- 
cratic to  the  Whig  column.  This  campaign  was  far  more  inter- 
esting to  Stuart  than  the  routine  business  of  his  law  office.  Lin- 
coln, too,  had  much  more  fondness  for  the  excitement  of  the 
political  arena  than  for  the  drudgery  of  officework.  Lincoln 
needed  the  discipline,  however,  and  though  it  was  irksome,  it  did 
him  good. 

The  first  months  of  Lincoln's  life  in  Springfield  were  very 
lonely  months.  His  social  position  was  not  what  it  had  been  at 
New  Salem.  When  the  Legislature  was  in  session,  he  was  a 
member  of  the  lower  House,  but  that  was  a  less  inspiring  occupa- 
tion than  it  had  been.  No  longer  was  there  any  occasion  for  ex- 
citing manipulation  such  as  the  Long  Nine  had  displayed  in 
the  removal  of  the  capital.  No  longer  was  there  the  same  occa- 
sion for  the  display  of  Lincoln's  imaginary  talent  as  a  financier 
and  a  promoter  of  wild  schemes  of  local  improvements.  The  panic 
of  1837  was  bringing  men  to  a  serious  consideration  of  the  folly 
of  their  wild  speculation.  Lincoln  had  occasion  with  the  rest  to 
sit  down  and  consider  the  unwisdom  of  much  that  had  been  done. 

Whatever  of  society  New  Salem  boasted,  Lincoln  belonged  to 
it.  If  he  flattered  himself  that  Springfield,  being  grateful  to  him 
for  his  share  in  removing  the  capital,  would  receive  him  socially 
with  open  arms,  he  was  mistaken.  A  few  politicians  remembered 
his  share  in  that  achievement,  and  a  little  group  of  his  friends 
were  willing  to  stand  by  him  and  enable  him  to  get  a  start,  but 


LAWYER  AND  LOVER  233 

Springfield  had  its  aristocracy,  and  Lincoln  did  not  as  yet  be- 
long to  it.  Later  he  came  to  be  a  prominent  figure  in  its  legal 
and  social  life.  But  his  first  feeling  was  one  of  isolation.  He 
felt  his  poverty  as  he  had  never  felt  it  before,  and  he  was  weighed 
down  by  his  debts  and  the  apparent  hopelessness  of  his  paying 
them. 

Added  to  his  other  occasions  for  discomfort  was  the  fact  that 
his  relations  with  Mary  Owens  still  hung  fire.  At  times  he  great- 
ly desired  her,  but  his  almost  fatal  habit  of  indecision  had  now 
to  meet  her  very  serious  questioning  whether  Lincoln  with  all  his 
good  qualities  and  his  undoubted  ability  could  make  any  woman 
happy. 

While  matters  were  in  this  state,  he  wrote  to  her  on  May  7, 
1837,  a  letter  revealing  his  depression,  loneliness,  consciousness 
of  poverty  and  pathetic  indecision.     He  said : 

I  am  often  thinking  about  what  we  said  about  your  coming 
to  live  at  Springfield.  I  am  afraid  you  would  not  be  satisfied. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  flourishing  about  in  carriages  here, 
which  it  would  be  your  doom  to  see  without  sharing  it.  You 
would  have  to  be  poor,  without  the  means  of  hiding  your  poverty. 
Do  you  believe  you  could  bear  that  patiently  ?  Whatever  woman 
may  cast  her  lot  with  mine,  should  any  ever  do  so,  it  is  my  inten- 
tion to  do  all  in  my  power  to  make  her  happy  and  contented ; 
and  there  is  nothing  I  can  imagine  that  would  make  me  more 
unhappy  than  to  fail  in  the  effort.  I  know  I  should  be  much 
happier  with  you  than  the  way  I  am,  provided  I  see  no  signs  of 
discontent  in  you.  What  you  have  said  to  me  may  have  been 
in  the  way  of  jest,  or  I  may  have  misunderstood  it.  If  so.  then 
let  it  be  forgotten;  if  otherwise,  I  much  wish  you  would  think 
seriously  before  you  decide.  What  I  have  said  I  will  most  pos- 
itively abide  by,  provided  you  wish  it.  My  opinion  is  that  you 
had  better  not  do  it.  You  have  not  been  accustomed  to  hard- 
ship, and  it  may  be  more  severe  than  you  now  imagine.  I  know 
you  are  capable  of  thinking  correctly  on  any  subject,  and  if  you 
deliberate  maturely  upon  this  before  you  decide,  then  I  am  will- 
ing to  abide  by  your  decision.* 

*These  letters,   with  that  to  Mrs.   Browning,  are  in  all  editions  of   Lin- 
coln's Works,  and  need  not  here  be  reprinted  in  full. 


234  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

This  was  a  very  strange  love-letter  in  which  Lincoln  at  once 
professed  his  affection  and  told  her  why  she  should  not  marry 
him.  By  this  time  Mary  herself  was  hesitating.  She  was  not 
yet  ready  to  throw  Lincoln  over,  but  she  was  by  no  means  con- 
vinced that  he  would  make  an  acceptable  husband. 

During  this  whole  period  Alary  Owens  had  been  doing  some 
thinking  of  her  own.  She  noticed  that  when  she  and  Lincoln' 
were  riding  together  on  horseback  in  company  with  a  group  of 
friends,  and  they  came  to  a  dangerous  ford,  the  other  young 
men  looked  after  their  partners  and  saw  them  safely  across,  but 
Lincoln  rode  on  ahead  and  let  her  come  through  as  best  she 
could.  She  had  heard  of  his  tender  heart,  and  how  he  dis- 
mounted once  to  release  a  mired  pig  from  a  mud-hole,  and  she 
liked  it  little  that  he  showed  no  concern  for  her  safe  transit.  She 
chided  him  for  his  neglect,  and  he  seemed  to  her  obtuse ;  he 
merely  laughed  and  said  that  she  was  "smart  enough  to  get  over 
alone."  So  she  was,  and  she  also  was  smart  enough  to  want  a 
husband  who  cared  whether  she  got  over  safely  or  not. 

One  day  in  midsummer  Lincoln  rode  to  New  Salem  and  saw 
Alary.  Their  visit  brought  him  no  nearer  to  a  decision.  That 
night  at  Springfield  he  wrote  to  her  as  follows : 

Springfield,  August  16,  1837. 

Friend  Mary:  You  will  no  doubt  think  it  rather  strange  that 
I  should  write  you  a  letter  on  the  same  day  on  which  we  parted, 
and  I  can  only  account  for  it  by  supposing  that  seeing  you  lately 
makes  me  think  of  you  more  than  usual ;  while  at  our  late  meet- 
ing we  had  but  few  expressions  of  thoughts.  You  must  know 
that  I  cannot  see  you  or  think  of  you  with  entire  indifference; 
and  yet  it  may  be  that  you  are  mistaken  in  regard  to  what  my 
real  feelings  toward  you  are.  If  I  knew  you  were  not,  I  should 
not  trouble  you  with  this  letter.  Perhaps  any  other  man  would 
know  enough  without  further  information;  but  I  consider  it  my 
peculiar  right  to  plead  ignorance,  and  your  bounden  duty  to  al- 
low the  plea.  I  want  in  all  cases  to  do  right,  and  more  particu- 
larly so  in  all  cases  with  women.  I  want  at  this  particular  time, 
more  than  anything  else,  to  do  right  with  you;  and  if  I  knew  it 


, 


LAWYER  AND  LOVER  235 

would  be  doing  right,  as  I  rather  suspect  it  would,  to  let  you 
alone,  I  would  do  it.  And  for  the  purpose  of  making  the  matter 
as  plain  as  possible,  I  now  say  that  you  can  now  drop  the  sub- 
ject, dismiss  your  thoughts  (if  you  ever  had  any)  from  me  for- 
ever, and  leave  this  letter  unanswered,  without  calling  forth  one 
accusing  murmur  from  me.  And  I  will  go  even  further,  and 
say  that  if  it  will  add  anything  to  your  comfort  or  peace  of  mind 
to  do  so,  it  is  my  sincere  wish  that  you  should.  Do  not  under- 
stand by  this  that  I  wish  to  cut  your  acquaintance.  I  mean  no 
such  thing.  What  I  do  wish  is  that  our  further  acquaintance 
shall  depend  upon  yourself.  If  such  further  acquaintance  would 
contribute  nothing  to  your  happiness,  I  am  sure  it  would  not  to 
mine.  If  you  should  feel  yourself  in  any  degree  bound  to  me,  I 
am  now  willing  to  release  you,  provided  you  wish  it;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  I  am  willing  and  even  anxious  to  bind  you  faster, 
if  I  can  be  convinced  that  it  will,  in  any  considerable  degree,  add 
to  your  happiness.  This,  indeed,  is  the  whole  question  with  me. 
Nothing  would  make  me  more  miserable  than  to  believe  you  mis- 
erable— nothing  more  happy  than  to  know  you  were  so. 

In  what  I  have  now  said,  I  think  I  can  not  be  misunderstood, 
and  to  make  myself  understood  is  the  only  object  of  this  letter. 

If  it  suits  you  best  to  not  answer  this,  farewell.  A  long  life 
and  a  merry  one  attend  you.  But  if  you  conclude  to  write  back, 
speak  as  plainly  as  I  do.  There  can  be  neither  harm  nor  danger 
in  saying  to  me  anything  you  think,  just  in  the  manner  you  think 
it. 

My  respects  to  your  sister, 

Your  friend, 

Lincoln. 

Women  do  not  enjoy  this  kind  of  love-making.  Mary  Owens 
did  not  want  Abraham  Lincoln  to  tell  her  that  she  was  at  liberty 
to  marry  him  if  she  thought  it  would  make  her  happier.  She 
wanted  to  be  loved  ardently  and  wooed  earnestly.  When,  there- 
fore, Lincoln  sought  to  end  the  affair  one  way  or  the  other,  by 
a  definite  proposal  of  marriage,  and  though  he  hoped  that  he 
had  done  it  so  coldly  that  she  would  refuse  him,  he  was  sur- 
prised and  pained  beyond  all  expectation  to  find  that  she  did 
that  very  thing.     He  proposed  a  second  time,  and  again  she  re- 


236  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

fused.     He  made  a  third  proposal,  and  the  third  time  was  re- 
jected. 

In  Lincoln's  letter  to  Mrs.  Browning  he  said : 

I  was  mortified,  it  seemed  to  me,  in  a  hundred  different  ways. 
My  vanity  was  deeply  wounded  by  the  reflection  that  I  had  so 
long  been  too  stupid  to  discover  her  intentions,  and  at  the  same 
time  never  doubting  that  I  understood  them  perfectly;  and  also 
that  she,  whom  I  had  taught  myself  to  believe  nobody  else  would 
have,  had  actually  rejected  me  with  all  my  fancied  greatness. 
And,  to  cap  the  whole,  I  then  for  the  first  time  began  to  suspect 
that  I  was  really  a  little  in  love  with  her.  But  let  it  all  go !  I'll 
try  and  outlive  it.  Others  have  been  made  fools  of  by  the  girls, 
but  this  can  never  with  truth  be  said  of  me.  I  most  emphatically, 
in  this  instance,  made  a  fool  of  myself.  I  have  now  come  to  the 
conclusion  never  again  to  think  of  marrying ;  and  for  this  reason 
— I  can  never  be  satisfied  with  any  one  who  would  be  blockhead 
enough  to  have  me. 

It  would  seem  to  be  reasonably  plain  that  if  Lincoln  had  sum- 
moned himself  to  a  resolute  determination  to  marry  her  whether 
or  no,  he  might  even  yet  have  had  her.  She  remained  with  her 
sister  until  the  following  April,  apparently  not  quite  willing  to 
consider  the  incident  closed.  Had  Lincoln  ridden  over  from 
Springfield  on  any  day  in  the  winter  of  1837-8,  and  told  her  that 
he  loved  her  and  would  not  take  no  for  an  answer,  it  is  not  likely 
that  she  would  have  refused  him. 

After  Mary  Owens*  had  gone  back  to  Kentucky  and  to  the 
stepmother  from  whose  domination  marriage  with  Lincoln 
would  have  relieved  her,  Lincoln  met  Mrs.  Able  in  Springfield 
one  day,  and  said  to  her,  "Tell  your  sister  she  was  a  great  fool 
not  to  stay  here  and  marry  me." 

Miss  Owens  was  not  at  all  certain  that  she  had  decided  un- 
wisely. She  married  a  Kentuckian,  made  her  home  in  Missouri, 
and  when  the  Civil  War  broke  out  she  sided  with  the  South.  Her 

*Mary  S.  Owens  was  born  in  Kentucky,  September  29,  1808;  married 
Jesse  Vineyard  March  27,  1841 ;  removed  to  Weston,  Mo. ;  had  five  children, 
and  she  died  July  4,  i877- 


LAWYER  AND  LOVER  237 

sons  served  in  the  Confederate  Army.  But  she  remembered 
Lincoln  as  having  been  in  many  ways  congenial,  both  personally 
and  in  that  earlier  day,  politically.  She  wrote  concerning  him  in 
1866  that  she  regarded  him  as  one  of  the  kindest  and  best  of  men, 
and  counted  it  an  honor  that  he  had  offered  to  marry  her  and 
that  he  had  repeated  his  proposal  the  second  and  even  the  third 
time.  She  felt  sure  that  if  she  had  married  him  he  would  have 
been  an  honorable  and  true  husband,  but  she  could  not  over- 
look what  she  regarded  as  his  bad  breeding  and  his  inattention. 
She  said  she  never  believed  that  it  had  proceeded  from  any  lack 
of  goodness  of  heart,  but  his  training  had  been  different  from 
hers.  She  summed  up  her  reason  for  refusing  the  hand  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  in  this  sentence:  "Mr.  Lincoln  was  deficient  in  those 
little  links  which  make  up  the  chain  of  a  woman's  happiness." 

Lincoln  was  gaining  in  personal  acquaintance  and  influence. 
He  had  come  to  be  recognized  as  leader  of  the  Whig  Party  in 
the  House  of  Representatives.  His  associates  among  the  WThig 
leaders  were  men  of  ability.  His  partner,  John  T.  Stuart,  was 
foremost  among  them.  Closely  associated  with  him  was  O.  H. 
Browning,  later  United  States  Senator.  There  also  were  Colonel 
John  J.  Hardin,  Jesse  K.  Dubois,  Ninian  W.  Edwards,  and  Ed- 
ward Dickinson  Baker,  after  the  last  of  whom  Lincoln  named  one 
of  his  sons.  The  Democrats  were  represented  by  William  L.  D. 
Ewing,  who  twice  defeated  Lincoln  as  Speaker  of  the  House; 
John  Calhoun,  former  surveyor,  under  whom  Lincoln  had  served 
as  deputy,  a  man  of  character  and  ability ;  Lyman  Trumbull,  who 
was  chosen  for  United  States  Senate  in  1855  in  Lincoln's  stead; 
James  Shields,  with  whom  Lincoln  later  had  his  famous  ap- 
proach to  a  duel,  and  Ebenezer  Peck,  who  introduced  the  con- 
vention system  into  Illinois  politics.  Besides  these  must  be  men- 
tioned a  young  man,  who,  like  Lincoln,  had  but  newly  arrived  in 
Springfield,  and  of  whom  we  shall  find  much  to  say  hereafter, 
Stephen  Arnold  Douglas. 

Among  these  men  on  both  sides  of  the  political  fence,  Lincoln 
was  recognized  increasingly  as  a  leader  to  be  reckoned  with. 


238  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  did  not  spend  the  major  part  of  his  time  in  Stuart's 
law  office.  Speed's  store  was  his  headquarters.  There  gathered 
a  group  of  men,  largely  lawyers  more  interested  in  politics  than 
law,  but  including  in  its  personnel  men  of  other  vocations  and 
of  no  vocation  at  all.  They  discussed  politics,  religion  and  all 
other  questions.  There  statesmen  and  near-statesmen  and  aspir- 
ing orators  talked  things  over. 

A  few  months  after  Lincoln's  arrival  in  Springfield,  a  second 
bed  was  installed  in  Speed's  large  room  above  the  store.  It  was 
occupied  by  Charles  R.  Hurst  and  William  H.  Herndon.  Hern- 
don  was  son  of  a  Springfield  tavern  keeper.  The  father  was  a 
Kentuckian  and  a  pro-slavery  Democrat.  The  son  had  been 
sent  to  Illinois  College.  The  murder  of  Lovejoy  at  Alton  raised 
the  anti-slavery  sentiment  of  Illinois  College  to  white  heat. 
Herndon's  father,  learning  that  his  son  had  become  a  hot  abol- 
itionist, withdrew  him  from  school  and  cast  him  upon  his  own 
resources.  Herndon  had  worked  for  Speed  as  a  clerk  before 
going  to  college,  and  on  his  return  to  Springfield  he  reentered 
Speed's  employ  and  continued  to  be  his  clerk  for  several  years. 
Herndon  later  studied  law,  and  in  time  became  Lincoln's  part- 
ner. At  this  time,  however,  he  was  simply  Speed's  clerk,  and  a 
hot-headed  abolitionist. 

This  group  of  four  young  men  formed  the  nucleus  of  a  liter- 
ary society.  In  this  Lincoln  continued  to  exercise  his  gifts.  His 
literary  style  began  to  change  from  the  florid  character  of  his 
earlier  years,  and  to  take  upon  itself  some  nearer  approach  to 
that  clear,  simple,  straightforward  quality  which  subsequently 
became  its  most  outstanding  characteristic. ' 

Late  in  the  year  1837  Lincoln  delivered  an  address  before  a 
larger  and  more  pretentious  society,  known  as  the  Young  Men's 
Lyceum.  It  was  entitled,  The  Perpetuation  of  our  Free  Insti- 
tutions. This  met  with  so  much  favor  that  it  was  printed  in  the 
Sangamo  Journal  and  greatly  enhanced  Lincoln's  reputation  as 
an  orator.  It  is  contained  in  all  the  editions  of  the  works  on 
Lincoln,  and  may  be  studied  by  those  who  wish  to  study  his 
style  at  the  height  of  his  sophomoric  period. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN'S  FIRST  PORTRAIT 
From   a   daguerreotype    owned   by    Robert   T.   Lincoli 


LAWYER  AND  LOVER  239 

Somewhat  better  in  its  method  of  treatment,  and  much  more 
restrained  in  its  diction,  was  his  Washington's  Birthday  address 
delivered  on  February  22,  1842,  before  the  Washingtonian  Tem- 
perance Society.  This  is  the  address,  well  known  to  all  students 
of  Lincoln's  life,  which  the  newspapers  discover  now  and  then 
and  quote  as  a  newly  found  document  containing  Lincoln's  trib- 
ute to  Washington.  That  address  shows  considerable  ability,  and 
has  some  admirable  paragraphs.  Speaking  on  a  patriotic  anni- 
versary, and  on  behalf  of  temperance  he  said : 

When  the  victory  shall  be  complete,  when  there  shall  neithei 
be  a  slave  nor  a  drunkard  on  the  earth,  how  proud  the  title  of 
that  land  which  may  claim  to  be  the  birthplace  and  cradle  of 
those  revolutions  that  shall  end  in  that  victory! 

Thus  early  did  Lincoln  commit  himself,  though  not  yet  as  an 
abolitionist  nor  as  a  prohibitionist,  but  as  a  lover  of  sobriety 
and  freedom,  to  a  program  whose  avowed  end  was  the  elimina- 
tion both  of  drunkenness  and  of  slavery. 

Two  incidents  may  here  be  recorded  as  indicating  Lincoln's 
growing  popularity  as  a  political  speaker.  The  first  is  from  the 
campaign  of  1838,  in  which  Lincoln  again  was  chosen  a  member 
of  the  Legislature.  The  second  is  from  the  campaign  of  1840, 
which  was  Lincoln's  last  active  canvass  for  the  Legislature,  and 
the  period  of  excitement  of  the  Log  Cabin  and  Hard  Cider  cam- 
paign. In  the  campaign  of  1838,  Lincoln  more  than  once  en- 
gaged in  joint  debate  with  a  prominent  orator  known  as  Colonel 
Dick  Taylor.  Taylor  had  a  personal  fondness  for  fine  clothes 
and  other  adornment,  but  in  his  campaign  speeches  he  was  ac- 
customed to  hide  his  jewelry.  A  part  of  his  argument  was  an 
appeal  to  his  horny-handed  neighbors  on  behalf  of  democratic 
simplicity,  and  a  protest  against  the  lordly  ways  and  aristo- 
cratic pretentions  of  the  Whigs.  On  one  occasion  while  Taylor 
was  in  the  midst  of  his  address,  Lincoln  slipped  up  to  his  side 
and  jerked  his  vest  open,  revealing  a  ruffled  shirt  front  and  a 
heavy  gold  watch-chain  and  seal.  The  audience  roared  and  the 
speaker  continued  his  address  amid  great  confusion. 


240  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

When  it  came  Lincoln's  turn  to  speak,  he  reviewed  Taylor's 
indictment  against  the  Whigs,  and  described  Taylor  himself  as 
riding  in  a  fine  carriage,  flourishing  a  gold-headed  cane,  and 
wearing  kid  gloves,  a  massive  gold  chain  with  a  large  gold  seal 
and  a  ruffled  shirt.  He  then  described  his  own  claim  to  aristoc- 
racy, and  told  how  not  many  years  before  he  had  been  working 
on  a  flat-boat  at  eight  dollars  a  month,  possessing  only  one  pair 
of  breeches,  which  were  of  buckskin  which  shrank  until  they 
grew  so  short  that  they  left  a  permanent  blue  streak  around  his 
legs. 

This  address-  was  received  as  an  effective  rejoinder  to  Tay- 
lor's charge  that  the  Whig  Party  and  its  candidate  represented 
wealth  and  aristocracy. 

The  capacity  of  Lincoln  for  controversial  argument  found  il- 
lustration in  his  first  year  in  Springfield.  At  the  August  elec- 
tion of  1837,  one  General  James  Adams  was  a  candidate  for  elec- 
tion as  "Probate  Justice  of  the  Peace."  Just  before  the  election 
a  handbill  was  circulated  through  Springfield  charging  the  gen- 
eral with  having  acquired  title  to  a  ten-acre  lot  of  ground  near 
Springfield  by  the  defrauding  of  a  widow,  and  the  forging  of 
the  name  of  her  deceased  husband.  The  author  of  the  handbill 
did  not  sign  his  name,  but  authorized  the  editor  of  the  Sangamo 
Journal,  in  whose  office  the  handbill  was  printed,  to  furnish  the 
name  of  the  author  to  any  one  who  might  call  for  it.  Individuals 
were  not  long  in  learning  that  Lincoln  was  the  author  of  this 
vigorous  denunciation,  and  the  editor  a  few  days  later  made 
definite  announcement  of  this  fact  in  a  signed  card  published  in 
the  Journal. 

Then  ensued  one  of  the  fiercest  of  newspaper  controversies. 
Lincoln  was  attorney  for  the  widow,  and  Adams  knew  that  Lin- 
coln had  obtained  all  the  facts  in  her  possession.  He  replied 
to  Lincoln  in  articles  many  columns  in  length,  denouncing  Lin- 
coln's attack  upon  him  as  a  conspiracy.  Lincoln  used  plain 
speech,  declaring  that  certain  statements  of  Adams  were  "false 
as  hell."     At  length  the  Journal  published  an  editorial,  which 


LAWYER  AND  LOVER  241 

Lincoln  doubtless  wrote,  and  followed  it  with  a  copy  of  an  indict- 
ment found  against  Adams  in  Oswego  County,  New  York,  in 
1 81 8,  charging  him  with  the  very  same  offense,  the  forgery  of 
a  deed. 

This  settled  the  status  of  Adams,  and  it  did  much  to  establish 
that  of  Lincoln  as  an  antagonist  to  be  feared.  It  also  did  some- 
thing to  increase  Lincoln's  confidence  in  himself  as  a  writer. 
From  this  time  on  the  Journal  was  virtually  his  paper.  The  edi- 
tor, Simeon  Francis,  was  his  warm  personal  and  political 
friend,  and  Lincoln  wrote  many  of  the  editorials  from  this  time 
until   i860. 

Gradually  Lincoln  emerged  into  the  social  life  of  Springfield. 
He  was  recognized  as  a  man  of  coming  political  power,  and  one 
who,  while  lacking  in  social  graces,  would  give  to  some  young 
woman  a  social  prestige  worth  thinking  about.  Almost  imme- 
diately on  his  arrival  in  Springfield  he  was  toasted  at  banquets 
for  his  share  in  bringing  the  capital  of  the  state  to  that  city.  Be- 
fore very  long  he  was  invited  to  parties  and  balls.  He  habitually 
attended  these  events.  Young  women  were  always  interested  in 
him,  though  they  were  inclined  to  resent  his  habit  of  withdrawing 
groups  of  young  men  who  gathered  about  him  and  listened  to 
his  stories.  He  danced  rarely,  and  not  very  gracefully.  Still  he 
had  a  certain  dignity  of  his  own,  and  there  was  a  kind  of  grace 
that  inhered  in  his  very  awkwardness.  In  a  pleasant  social  en- 
vironment he  responded  to  the  stimulus  of  congenial  compan- 
ionship, and  almost  forgot  his  great  hands  and  feet.  He  never 
was  what  was  called  a  ladies'  man.  But  he  had  a  touch  of  native 
courtesy  which  was  the  normal  expression  of  a  genuinely  kind 
heart,  and  women  admired  him,  even  though  they  sometimes 
poked  a  little  fun  at  him.  In  the  early  days  of  his  residence  in 
Springfield  we  find  his  name  prominent  among  the  social  leaders 
of  that  city.  The  local  papers  mentioned  him  frequently  at  social 
gatherings.  A  printed  invitation  is  preserved  in  the  library  of 
the  Chicago  Historical  Society  of  a  cotillion  party  at  the  Ameri- 
can House  at  seven  o'clock  p.  m.,  on  December  17,  1839.     The 


242  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

invitation  is  signed  by  sixteen  "managers."  Among  them  are 
Ninian  W.  Edwards,  John  A.  McClernand,  Joshua  F.  Speed, 
James  Shields,  Stephen  A.  Douglas  and  Abraham  Lincoln. 

On  this  wise  did  the  lonely  lawyer  emerge  from  isolation  into 
growing  prominence  in  Springfield.  It  was  an  experience  far 
from  being  cheerful,  but  it  had  its  value ;  and  Lincoln  moved 
steadily  forward  and  upward  to  a  position  among  the  most 
prominent  of  Springfield's  influential  men,  and  toward  a  place 
of  commanding  leadership  in  the  political  life  of  the  state  of 
Illinois. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

MARY    TODD 
I 839- I 842 

Although  Lincoln's  removal  to  Springfield  put  some  miles  of 
distance  between  him  and  his  old  neighbors  and  supporters,  he 
did  not  lose  their  friendship  or  political  support.  He  was  a  can- 
didate for  the  Legislature  in  1838,  and  again  was  elected.  He 
was  a  candidate  for  speaker  of  the  House  and  was  defeated  by 
a  small  majority.  This  session  of  the  General  Assembly  was  the 
first  to  experience  a  reaction  against  the  unwisdom  of  the  finan- 
cial schemes  of  the  preceding  years.  Lincoln  was  compelled  to 
acknowledge  that  he  was  no  financier,  and  his  efforts  to  extri- 
cate the  state  from  its  embarrassing  condition  afford  evidence, 
if  any  were  needed,  of  that  fact.  We  can  find  little  to  commend 
in  Lincoln's  contribution  to  the  financial  conditions  of  Illinois 
during  the  period  when  he  was  a  member  of  the  Legislature. 
Two  facts,  however,  are  to  be  remembered  to  his  credit.  One  is 
that  he  was  desperately  poor  and  continued  to  be  poor  throughout 
all  those  years  in  which  it  was  possible  for  a  member  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  to  be  paying  off  his  debts  and  providing  for  the 
future.  The  other  is  that  while  some  of  Lincoln's  associates 
advocated  repudiation  as  the  only  way  out  of  the  intolerable  situa- 
tion, Lincoln  as  a  member  of  the  Finance  Committee  stead- 
fastly opposed  it.  He  saw  no  better  way  out  of  it,  but  he 
believed  that  Illinois  must  keep  her  promises. 

Lincoln  was  a  candidate  as  elector  on  the  Whig  presidential 
ticket  in  1840,  but  was  not  permitted  to  serve.  Illinois,  true  to 
form,   went   Democratic.      Douglas     stumped  the   state   for  the 

243 


244      •      THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Democrats  and  added  to  his  prestige.  Lincoln  made  a  number 
of  campaign  speeches  for  the  Whigs.  Only  one  of  them  is  pre- 
served. It  is  in  the  florid  style  to  which  Lincoln  was  addicted  in 
this  period  of  his  career,  and  which  he  subsequently  outgrew. 
It  was,  however,  the  style  of  oratory  which  his  audiences  en- 
joyed. Although  he  was  not  chosen  on  the  presidential  electoral 
ticket,  he  was  a  successful  candidate  for  the  Legislature.  Again, 
he  was  the  candidate  of  his  party  for  the  speakership  and  had 
thirty-six  votes,  but  Ewing,  candidate  of  the  Democratic  mem- 
bers, had  forty-six,  and  Lincoln  never  became  speaker  of  the 
Illinois  House  of  Representatives. 

In  the  campaign  of  1840,  Lincoln  crossed  swords  with  Jesse 
B.  Thomas,  a  prominent  Democratic  politician.  Lincoln  en- 
gaged in  a  debate  with  him  at  a  meeting  held  in  the  Presbyterian 
Church  of  Springfield.  Subsequently  Thomas  delivered  an  ad- 
dress in  the  court-house  in  which  he  denounced  the  Long  Nine 
and  held  them  up  to  ridicule,  reflecting  most  severely  upon  Lin- 
coln. Lincoln  was  not  present  at  the  beginning  of  the  address, 
but  the  strictures  of  Thomas  were  so  severe  that  some  of  Lin- 
coln's friends  stepped  out  and  informed  him,  and  he  hurried 
to  the  meeting  and  heard  the  closing  portion  of  Thomas' 
speech.  Lincoln  was  thoroughly  aroused,  not  so  much  by  the 
argument  as  by  the  ridicule.  When  Thomas  closed,  he  stepped 
to  the  platform  and  made  answer  to  Thomas'  address.  He  did 
not  stop  with  argument ;  he  disclosed  a  wholly  unsuspected  power 
of  ridicule,  sarcasm  and  mimicry.  He  imitated  the  mannerisms 
of  Thomas,  and  held  him  up  to  scorn.  So  severe  was  his  casti- 
gation,  so  unlike  anything  that  his  friends  had  ever  seen  or 
suspected  in  Lincoln,  that  all  who  heard  him  were  amazed.  The 
crowd  yelled  and  cheered,  and  Lincoln,  thus  encouraged,  went 
still  farther  with  his  scathing  ridicule.  Thomas  writhed  under 
the  pain  of  this  experience  and  finally  gave  way  to  tears.  Hern- 
don  says  of  this  incident,  which  was  known  as  "the  skinning  of 
Thomas" : 

The  whole  thing  was  so  unlike  Lincoln,  it  was  not  soon  for- 


MARY  TODD  245 

gotten  either  by  his  friends  or  enemies.  I  heard  him  afterward 
say  that  the  recollection  of  his  conduct  that  evening  filled  him 
with  the  deepest  chagrin.  He  felt  that  he  had  gone  too  far, 
and  to  rid  his  good  nature  of  a  load,  he  hunted  up  Thomas  and 
made  ample  apology.  The  incident  and  its  sequel  proved  that 
Lincoln  could  not  only  be  vindictive  but  manly  as  well. 

In  1842,  Lincoln  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  met  a  former 
president  of  the  United  States  and  found  himself  at  ease  in  his 
presence.  Martin  Van  Buren,  who  had  just  finished  his  term 
as  president,  made  a  tour  of  the  West.  In  July  his  party 
reached  Rochester,  six  miles  from  Springfield,  and,  the  roads 
being  bad,  remained  there  for  the  night.  A  large  delegation  of 
politicians,  mostly  Democrats,  went  out  and  spent  a  merry  even- 
ing with  Van  Buren  and  his  fellow-travelers,  taking  with  them 
from  Springfield  such  refreshments  as  they  supposed  appropriate 
and  which  they  thought  the  facilities  of  Rochester  might  lack. 
Lincoln,  though  a  Whig,  accompanied  this  party,  and  shared  in 
the  festivities.  Van  Buren  was  an  accomplished  story-teller  and 
had  a  fund  of  reminiscences ;  but  Lincoln  distanced  all  competi- 
tors in  the  exchange  of  stories.  The  fun  continued  until  after 
midnight,  and  Van  Buren  declared  his  sides  were  sore  from 
laughing.  Thus  did  Lincoln  move  forward  in  his  relations  with 
men. 

Shy  as  Lincoln  was  in  the  presence  of  women,  he  was  less  so 
in  1840  than  in  1830.  His  experience  in  Springfield  and  on  the 
circuit  had  given  him  wider  relationships  with  men  and  women 
both.  County-seat  society  was  at  its  best  during  court  sessions, 
and  Lincoln  shared  increasingly  in  these  enjoyments.  On  one 
of  these  journeys  he  was  invited  to  play  "Muggins."  He  did 
not  know  how  the  game  was  played ;  no  man  was  expected  to 
play  it  more  than  once.  He  was  seated  in  a  ring,  face  to  face 
with  an  attractive  girl,  and  charged  under  penalty  to  look  her 
steadily  in  the  eye  and  do  exactly  what  she  did.  She  produced 
two  dinner  plates,  gave  him  one  of  them,  and  kept  the  other. 
Holding  the  plate  on  her  knee  with  the  left  hand,  she  rubbed  the 


246  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

index  finger  of  her  right  hand  upon  her  plate,  and  then  rubbed 
the  same  finger  upon  her  cheek,  forehead  or  chin.  This  was 
done  repeatedly,  the  rubbing  of  the  plate  alternating  with  the 
rubbing  of  the  face.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  young  man  to  follow 
all  her  movements,  touching  his  plate  whenever  she  touched  hers, 
and  rubbing  his  finger  on  his  face  when  she  rubbed  her  finger 
on  her  face.  If  he  failed  to  look  her  steadily  in  the  eye,  or  to 
follow  any  of  her  movements,  he  had  to  pay  a  forfeit.  The  young- 
man  did  not  know  it,  but  while  the  plate  in  her  lap  was  clean, 
the  plate  on  his  knee  had  been  smoked  above  a  candle.  Lincoln 
won  the  game.  That  is  to  say,  he  did  not  fail  steadily  to  look  her 
in  the  face  and  to  follow  all  her  movements.  But  when  she  had 
finished,  the  company  burst  out  in  a  roar,  and  produced  a  mir- 
ror, in  which  Lincoln  beheld  his  face  streaked  in  black  in  most 
ingenious  patterns. 

In  such  games,  and  now  and  then  in  formal  dances,  Lincoln 
had  come  to  bear  his  share.  Women  liked  him,  and  stood  a  little 
in  awe  of  him.  He  liked  women,  but  he  stood  in  fear  of  them, 
and  in  greater  fear  of  himself.  But  he  was  approaching  the  time 
when  he  would  marry,  and  Mary  Todd  came  in  sight  at  a  time 
when  he  was  ready  to  consider  matrimony. 

Mary  Todd,  who  later  became  the  wife  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
was  born  in  Lexington,  Kentucky,  December  13,  1818,  and  died 
at  the  residence  of  her  sister,  Mrs.  Ninian  W.  Edwards,  in 
Springfield,  July  16,  1882.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Honorable 
Robert  S.  Todd  of  Kentucky,  and  granddaughter  of  Levi  Todd, 
the  only  field  officer  at  the  battle  of  Blue  Licks  who  was  not 
killed.  Her  great-uncle,  John  Todd,  was  the  first  governor  of 
what  later  became  Illinois.  He  organized  civil  government 
under  the  authority  of  Virginia.  He  had  previously  accompanied 
George  Rogers  Clark  to  Illinois,  and  was  present  in  1778  at  the 
capture  of  Kaskaskia  and  Vincennes.  Of  him  Mr.  Arnold  says, 
"He  may  be  justly  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the  state,  a  pio- 
neer of  progress,  education,  and  liberty."* 


*Arnold  :  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  68. 


MARY  TODD  LINCOLN 
From  photograph  in  Springfield  about  1858 


MARY  TODD  247 

Levi  Todd,  grandfather  of  Mary  Todd,  was  born  in  1756,  edu- 
cated in  Virginia,  and  studied  law  in  that  state  in  the  office  of 
General  Lewis.  He  emigrated  to  Kentucky,  and  with  his  brother 
John,  served  as  an  officer  under  George  Rogers  Clark,  and 
commanded  a  battalion  in  the  battle  of  Blue  Licks.  He  succeeded 
Daniel  Boone  in  command  of  the  militia,  ranking  as  major  gen- 
eral.  He  married,  February  25,  1779,  Miss  Jane  Briggs.  The 
seventh  child  of  this  union  was  Robert  S.  Todd,  born  February 
25,  1 791.  He  served  in  both  houses  of  the  Kentucky  Legis- 
lature, and  for  over  twenty  years  was  president  of  the  Bank  of 
Kentucky  at  Lexington.     He  died  July  16,  1849. 

On  her  mother's  side  the  ancestry  of  Mary  Todd  was  hardly 
less  distinguished.  Anne  Eliza  Parker  was  a  cousin  of  her  hus- 
band, Robert  S.  Todd.  She  traced  her  descent  from  General 
Andrew  Porter  of  the  Revolution.  Her  great  uncles,  George  B. 
Porter,  Governor  of  Michigan,  James  Madison  Porter,  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  under  President  Tyler,  and  David  R.  Porter,  gov- 
ernor of  Pennsylvania,  were  all  men  of  note.  She  was  able  to 
trace  her  lineage  for  many  generations,  and  she  had  occasion  for 
just  pride  in  her  family  traditions. 

Mary  Todd  first  visited  Springfield  in  1837,  and  remained 
three  months.  She  returned  to  Kentucky,  but  was  unhappy 
there.  Her  mother  died  when  she  was  still  young,  and  like 
Mary  Owens,  she  had  a  stepmother  with  whom  she  was  not 
entirely  happy.*  In  each  of  Lincoln's  two  most  serious  love- 
affairs  after  the  death  of  Ann  Rutledge,  a  stepmother  and  a  mar- 
ried sister  were  important  factors  in  his  matrimonial  prospects. 
In  each  of  these  two  cases  the  young  woman  came  from  Ken- 
tucky, visited  her  sister,  went  back  to  Kentucky  and  came  on 
again  to  Illinois  with  little  intention  of  returning  to  Kentucky  to 
live.  There  was  this  difference,  however,  Mary  Owens  had  only 
one  young  man  in  mind  when  she  returned  from  Kentucky  to 


*It  appears  in  evidence  in  a  suit  among  heirs  that  Mary  was  not  the  only 
child  by  the  first  wife  of  Robert  S.  Todd  who  left  home  to  avoid  the  step- 
mother. 
10 


248  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

New  Salem.  Mary  Todd  returned  to  Springfield  heart-whoU 
and  fancy  free.  She  knew  that  she  could  have  her  pick.  Spring- 
field was  moderately  full  of  ambitious  young  men,  and  she  was 
well  aware  of  her  power. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  furnished  to  Herndon  in  1865  this  short  auto- 
biographical statement : 

My  mother  died  .when  I  was  still  young.  I  was  educated  by 
Madame  Mantelli,  a  lady  who  lived  opposite  Mr.  Clay,  and  who 
was  an  accomplished  French  scholar.  Our  conversation  at  school 
was  carried  on  entirely  in  French — in  fact  we  were  allowed  to 
speak  nothing  else.  I  finished  my  education  at  Mrs.  Ward's 
Academy,  an  institution  to  which  many  people  from  the  North 
sent  their  daughters.  In  1837  I  visited  Springfield,  Illinois,  re- 
maining three  months.  I  returned  to  Kentucky,  remaining  until 
1839,  when  I  again  set  out  for  Illinois,  which  state  finally  be- 
came my  home. 

Her  sister  Elizabeth,  Mrs.  Ninian  W.  Edwards,  supplemented 
the  above  statement  with  the  detail  that  Mary  "left  her  home  in 
Kentuckv  to  avoid  living  under  the  same  roof  with  a  step- 
mother." She  had  two  other  sisters,  Frances,  who  was  married 
to  Doctor  William  Wallace,  and  Anne,  who  subsequently  married 
C.  M.  Smith,  a  merchant.  All  these  sisters  lived  in  Spring- 
field. Y\  nen  Mary  Todd  came  to  live  with  her  sister  Elizabeth 
she  was  not  quite  twenty-one  years  old.  She  was  a  young  woman 
of  unusual  ability,  quick  wit  and  brilliant  repartee.  She  was  of 
less  than  medium  height,  and  when  she  stood  beside  Abraham 
Lincoln,  she  seemed  very  short.  In  1861,  when  she  and  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  stood  at  a  reception  in  Washington,  he  spoke  jok- 
ingly of  "the  long  and  short  of  the  presidency."  Among  other 
women,  however,  she  seemed  of  average  height.  She  was  com- 
pactly built,  and  while  she  did  not  tend  to  such  stoutness  as  came 
to  Mary  Owens,  she  grew  more  plump  as  she  advanced  in  years. 
When  Mary  Todd  arrived  in  Springfield  she  weighed  about  one 
hundred  and  thirty  pounds.  She  was  a  brunette  with  rosy  cheeks. 
She  had  rich,  dark  brown  hair,  and  her  eyes  were  a  bluish  gray. 


MARY  TODD  249 

She   was   handsome    and    vivacious   and   had    a    proud    bearing. 
Herndon  says  of  her  as  he  first  knew  her: 

She  was  a  good  conversationalist,  using  with  equal  fluency 
the  French  and  English  languages.  When  she  used  the  pen,  its 
point  was  sure  to  be  sharp,  and  she  wrote  with  wit  and  ability. 
She  not  only  had  a  quick  intellect,  but  an  intuitive  judgment  of 
men  and  their  motives.  Ordinarily  she  was  affable  and  even 
charming  in  her  manner ;  but  when  offended  or  antagonized,  her 
agreeable  qualities  instantly  disappeared  beneath  a  wave  of  sting- 
ing satire  or  sarcastic  bitterness,  and  her  entire  better  nature 
was  submerged.  In  her  figure  and  physical  proportions,  in  edu- 
cation, bearing,  history — in  everything,  she  was  the  exact  re- 
verse of  Lincoln.  On  her  return  to  Springfield  she  immediately 
entered  society,  and  soon  became  one  of  the  belles,  leading  the 
young  men  of  the  town  a  merry  dance.  She  was  a  very  shrewd 
observer,  and  discreetly  and  without  apparent  effort  kept  back  all 
the  unattractive  elements  in  her  organization.  Her  trenchant 
wit,  affability,  and  candor  pleased  the  young  men  not  less  than 
her  culture  and  varied  accomplishments  impressed  the  older  ones 
with  whom  she  came  in  contact. 

Herndon  relates  an  incident  which  appears  to  indicate  that  he 
offended  her  on  the  occasion  of  their  first  meeting,  and  it  is  cer- 
tain that  they  cordially  disliked  each  other.  She  found  repeated 
occasion  to  be  rude  to  Herndon  after  he  became  her  husband's 
partner,  and  he  had  his  cruel  revenge  in  what  he  told  about  her 
in  his  Life  of  Lincoln  and  his  lecture  on  Ann  Rutledge. 

If  there  are  any  people  who  suppose  that  the  advent  of  women 
into  American  politics  began  with  their  recent  successful  strug- 
gle for  the  ballot  and  the  adoption  of  an  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution permitting  them  to  vote,  those  people  know  little  about 
life  in  Springfield  in  the  early  days  after  it  had  become  the  capi- 
tal of  the  state.  In  those  days  nearly  all  the  ambitious 
young  men  in  Springfield  were  seeking  distinction  at  the  bar  and 
in  politics.  Young  women,  in  considering  the  availability  of 
young  men  as  possible  husbands,  rated  prominently  among  their 
•assets  their  chances  of  political  preferment.     There   is  nothing 


250  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

strange  about  the  statement  credited  to  Mary  Todd  that  she  in- 
tended that  the  man  she  married  should  be  president  of  the 
United  States.  Forty  other  girls  in  Springfield  probably  said 
the  same  thing ;  but  Mary  Todd  had  greater  reason  than  most  of 
them  to  indulge  that  ambitious  hope  and  expectation.  Illinois 
was  emerging  into  national  politics.  The  campaign  of  1840, 
having  for  its  leading  and  successful  candidate  a  man  whose 
friends  boasted  proudly  concerning  him  that  he  had  once  lived 
in  a  log  cabin  and  that  his  drink  was  hard  cider,  brought  the 
presidency  easily  above  the  horizon  of  the  Springfield  imagina- 
tion. Mary  Todd  arrived  to  make  her  home  in  Springfield  in 
1839.  Three  married  sisters  lived  there;  and  they,  especially 
Mrs.  Ninian  W.  Edwards  in  whose  home  she  lived,  were  in  po- 
sition to  pave  her  way  to  a  brilliant  social  career.  She  soon  had 
all  the  prominent  young  men  of  Springfield  on  tiptoe.  It  was 
not  by  any  means  impossible  that  some  one  of  these  might  yet  be 
president  of  the  United  States.  Nor  was  it  even  then  impos- 
sible that  Abraham  Lincoln  would  be  the  man. 

Mary,  Mary,  quite  contrary,  how  did  the  fashions  go?  Piled 
up  hair,  and  shoulders  bare,  and  vertebrae  all  in  a  row.  No  girl 
in  Springfield  had  a  more  attractive  pile  of  hair  upon  her  well 
poised  head,  or  a  prettier  pair  of  shoulders,  or  a  better  knowledge 
of  all  the  arts  of  coquetry.  She  led  Abraham  Lincoln  a  merry 
dance  that  had  its  periods  of  anger  and  of  tears.  I  should  like 
to  tell  the  truth  about  Mary  Todd  and  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
that  is  not  wholly  a  simple  matter.  For  there  are  those  who 
ought  to  know  who  assure  you  that  from  beginning  to  end  they 
fought  each  other,  and  married  without  love,  and  others  equally 
in  position  to  know  who  assure  you  that  the  course  of  true  love 
never  flowed  so  smoothly  as  with  them.  And  I  do  not  believe 
either  of  these  stories. 

But  consider  for  a  moment  Mary  herself.  Let  me  relate  one 
little  incident  which  can  not  be  all  gossip  because  it  has  perpetu- 
ated itself  in  poetry.  Poetry  is  the  oldest  form  of  history.  The 
most  ancient  volumes   of  historical  writing  have  embedded   in 


MARY  TODD  251 

them  scraps  of  poetry  and  song-  still  earlier ;  and  this  sober  piece 
of  historical  writing  shall  be  no  exception. 

The  state  capitol  in  Lincoln's  day  was  in  the  very  heart  of 
Springfield,  being,  indeed,  the  present  Sangamon  county  court- 
house with  one  additional  story  built  under  the  original  structure. 
The  land  where  the  present  capitol  building  stands  was  vacant 
and  almost  suburban;  but  just  beyond  it,  where  the  new  Cen- 
tennial Building  now  is  erected,  stood  the  two  fine  houses  of 
Ninian  W.  Edwards  and  Lawson  Levering.  In  1840,  Mercy 
Levering,  of  Georgetown,  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  was  vis- 
iting her  brother,  the  visit  resulting  in  her  marriage,  September 
11,  1 84 1,  to  James  Conkling.  At  the  same  time,  as  we  know, 
Mary  Todd  was  visiting  her  sister,  Mrs.  Edwards.  A  very  gay 
time  these  two  maidens  had  while  next-door  neighbors. 

There  came  a  period  of  three  weeks  in  which  these  girls  were 
hardly  able  to  step  out-of-doors  on  account  of  the  incessant  rains. 
When  at  length  the  sun  broke  through  the  clouds,  Springfield 
was  one  vast  mud-hole.  There  were  sidewalks  on  Monroe  Street, 
and  around  the  Square,  but  none  on  Fifth  Street.  But  the  two 
girls  resolved  to  go  to  the  Square,  and  look  in  at  the  stores  and 
hear  the  gossip  of  the  town.  A  bundle  of  shingles  was  in  the 
yard  of  the  Edwards  home,  and  the  young  ladies  each  took  an 
armful  of  them.  Carefully  picking  their  way,  they  laid  shingles 
over  the  mud-holes  which  they  could  not  step  across,  and  so 
made  their  way  to  the  nearer  end  of  the  sidewalks,  and  accom- 
plished the  purpose  of  their  pilgrimage.  But  how  were  they  to 
return?  For  the  shingles  which  had  been  none  too  secure  a  foun- 
dation when  first  laid,  would  have  been  submerged  by  other  feet, 
and  the  mud  was  deep. 

Springfield  had  a  drayman  named  Hart,  who  drove  his  two- 
wheeled  sloping-bedded  vehicle  about  towm,  backing  it  up  at  the 
doors  where  he  had  freight  to  deliver.  The  rear-end  of  his  dray 
possessed  no  tail-board,  but  had  an  iron  rod  which  fitted  into  a 
socket  and  was  a  convenient  standard  to  which  a  rope  might  be 
tied  on  occasion.     The  rod  could  be  pulled  out  for  convenience  in 


252  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

loading  and  unloading-.  As  the  girls  were  considering  how  to 
get  home,  Hart's  dray  came  by,  and  Mary  Todd  called  to  Hart, 
and  asked  him  to  convey  her  and  Mercy  to  their  homes.  He 
backed  up  his  dray  to  the  curb  and  Mary  climbed  aboard.  Mercy 
was  too  horrified  to  follow  her  example,  though  greatly  wishing 
that  she  dared.  Mary  stood  erect,  holding  tight  to  the  iron 
stake,  and  the  dray  splashed  and  plowed  its  way  to  the  Edwards 
home,  and  then  backed  up  and  let  her  dismount. 

If  Springfield  had  been  New  York,  and  Fifth  Street  had  been 
Fifth  Avenue,  and  the  time  had  been  the  present,  the  daughter 
of  any  of  New  York's  Four  Hundred  might  have  ridden  home  on 
a  dray,  wearing  a  dunce-cap  and  tooting  a  striped  horn,  and  few 
pedestrians  would  so  much  as  have  turned  their  heads ;  but 
Springfield  was  much  more  conventional  than  New  York. 

Perhaps  there  was  not  another  girl  in  Springfield  who  would 
have  dared  to  do  what  Mary  did ;  but  people  said,  "That's  just 
like  Mary  Todd,"  and  laughed  merrily  about  it.  "There  is  a 
great  deal  of  flourishing  about  in  carriages,"  wrote  Abraham 
Lincoln  to  Mary  Owens.  And  Mary  Todd  was  flourishing  about 
in  Flart's  dray! 

Doctor  E.  H.  Merriman,  who  was  Lincoln's  second  in  the 
"duel"  with  Shields,  was  of  those  who  saw  Mary  Todd  riding 
home  on  a  dray;  and  for  that  matter,  who  did  not  see  her?  He 
wrote  a  poem  about  it,  not  for  publication,  but  to  be  passed 
around  among  their  discreet  mutual  friends.  Mercy  Levering 
became  the  final  owner  of  the  manuscript,  which  only  lately  has 
been  given  by  Mercy's  daughter  to  the  Illinois  State  Historical 
Society.  Not  wholly  for  the  beauty  of  its  lines,  nor  yet  for  the 
historical  value  of  the  event,  but  as  affording  a  side  light  on  the 
vivacity  and  daring  of  Mary  Todd,  this  literary  gem  is  here 
enshrined  :* 


*  Journal  of  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Society,  April,   1923,  P-   146.     I 
have  smoothed  the  meter  in  two  or  three  places. 


MARY  TODD 

RIDING  OX  A  DRAY 
By  Doctor  E.  H.  Merriman 

As  I  walked  out  on  Monday  last, 

A  wet  and  muddy  day, 
'Twas  there  I  saw  a  pretty  lass, 

A-riding  on  a  dray, 

A-riding  on  a  dray ! 

Quoth  I,  ''Sweet  lass,  what  do  you  there?" 
Saith  she,  "Good  lack-a-day, 

I  had  no  coach  to  take  me  home, 
So  I'm  riding  on  a  dray; 
I'm  riding  on  a  dray! 

"At  Lowry's  house  I  got  aboard 

Xext  door  to  Mr.  Hay, 
By  yellow  Poll  and  Spottswood  then 

A-riding  on  a  dray, 

A-riding  on  a  dray." 

The  ragged  boys  threw  up  their  caps, 

And  poor  folks  ran  away 
As  by  James  Lamb's  and  o'er  the  bridge 

She  plodded  on  her  way, 

She  plodded  on  her  way. 

Then  up  flew  windows,  out  popped  heads. 

To  see  this  lady  gay 
In  silken  cloak  and  feathers  white 

A-riding  on  a  dray, 

A-riding  on  a  dray. 

At  length  arrived  at  Edwards'  house, 

Hart  backed  the  usual  way. 
And  taking  out  the  iron  pin 

He  rolled  her  off  the  dray, 

He  rolled  her  off  the  dray. 

When  safely  landed  on  her  feet, 
Said  she,  "What  is  to  pay?" 
Quoth  Hart,  "I  can  not  charge  you  aught 


254  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

For  riding  on  my  dray, 
For  riding  on  my  dray. 

"Fair  maid,  an  honor  such  as  this 

I  meet  not  every  day ; 
For  surely  I'm  the  happiest  man 

That  ever  drove  a  dray, 

That  ever  drove  a  dray." 

And  now  a  moral  I'll  append 

To  this  my  humble  lay : 
When  you  are  sticking  in  the  mud, 

Why,  call  out  for  a  dray; 

Just  call  out  for  a  dray! 

It  is  not  easy  for  one  who  has  not  lived  in  such  a  community, 
to  form  an  adequate  or  even  just  idea  of  social  usages  as  they 
existed  in  Springfield  during  Lincoln's  residence  there.  The 
town  was  small,  unkempt  and  unattractive.  The  streets  were 
unpaved,  and  there  were  no  sewers.  Livestock  ran  at  large,  and 
public  sentiment  was  on  the  side  of  the  owners  of  the  hogs  rather 
than  with  the  owners  of  the  gardens.  A  resident  of  Springfield 
in  that  early  day  has  said  that  a  man  and  a  hog  had  equal  right 
upon  a  sidewalk.  The  street  crossings  after  a  rain  were  places  of 
deep  mud  with  here  and  there  a  slab  or  a  scrap  of  plank  laid 
treacherously  across  some  of  the  deeper  mud-holes.  A  large  pro- 
portion of  the  people  still  dressed  in  frontier  style.  In  political 
life  nothing  was  so  damaging  to  a  man  as  the  charge  that  he  was 
an  aristocrat.  Candidates  who  had  fine  clothes  were  careful  to 
conceal  the  fact. 

On  the  other  hand  the  advertisements  of  the  merchants  showed 
increasingly  the  importation  of  textures  of  finer  grade.  Silks 
were  a  marketable  commodity  in  Springfield.  Some  of  the 
Springfield  women  boasted  of  silk  gowns  that  would  stand 
alone.  There  was  a  certain  formality  of  address  which  was  the 
more  rigid  because  social  life  was  so  near  the  boundary  of 
frontier  living.      Springfield  ladies  did  not  address  their  hus- 


MARY  TODD  255 

bands  by  their  first  names,  but  habitually  spoke  of  them  by  their 
title.  Men  in  professional  life  would  sit  and  joke  with  the  utmost 
informality,  but  there  were  certain  lines  that  were  rigidly  drawn. 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  was  born  in  New  England,  was  much 
more  familiar  in  his  bearing  toward  his  equals  than  was  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  of  the  western  backwoods.  Douglas,  in  walking 
with  a  friend,  would  throw  an  arm  around  him,  or  slap  him  on 
the  back,  or  even  now  and  then  sit  upon  his  knee.  There  was  in 
Lincoln  something  which  forbade  this  kind  of  familiarity,  and 
Lincoln  did  not  himself  indulge  in  it. 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  glory  of  Springfield's  elite  society 
at  the  time  when  Alary  Todd  entered  it.  In  1809,  Ninian  Ed- 
wards was  territorial  governor  of  Illinois;  and  in  1826  he  be- 
came the  third  governor  of  the  state.  He  was  inaugurated  in  a 
gold-laced  cloak  over  a  fine  broadcloth  suit,  and  wore  knee- 
breeches  and  top-boots.  He  was  driven  from  place  to  place  in  a 
magnificent  carriage  drawn  by  a  pair  of  spirited  horses,  and  on 
the  box  were  a  colored  coachman  and  footman.  Illinois  gover- 
nors did  not  maintain  in  perpetuity  that  degree  of  pomp  and 
circumstance,  but  the  governor  of  Illinois  was  still  a  great  man 
when  Abraham  Lincoln  removed  to  Springfield  and  Mary  Todd 
came  to  live  with  her  sister,  Mrs.  Xinian  W.  Edwards  Much 
of  the  old  dignity  still  hedged  the  governor  about,  and  made  the 
state  social  functions  of  Springfield  glorious.  The  Edwards 
home  stood  in  the  most  aristocratic  part  of  Springfield — where 
now  the  State  Centennial  building  lifts  its  stately  fagade  to  greet 
the  dome  of  the  capitol.  Its  owner  was  the  son  of  old  Governor 
Edwards;  its  hostess  was  the  great-niece  of  old  Governor  Todd. 
If  this  free  democracy  of  ours  had  an  aristocracy  anywhere,  it 
was  in  Springfield,  and  of  it  Mary  Todd  was  an  important  part. 

After  Governor  Matteson's  time,  the  governors  gave  recep- 
tions— he  was  the  first  Illinois  governor  to  use  the  word ;  prior 
to  that  time  these  affairs  were  called  levees.  Alary  Todd  liked 
the  word  levee.  Her  farewell  social  function  in  Springfield  was 
a  levee.     Springfield's  high  society  did  not  give  "dances."    They 


256  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

had  dances,  to  be  sure ;  when  a  few  loads  of  young  people  drove 
over  to  Rochester  or  Jacksonville  and  had  a  "dance"  in  one  of  the 
taverns  and  got  home  about  daylight.  Springfield  had  "hops,'5 
which  were  more  or  less  informal;  and  "cotillions"  which  were 
subscription  affairs;  and  "balls"  which  were  great  events.  A 
new  governor  was  inaugurated  with  a  ball,  unless  he  was  a 
Methodist  or  very  strict  Presbyterian,  in  which  case  he  gave  a 
promenade  party.  At  a  promenade  party  the  guests  gossiped  and 
ate  and  flirted  instead  of  dancing,  eating  and  flirting.  When 
Lyman  Trumbull  married  Julia  Jayne,  he,  being  a  staid  Presby- 
terian, gave  a  promenade  party.  The  Edwardses  were  Episco- 
palians; they  gave  balls.  The  Episcopal  church  in  Springfield 
was  said  to  have  been  erected  out  of  Elizabeth  Edwards's  pound 
cakes. 

Behold  now  a  levee,  or  a  ball,  or  a  promenade  party  of  about 
1840,  with  Springfield's  high  society  present  in  a  body.  One- 
half  the  pretty  girls  from  all  over  Illinois  are  in  attendance  in 
their  best  frocks  as  house  guests  of  relatives  actually  or  officially 
resident  of  Springfield.  And  behold  Mary  Todd  as  she  enters ; 
for  all  eyes  are  turned  toward  her.  She  is  dressed  in  "change- 
able silk,  shot  with  blue  and  flame  color,"  or  perhaps  on  this  occa- 
sion she  wears  "four  illusion  skirts  over  white  satin,"  the  over- 
skirt  "looped  with  dew-gemmed  Stars  of  Bethlehem."  The  waist 
of  her  dress  is  not  much  to  speak  of,  being  cut  very  low,  and 
revealing  plump  arms  and  attractive  neck  and  shoulders ;  but  the 
skirt  has  twelve  breadths  of  silk,  and  stands  out  over  from  eight 
to  twelve  starched  petticoats.  She  has  tugged  hard  at  her  corset- 
stays  and  has  a  relatively  slender  waist;  but  still  she  is  a  good 
armful,  plump,  and  pulsating  with  vitality.  When  she  came  in  at 
the  front  door,  she  wore  a  flowered  bonnet  tied  with  a  great 
double  bow-knot  under  her  pretty  chin.  Now,  having  removed 
her  bonnet,  she  wears  a  flower,  or  perhaps  an  ostrich-plume  in 
her  hair.  You  need  not  try  to  keep  your  eyes  off  her ;  it  will  be 
of  no  use,  and  furthermore  she  is  quite  willing  to  be  seen.  In 
the  language  of  the  period,  she   is   "dressed  to  kill,"  and  she 


MARY  TODD  2?y 

knows  the  fatality  of  her  attire.  She  moves  down  the  hall,  to 
quote  the  late  Colonel  Ingersoll,  "like  an  armed  warrior :  like  a 
plumed  knight,"  or,  if  you  prefer  to  take  a  figure  of  speech  from 
the  Bible,  you  will  discover  it  in  that  simile  said  to  have  been 
formulated  by  a  gentleman  who  was  something  of  a  connoisseur 
in  the  matter  of  pretty  women, — "fair  as  the  moon,  clear  as  the 
sun,  and  terrible  as  an  army  with  banners." 

Entering  the  lists  against  the  most  eligible  men  in  Springfield, 
men  of  wealth,  men  of  education,  men  of  culture,  men  who  knew 
how  to  flirt  and  dance  and  indulge  in  pretty  compliments  to 
women,  Abraham  Lincoln  set  out  to  win  the  heart  of  Mary  Todd, 
and  to  the  amazement  of  all  Springfield  he  succeeded. 

Elizabeth  Edwards  and  her  two  sisters  intended  to  make  a 
brilliant  match  for  Alary.  She  had  no  lack  of  suitors.  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  was  among  the  men  whose  hearts  were  laid  at  her 
feet.  After  all  possible  allowance  is  made  for  exaggeration,  hers 
must  have  been  a  brilliant  social  career  in  Springfield.  With 
practically  all  the  young  men  of  Springfield  to  choose  among,  she 
accepted  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  they  became  engaged  sometime 
in  1840,  and  it  is  said  that  they  were  to  have  been  married  on  the 
first  day  of  January,  1841. 

What  followed  has  been  told  by  Herndon  in  words  that  have 
become  the  occasion  of  fierce  controversy : 

The  time  fixed  for  the  marriage  was  the  first  day  of  January, 
1 84 1.  Careful  preparations  for  the  happy  occasion  were  made  at 
the  Edwards  mansion.  The  house  underwent  the  customary 
renovation;  the  furniture  was  properly  arranged,  the  rooms 
neatly  decorated,  the  supper  prepared,  and  the  guests  invited. 
The  latter  assembled  on  the  evening  in  question,  and  awaited  in 
expectant  pleasure  the  interesting  ceremony  of  marriage.  The 
bride,  bedecked  in  veil  and  silken  gown,  and  nervously  toying 
with  the  flowers  in  her  hair,  sat  in  the  adjoining  room.  Nothing 
was  lacking  but  the  groom.  For  some  strange  reason  he  had 
been  delayed.  An  hour  passed,  and  the  guests,  as  well  as  the 
bride,  were  becoming  restless.  But  they  were  all  doomed  to 
disappointment.      Another   hour   passed;   messengers   were   sent 


258  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

out  over  town,  and  each  returning  with  the  same  report,  it  be- 
came apparent  that  Lincoln,  the  principal  in  this  little  drama, 
had  purposely  failed  to  appear.  The  bride,  in  grief,  disappeared 
to  her  room ;  the  wedding  supper  was  left  untouched ;  the  guests 
quietly  and  wonderingly  withdrew;  the  lights  in  the  Edwards 
mansion  were  blown  out,  and  darkness  settled  over  all  for  the 
night.  What  the  feelings  of  a  lady  as  sensitive,  passionate,  and 
proud  as  Miss  Todd  were,  we  can  only  imagine ;  no  one  can  ever 
describe  them.  By  day-break,  after  persistent  search,  Lincoln's 
friends  found  him.  Restless,  gloomy,  miserable,  desperate,  he 
seemed  an  object  of  pity.  His  friends,  Speed  among  the  number, 
fearing  a  tragic  termination,  watched  him  closely  in  their  rooms 
day  and  night.  "Knives  and  razors,  and  every  instrument  that 
could  be  used  for  self-destruction,  were  removed  from  his  reach." 
Mrs.  Edwards  did  not  hesitate  to  regard  him  as  insane,  and  of 
course  her  sister  Mary  shared  in  that  view. 

Such  an  event,  if  thus  advertised  in  advance,  could  hardly 
have  failed  to  be  a  feature  in  the  season's  social  life,  but  the 
newspapers  of  Springfield  make  no  announcement  of  it.  The 
records  of  Sangamon  County  have  been  diligently  searched,  and 
no  license  appears  to  have  been  issued. 

Lamon  tells  us  of  an  estrangement  between  Lincoln  and  Miss 
Todd  on  account  of  Miss  Matilda  Edwards,  a  sister  of  Ninian 
W.  Edwards,  but  we  have  that  young  lady's  declaration  that  Lin- 
coln never  so  much  as  paid  her  a  compliment.  Herndon  inti- 
mates that  Miss  Todd's  admiration  for  Stephen  A.  Douglas  be- 
came a  factor  in  the  problem ;  but  there  seems  to  be  good  reason 
for  the  opinion  that  Mary  Todd  had  chosen  deliberately  and 
finally  between  the  two  men. 

Lamon  informs  us,  on  the  authority  of  Herndon,  that  Mrs. 
Edwards  stated  that  Lincoln  went  "crazy  as  a  loon" ;  and  Hern- 
don says  that  on  account  of  this  trouble  Lincoln  absented  him- 
self from  the  Legislature  then  in  session.  No  known  evidence 
confirms  the  report  of  his  insanity.  As  for  his  absence  from  the 
Legislature,  Lincoln  was  present  on  the  second  day  of  January, 
the  day  after  the  "fatal  first  of  January,  1841."  The  third  was 
Sunday.      Lincoln   was   not   present   on   Monday,    but   he   was 


MARY  TODD  259 

present  and  answered  to  roll-call  on  Tuesday  and  in  every  legis- 
lative day  thereafter  until  the  thirteenth.  He  was  absent  from 
the  thirteenth  to  the  eighteenth  inclusive.  Herndon  says  that  on 
the  nineteenth  John  J.  Hardin  announced  his  illness,  but  no  such 
announcement  appears  on  the  record.  On  the  contrary,  Lin- 
coln was  present  on  the  nineteenth.  He  was  absent  again  on 
the  twentieth,  but  was  present  again  on  the  twenty-first,  and  on 
every  day  thereafter  until  the  end  of  the  session,  March  first.* 

As  for  the  fear  of  his  committing  suicide,  this  is  not  confirmed 
by  those  who  were  of  the  Butler  household  where  he  then 
boarded.  He  seems  to  have  taken  about  his  usual  part  in  legis- 
lative business.  On  February  eighth  he  joined  in  preparing, 
signing  and  sending  out  the  Whig  Circular.  On  February  twen- 
ty-sixth he  signed  with  others  a  protest  against  the  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  judiciary.  On  January  twenty-third,  which  was  the 
day  of  his  desperately  sad  letter  to  John  T.  Stuart,  he  made  a 
speech  in  the  Legislature. 

Nor  did  he  flee  from  Springfield  as  soon  as  the  Legislature 
adjourned  to  recover  his  reason  on  the  Speed  farm.  During  the 
remainder  of  the  spring  and  early  summer  he  was  in  Springfield, 
attending  to  business.  He  was  certainly  there  on  June  nineteenth 
and  June  twenty-fifth  and  apparently  later.  The  visit  to  the  Speed 
home  near  Louisville  occurred  late  in  the  summer;  his  letter  of 
acknowledgment  was  dated  September  2.7,  1841. 

Nevertheless,  Lincoln  was  under  great  mental  strain.  On 
January  23,  1841,  he  wrote  to  Stuart:  "I  am  now  the  most  mis- 
erable man  living.  If  what  I  feel  were  equally  distributed  to  the 
whole  human  family,  there  would  not  be  one  cheerful  face  on  the 
earth.  Whether  I  shall  ever  be  better  I  can  not  tell;  I  awfully 
forebode  I  shall  not.  To  remain  as  I  am  is  impossible.  I  must 
die,  or  be  better,  it  appears  to  me.  The  matter  you  speak  of  on 
my  account  you  may  attend  to  as  you  say,  unless  you  shall  hear 
of  my  condition  forbidding  it.     I  say  this  because  I  fear  I  shall 


*Life  of  Lincoln,  1:194-195.     See  also  Weik's  The  Real  Lincoln,  pp.  60- 
63. 


260  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

be  unable  to  attend  to  any  business  here,  and  a  change  of  scene 
might  help  me." 

Nicolay  and  Hay  thus  account  for  Lincoln's  strange  conduct 
in  those  days  of  Lincoln's  depression : 

It  has  been  the  cause  of  much  profane  and  idle  discussion 
among  those  who  were  constitutionally  incapacitated  from  ap- 
preciating ideal  sufferings,  and  we  would  be  tempted  to  refrain 
from  adding  a  word  to  what  has  already  been  said  if  it  were 
possible  to  omit  all  reference  to  an  experience  so  important  in  the 
development  of  his  character. 

In  the  year  1840  he  became  engaged  to  be  married  to  Miss 
Mary  Todd,  of  Lexington,  Kentucky,  a  young  lady  of  good  edu- 
cation and  excellent  connections,  who  was  visiting  her  sister, 
Mrs.  Ninian  W.  Edwards,  at  Springfield.  The  engagement  was 
not  in  all  respects  a  happy  one,  as  both  parties  doubted  their 
mutual  compatibility,  and  a  heart  so  affectionate  and  a  conscience 
so  sensitive  as  Lincoln's  found  material  for  exquisite  self-tor- 
ment in  these  conditions.  His  affection  for  his  betrothed,  which 
he  thought  was  not  strong  enough  to  make  happiness  with  her 
secure ;  his  doubts,  which  yet  were  not  convincing  enough  to  in- 
duce him  to  break  off  all  relations  with  her;  his  sense  of  honor, 
which  was  wounded  in  his  own  eyes  by  his  own  act;  his  sense 
of  duty,  which  condemned  him  in  one  course  and  did  not  sus- 
tain him  in  the  opposite  one — all  combined  to  make  him  pro- 
foundly and  passionately  miserable.  To  his  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances, who  were  unacquainted  with  such  finely  wrought 
and  even  fantastic  sorrows,  his  trouble  seemed  so  exaggerated 
that  they  could  only  account  for  it  on  the  ground  of  insanity. 
But  there  is  no  necessity  of  accepting  this  crude  hypothesis ;  the 
coolest  and  most  judicious  of  his  friends  deny  that  his  depres- 
sion ever  went  to  such  an  extremity.  .  .  .  Orville  H.  Browning, 
who  was  constantly  in  his  company,  says  that  Lincoln's  worst 
attack  lasted  only  about  a  week ;  that  during  this  time  he  was  in- 
coherent and  distraught;  but  that  in  the  course  of  a  few  days  it 
all  passed  off,  leaving  no  trace  whatever.  "I  think,"  says  Mr. 
Browning,  "it  was  only  an  intensification  of  his  constitutional 
melancholy ;  his  trials  and  embarrassments  pressed  him  down  to 
a  lower  point  than  usual." 

The  truth  apparently  is  that  the  date  had  not  been  set  for  the 


MARY  TODD  261 

wedding;  that  preparations  had  not  gone  as  far  as  Herndon  de- 
scribes ;  that  the  breaking  of  the  engagement  happened  as  the  re- 
sult of  a  quarrel  which  may  have  occurred  011  "the  fatal  first  of 
January,"  and  that  the  rupture  was  known  only  to  the  intimate 
ff iends  of  Lincoln  and  Mary  Todd. 

Two  events  occurred  which  had  an  important  bearing  upon 
this  matter.  The  first  was  that  Lincoln's  intimate  friend,  Joshua 
F.  Speed,  was  also  hesitating  about  getting  married.  He  was 
haunted  by  doubts  not  wholly  different  from  those  of  Lincoln. 
He  married,  and  he  and  Lincoln  had  a  correspondence  of  the 
frankest  possible  nature.  The  marriage  of  Speed  occurred  in 
February.  In  March,  Speed  wrote  to  Lincoln  that  he  was 
happier  than  he  had  ever  expected  to  be.  Lincoln  received  this 
letter  with  genuine  rejoicing,  and  wrote  to  Speed: 

It  cannot  be  told  how  it  now  thrills  me  with  joy  to  hear  you 
say  you  are  far  happier  than  you  ever  expected  to  be.  I  know 
you  too  well  to  suppose  your  expectations  were  not,  at  least, 
sometimes  extravagant,  and  if  the  reality  exceeds  them  all,  I  say, 
Enough,  dear  Lord !  I  am  not  going  beyond  the  truth  when  I 
tell  you  that  the  short  space  it  took  me  to  read  your  last  letter 
gave  me  more  pleasure  than  the  total  sum  of  all  I  have  enjoyed 
since  the  fatal  1st  of  January,  1841.  Since  then,  it  seems  to  me, 
I  should  have  been  entirely  happy,  but  for  the  never  absent  idea 
that  there  is  one  still  unhappy  whom  I  have  contributed  to  make 
so.  That  still  kills  me.  I  cannot  but  reproach  myself  for  even 
wishing  to  be  happy  while  she  is  otherwise.  She  accompanied 
a  large  party  on  the  railroad  cars  to  Jacksonville  last  Monday, 
and  on  her  return  spoke,  so  that  I  heard  of  it,  of  having  enjoyed 
the  trip  exceedingly.     God  be  praised  for  that. 

The  other  incident  was  one  of  which  Lincoln  was  afterward 
heartily  ashamed,  but  it  had  a  result  of  incidental  value : 

General  James  Shields  was  a  man  of  ability  and  a  rival  of  Lin- 
coln. He  was  born  in  Ireland  in  18 10,  being  thus  about  a  year 
younger  than  Lincoln.  He  served  in  the  Legislature  with  Lin- 
coln in  1836,  and  in  1841  was  auditor  of  public  accounts.  Later 
he  became  associate  justice  of  the  supreme  court,  and  he  served 


262  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

for  two  years  in  the  Mexican  War.  His  record  as  a  soldier  was 
good,  and  gave  him  great  prestige.  In  1849  he  was  elected 
United  States  senator,  but  was  defeated  for  reelection  in  1855, 
by  Lyman  Trumbull.  He  removed  to  Minnesota,  and  in  1858, 
was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate.  In  1861,  Lincoln,  his 
old-time  rival,  presented  him  with  a  commission  as  brigadier 
general.  In  1879  ne  served  a  very  brief  term  as  senator  from 
Missouri,  and  died  at  Ottumwa,  Iowa,  June  1,  1879. 

General  Shields  shares  the  common  fate  of  men  opposed  to 
Lincoln  of  having  been  needlessly  belittled  by  historians.  He  had 
certain  vanities  and  foibles  which  exposed  him  to  ridicule  while 
he  was  living,  but  he  was  a  man  of  courage  and  of  more  than 
moderate  ability. 

Lincoln's  access  to  the  press  offered  him  a  tempting  oppor- 
tunity and  he  published  over  an  assumed  name  in  the  Journal,  a 
satirical  letter  dated  from  "Lost  Townships,"  and  signed  "Aunt 
Rebecca."  The  wit  of  this  communication  was  more  apparent 
then  than  now,  but  it  can  plainly  be  seen  why  Shields  should 
have  been  angered  by  it. 

Unfortunately  the  matter  did  not  end  with  Lincoln's  own  sa- 
tirical composition.  Mary  Todd  and  her  friend,  Miss  Julia 
Jayne,  who  subsequently  became  Mrs.  Lyman  Trumbull,  made 
further  contributions  to  the  Journal,  over  the  same  signature, 
holding  Shields  up  to  ridicule  and  contempt.  Shields  was  furi- 
ous. He  demanded  that  Mr.  Francis  should  tell  him  the  name 
of  the  author  of  the  articles,  and  Francis,  on  Lincoln's  instruc- 
tions, gave  him  Lincoln's  name  and  concealed  the  part  which 
the  young  women  had  in  the  performance.  Shields  challenged 
Lincoln  to  a  duel,  and  Lincoln  accepted.  The  duel  was  to  have 
been  fought  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Mississippi  from  Alton. 
Fortunately,  mutual  friends  of  the  two  parties  interposed  their 
good  offices,  and  there  was  no  bloodshed. 

In  later  years  it  happened  once  or  twice  that  people  who 
thought  they  knew  Lincoln  well  enough  to  venture  some  remark 
about  this  affair  spoke  of  it  to  him.    He  answered  them  with  un- 


MARY  TODD  263 

expected  severity,   indicating   that  he   was  thoroughly  ashamed 
of  it,  and  wished  it  to  be  forgotten. 

This  incident  brought  Lincoln  and  Mary  Todd  together  in  the 
home  of  Simeon  Francis,  editor  of  the  Journal.  There  seems  no 
doubt  that  their  meetings  in  the  Francis  home',  and  the  affection 
of  Mrs.  Francis  for  Mary  and  of  Simeon  Francis  for  Lincoln, 
had  the  effect  of  bringing  the  hesitating  Lincoln  to  a  decision. 
Another  favoring  circumstance  was  that  Lincoln  continued  to 
receive  from  Speed  reports  of  his  matrimonial  happiness. 

Plans  for  the  wedding  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Mary  Todd 
were  finally  consummated  with  great  rapidity.  Apparently  no  one 
knew  until  the  morning  of  Friday,  November  4,  1842,  that  Lin- 
coln and  Mary  were  to  be  married.  They  both  were  supersti- 
tious and  had  they  been  choosing  their  wedding  with  some  de- 
liberation, would  certainly  have  chosen  some  day  other  than 
Friday.  They  had  come  to  a  hasty  agreement  perhaps  only  the 
night  before,  and  they  decided  to  take  no  chance  of  any  further 
delay. 

When  the  Long  Nine  were  log-rolling  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment away  from  Vandalia  to  Springfield  in  1837,  one  of  the 
most  potent  arguments  is  alleged  to  have  been  that  in  Vandalia 
the  statesmen  of  Illinois  were  compelled  to  eat  venison,  wild- 
duck,  quail  and  prairie  chicken ;  while  in  Springfield  they  would 
get  hog-meat.*  The  promise  was  abundantly  fulfilled.  But 
pork  was  not  the  only  delicacy  Springfield  boasted  in  1842.  The 
frosting  on  the  Lincoln  wedding  cake  was  still  too  warm  to  cut 
well  when  the  time  came  for  it  to  be  served,  but  there  was  cake 
and  much  besides  that  was  good.  Ices  they  did  not  have ;  and 
the  salads  had  melted  butter  instead  of  olive  oil ;  but  they  had 
amazingly  good  things  to  eat  at  weddings  and  other  festivals  as 
well. 

In  1837,  Judge  Samuel  D.  Lockwood,  of  Jacksonville,  wrote 
to  his  niece,  wife  of  Major  John  T.  Stuart,  Lincoln's  first  law 


^Springfield  Society  Before  the  War,  by  Mrs.  Caroline  Owsley  Brown; 
Journal  of  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Society  XV,  1922,  p.  478. 


264  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

partner :  "We  are  installing  a  new  invention  to-day,  my  dear 
Mary,  called  a  cooking-stove;  it  is  said  to  be  a  panacea  for  all 
evils,  but  in  my  opinion  it  will  not  work." 

It  worked  and  still  works.  Beaten  biscuit  and  pound  cake  and 
all  the  delicacies  that  formerly  were  cooked  in  the  old  iron  oven 
on  the  hearth  were  even  better  cooked  in  the  new  cooking-stoves 
that  were  installed  in  Springfield  about  the  time  of  the  removal 
of  the  capital  to  that  city. 

After  the  railway  came  through,  it  was  customary  to  hold 
weddings  at  five  or  six  o'clock  in  the  morning.  That  gave  just 
time  for  a  wedding  breakfast  before  the  departure  of  the  one 
train  for  St.  Louis.  Springfield  society  was  then  accustomed  to 
rising  for  a  five  o'clock  wedding,  to  enable  the  bride  and  groom 
— usually  if  not  invariably  accompanied  by  the  best  man  and 
maid  of  honor — to  spend  a  honeymoon  at  the  Planter's  Hotel  or 
in  a  voyage  upon  the  Mississippi. 

There  was  no  wedding  trip  when  Lincoln  married  Mary  Todd. 
The  arrangements  were  too  hastily  made.  No  invitations  were 
issued.* 

A  few  intimate  friends  were  invited  verbally.  Lincoln  stepped 
over  to  the  court-house  and  obtained  a  license,  the  original  of 
which,  with  the  minister's  return,  has  recently  been  found. 

THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  STATE  OF  ILLINOIS. 
To  any  Minister  of  the  Gospel,  or  other  authorised  Person — 

GREETING 


*So  far  as  I  am  aware,  there  is  only  one  scrap  of  evidence  against  the 
generally  accepted  belief,  which  I  share,  that  the  final  arrangements  for  the 
wedding  were  made  on  the  very  day  of  the  wedding.  That  is  the  following 
letter  alleged  to  have  been  sent  by  Lincoln  to  John  Hanks,  who  was  then 
still  living  at  Decatur: 
"Dear  John : 

I  am  to  be  married  on  the  4th  of  next  month  to  Miss  Todd.     I  hope  you 
will  come  over.     Be  sure  to  be  on  deck  by  early  candle  light. 

Yours, 

A.  Lincoln." 

This  invitation  is  given  by  Mr.  Weik  in  his  The  Real  Lincoln,  p.  58.    Mr. 
Weik  says : 

"I  did  not  see  this  note  in  the  original.     A  lady  living  near  Decatur,  who 
said  she  was  a  granddaughter  of  John  Hanks,  furnished  me  the  copy." 

Evidently  Mr.  Weik  was  not  convinced  of  its  genuineness,  which  I  also 
greatly  doubt. 


MARY  TODD  265 

THESE  are  to  license  and  permit  you  to  join  in  the  holy  bands 
of  Matrimony  Abraham  Lincoln  and 

Mary  Todd  of  the  County  of 

Sangamon  and  State  of  Illinois,  and  for  so  doing,  this  shall  be 
your  sufficient  warrant. 

Given  under  my  hand  and  seal  of  office,  at 
Springfield,  in  said  County  this  4th 
day  of  Novmb  1842 

N  W  Matheney,  Clerk. 
Solemnised  on  the  same  4th  day 
of  Nov.  1842.  Charles  Dresser* 

Reverend  Charles  Dresser  was  rector  of  the  Episcopal  Church 
of  which  Mrs.  Lincoln  at  that  time  was  a  communicant. 

On  the  day  of  the  wedding,  Lincoln  received  a  letter  enclos- 
ing a  fee  of  five  dollars,  a  sum  just  about  large  enough  to  pay 
his  own  fee  to  Mr.  Dresser.  Judge  Logan  had  carried  the  letter 
for  nearly  three  weeks  before  he  remembered  to  hand  it  to  Lin- 
coln. Lincoln  waited  another  week  before  acknowledging  the  re- 
mittance. Just  a  week  after  his  marriage  he  wrotef  to  his  friend, 
Samuel  Marshall,  of  Shawneetown : 

Friend  Sam :  Yours  of  the  10th  October  enclosing  five 
dollars  was  taken  from  the  office  in  my  absence  by  Judge  Logan, 
who  neglected  to  hand  it  to  me  till  about  a  week  ago,  and  just 
an  hour  before  I  took  a  wife.  .  .  .  Nothing  new  here,  except  my 
marrying,  which  to  me  is  matter  of  profound  wonder. 

Yours  forever, 

A.  Lincoln. 


*When  Xicolay  and  Hay  were  compiling  their  Abraham  Lincoln:  A 
History,  they  obtained  what  they  believed  was  the  original  license  and  printed 
it  in  their  work,  vol.  I,  p.  189.  The  clerk  in  the  office  of  the  county  court 
at  the  time  of  their  procuring  this  copy  was  a  descendant  of  X.  W.  Matheney, 
and  he  made  the  copy  on  one  of  the  blanks  which  were  in  use  at  a  later 
date  than  the  original,  and  with  some  effort  at  the  use  of  a  handwriting 
similar  to  that  of  his  grandfather,  as  well  as  that  of  the  minister.  The 
publication  by  Xicolay  and  Hay  was  in  good  faith,  but  it  has  given  a  wrong 
impression.  Sangamon  County  had  no  seal  when  Lincoln  was  married,  and 
the  wording  of  the  license  was  different.  The  authentic  original  is  in  the 
Library  of  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Society,  and  from  that  original  the 
copy  here  given   is  made. 

fFrom  the  original  letter  in  the  Chicago  Historical  Society. 


266  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

So  far  as  I  am  aware,  this  is  Lincoln's  only  contemporary  allu- 
sion in  his  correspondence  to  his  marriage,  and  it  is  not  likely 
that  he  talked  much  about  it  to  his  friends.  " Profound  wonder" 
at  the  end  of  a  week  of  married  life  was  the  only  emotion  of 
which  Lincoln  made  record. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

LINCOLN    THE    POLITICIAN 
1 842- 1 849 

In  previous  chapters  we  have  considered  the  career  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  as  a  member  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Illinois. 
He  became  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature  in  1832,  and  was  de- 
feated. In  1834  he  was  elected,  and  was  reelected  in  1836,  1838 
and  1840.  His  term  of  service  in  the  lower  House  of  the  Illi- 
nois Legislature  covers  eight  consecutive  years  from  1834  to 
1842.  These  were  years  of  important  change  in  Illinois  and  in 
the  nation. 

They  were  years  notable  for  their  inventions.  The  steamboat 
had  been  invented  by  Robert  Fulton  in  1807,  and  it  was  an  im- 
portant factor  in  the  life  of  the  communities  in  which  Abraham 
lived.  The  Erie  Canal,  begun  on  July  4,  181 7,  was  finished  in 
the  fall  of  1825.  By  1830  or  183 1  lake  navigation  had  become 
sufficiently  developed  to  transport  goods  from  New  York  City 
by  way  of  the  canal  and  the  lakes  to  Chicago,  whence  they  might 
be  carted  overland  to  points  in  central  Illinois  and  sold  for  less 
money  than  when  brought  up  the  river  from  New  Orleans.  In 
1 8 19  the  first  steamship  crossed  the  ocean.  In  1828  the  first 
passenger  railroad  in  the  United  States  was  begun.  In  1836 
friction  matches  began  to  be  used,  and  about  the  same  time  gas 
pipes  and  water  pipes  began  to  be  laid  in  the  streets  of  the  larger 
towns.  The  cotton  gin  had  been  invented  by  Eli  Whitney  in 
1793,  and  this  gave  a  mighty  impetus  to  slavery.  Cyrus  Mc- 
Cormick  invented  his  reaper  in  1834,  an  invention  which  had 
large  results  in  enabling  extensive  fields  to  be  reaped  with  great 

267 


268  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

economy  of  labor.  In  an  important  sense  the  reaper  presented 
to  the  North  by  a  Virginian,  was  an  offset  for  the  cotton  gin, 
invented  for  the  South  by  a  Connecticut  Yankee.  It  was  the 
age  of  invention.  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  was  always  interested 
in  mechanical  appliances,  himself  dreamed  of  inventions  of  his 
own,  and  for  one  of  them  he  subsequently  obtained  a  patent. 

It  was  a  period  of  intellectual  activity.  Marked  improvements 
were  made  in  the  common  school  system.  In  Massachusetts,  in 
1839,  two  normal  schools  were  established  for  the  training  of 
teachers,  and  these  became  the  norm  of  a  new  series  of  institu- 
tions established  throughout  the  country.  The  reading  of  news- 
papers became  general  about  this  time.  The  New  York  Sun  was 
founded  in  1833,  the  Herald  in  1835,  and  the  Tribune  in  1841. 
These  represented  a  new  type  of  journalism.  They  displayed 
far  more  energy  in  the  gathering  of  news  than  any  of  their 
predecessors,  and  much  wider  latitude  in  the  discussion  of  topics. 

It  was  a  period  of  phenomenal  activity  in  the  development  of 
American  literature.  Already  the  North  American  Review, 
which  was  established  in  18 15,  was  printing  the  writings  of 
Washington  Irving,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  James  Fenimore 
Cooper  and  Fitz-Greene  Halleck.  Soon  after  the  close  of  the 
first  third  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  nation  became  familiar 
with  the  writings  of  Whittier,  Longfellow,  Holmes,  Hawthorne, 
Emerson,  Poe,  Bancroft  and  Prescott,  who  began  their  career  as 
authors  about  this  time. 

It  was  a  period  in  which  organized  philanthropy  had  its  birth. 
The  first  asylum  for  the  blind  in  America  was  opened  in  1832, 
and  persons  deprived  of  sight  were  soon  taught  to  read  books 
with  raised  letters.  Asylums  for  the  deaf  were  opened,  and  in- 
stitutions for  the  treatment  of  the  insane.  In  1826  the  American 
Temperance  Society  was  organized  in  Boston.  This  was  the 
first  society  to  proclaim  the  doctrine  of  total  abstinence.  Before 
that  time  moderate  drinking  was  all  that  was  understood  to  be 
included  in  temperance  reform.  In  1840  the  Washingtonian 
movement  originated  in  Baltimore.     While  its  primary  object 


LIXCOLX  THE  POLITICIAN  269 

was  to  aid  in  the  reformation  of  drunkards,  it  powerfully  af- 
fected the  total  abstinence  movement.  Abraham  Lincoln  joined 
the  society.  In  Springfield  and  elsewhere,  the  celebration  of 
Washington's  birthday  was  primarily  a  temperance  celebration. 
One  of  Lincoln's  earliest  public  addresses  was  before  such  an 
organization.  The  meetings  of  the  temperance  societies  did  more 
than  inculcate  a  hatred  of  strong  drink;  they  were  literary  socie- 
ties, and  fostered  social  life  in  rural  communities  upon  the  basis 
of  literary  ideals  with  ethical  purposes. 

Most  significant  of  the  reforms  of  this  period  was  the  anti- 
slavery  reform.  The  outstanding  leaders  of  the  Revolution, 
including  many  of  the  broad-minded  men  from  the  South,  such 
as  Washington  and  Lee,  were  opposed  to  slavery.  Washing- 
ton's will  provided  for  the  liberation  of  his  slaves.  Richard 
Henry  Lee,  of  Virginia,  joined  with  Manasseh  Cutler,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, in  demanding  that  the  Northwest  Territory,  out  of 
which  five  great  states  have  since  been  made,  should  be  free 
from  the  curse  of  slavery*.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
provided  for  the  termination  of  the  slave  trade  in  1808.  There 
was  general  expectation  and  desire  that  slavery  should  also  come 
to  an  end.  The  invention  of  the  cotton  gin  made  slavery7  unex- 
pectedly profitable.  The  constitutional  provision  that  the  slave 
population  of  the  states  where  slavery  existed  should  count  on  a 
three-fifths  basis  in  congressional  representation,  gave  slavery 
an  unexpected  influence  in  politics. 

In  183 1  William  Lloyd  Garrison  began,  in  Boston,  the  publi- 
cation of  his  paper  called  the  Liberator.  He  advocated  immedi- 
ate and  unconditional  emancipation,  and  denounced  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  as  a  "covenant  with  death  and  an 
agreement  with  hell."  In  various  centers  in  the  North  publica- 
tions opposed  to  slavery  began  to  be  printed.  Andrew  Jackson 
in  his  Message  to  Congress  in  1835,  recommended  the  pro- 
hibition, under  severe  penalties,  of  circulation  through  the 
mails  of  "incendiary  publications  intended  to  instigate  the  slaves 
to  insurrection."     In  the  same  year  in  which  Garrison  began  the 


270  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

publication  of  the  Liberator,  an  insurrection  of  the  slaves  oc- 
curred in  Virginia.  It  was  led  by  a  negro  called  Nat  Turner. 
It  was  soon  put  down,  but  it  served  to  alarm  the  South.  In  1837, 
as  we  have  been  reminded,  Elijah  P.  Love  joy  was  killed  at 
Alton,  Illinois,  and  his  printing-press  was  destroyed. 

Of  the  original  thirteen  states,  six  were  slave  states  and  seven 
were  free.  In  spite  of  the  emancipation  movement  headed  by 
Thomas  Jefferson,  the  growth  of  the  political  power  of  slavery 
was  marked.  The  removal  of  the  capital  of  the  nation  from 
New  York  and  Philadelphia  to  a  new  city  located  in  slave  terri- 
tory on  the  line  between  Maryland  and  Virginia  was  important. 
In  order  to  maintain  balance  of  power,  the  habit  was  formed 
in  Congress  of  admitting  new  states  in  pairs.  Vermont,  ad- 
mitted February  15,  1791,  and  Kentucky,  February  4,  1792, 
came  in  practically  simultaneously.  Tennessee,  January  1,  1796, 
and  Ohio,  November  29,  1803,  balanced  each  other;  then  came 
Louisiana,  April  8,  1812,  and  Indiana,  December  11,  1816,  and 
afterward  Mississippi,  December  10,  181 7,  and  Illinois,  Decem- 
ber 3,  18 18.  In  18 19,  Alabama,  a  new  slave  state,  was  admitted 
to  the  Union,  and  there  was  no  free  state  in  sight  to  balance  it. 
This,  however,  was  not  regarded  as  an  alarming  situation. 
There  were  twenty-two  states,  eleven  slave  and  eleven  free.  The 
Senate  was  thus  equally  divided.  In  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, on  the  other  hand,  the  representation  from  the  free  states 
was  larger,  owing  to  the  much  more  rapid  growth  of  population 
north  of  the  Ohio  River.  That  river  up  to  18 19  had  been  the 
dividing  line  between  the  free  states  and  the  slave  states.  East 
of  the  Ohio  the  line  was  projected  in  the  old  survey  of  Mason 
and  Dixon,  390  45'  north  latitude,  the  dividing  line  between 
Pennsylvania  and  Maryland. 

Late  in  18 18,  the  territory  of  Missouri  applied  for  admission 
into  the  Union  as  a  state.  Nearly  the  whole  state  lay  north  of 
the  line  projected  westward  from  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  River. 
On  the  other  hand,  most  of  it  lay  south  of  the  northern  bound- 
aries of  Maryland,   Virginia  and  Kentucky.     If  Missouri   was 


LINCOLN  THE  POLITICIAN  271 

admitted  as  a  free  state  and  the  great  domain  lying  west  of  the 
Mississippi  should  come  in  like  fashion  into  the  sisterhood  of 
states,  it  meant  the  inevitable  doom  of  the  slave  power  in  Ameri- 
can politics.  For  that  region  was  destined  to  become  trans- 
formed into  great  states,  each  with  two  senators  and  an  increas- 
ing group  of  representatives,  all  politically  anti-slavery. 

Geographically,  Missouri  was  debatable  ground.  The  north- 
ern two-thirds  of  the  state  was  on  a  line  with  Illinois,  Indiana 
and  Ohio,  but  its  southern  boundary  was  almost  exactly  the 
southern  boundary  of  Kentucky. 

In  1820,  Missouri  was  proposed  as  a  slave  state.  The  famous 
Missouri  Compromise  was  suggested  by  Jesse  B.  Thomas,  of  Ill- 
inois, and  adopted  largely  through  the  influence  of  Henry  Clay, 
then  speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  It  provided  that 
Maine  should  be  admitted  as  a  free  state,  and  that  Missouri  was 
to  be  a  slave  state,  but  that  thereafter  slavery  should  be  pro- 
hibited in  all  territory  of  the  Louisiana  purchase  lying  north  of 
the  line  of  360  30'.  This  compromise  having  been  arranged,  the 
South  permitted  Maine  to  enter  the  Union  as  a  free  state,  March 
3,  1820,  thus  preserving  the  balance  of  power.  But  Missouri's 
actual  enrollment  in  the  list  of  states  was  delayed  until  1821. 

For  the  first  time  in  American  legislation  the  nation  recog- 
nized by  law  a  line  dividing  the  country  into  a  free  North  and  a 
slave-holding  South.  Metes  and  bounds  were  set,  and  it  was 
believed  and  duly  announced  that  the  slavery  issue,  as  a  political 
question,  was  settled. 

James  Monroe  was  the  last  of  the  Revolutionary  statesmen  to 
be  chosen  president  of  the  United  States.  By  the  end  of  his 
second  term  a  new  generation  of  men  had  come  to  the  front, 
and  new  methods  of  choosing  them  for  office  began  to  come 
into  play.  The  men  who  made  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  never  expected  the  people  to  elect  the  president.  They 
did  all  they  knew  how  to  prevent  it.  It  was  their  plan  that  the 
people  should  elect  in  each  state  a  group  of  electors,  and  that 
these  electors  should  elect  the  president.     It  was  not  intended  at 


2J2  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  outset  that  the  electors  should  be  pledged  in  advance  to  sup- 
port a  particular  candidate. 

From  1804  to  1820  presidential  candidates  were  nominated 
by  a  caucus  of  the  members  of  Congress.  This  plan  fell  out  in 
1820,  because  there  was  no  opposition  to  the  nomination  of  Mon- 
roe. In  1824,  an  attempt  was  made  to  nominate  a  president  by 
the  old  method.  A  few  members  of  Congress  met  and  nominated 
William  H.  Crawford,  of  Georgia.  But  this  plan  of  choosing  a 
president  who  had  been  selected  by  members  of  his  party  who 
were  representatives  in  Congress  by  Congress  had  become  un- 
popular. The  Legislature  of  Tennessee  placed  in  nomination 
Andrew  Jackson;  Kentucky's  Legislature  nominated  her  fav- 
orite son,  Henry  Clay,  and  that  of  Massachusetts  proposed  John 
Ouincy  Adams.  No  candidate  received  a  majority  of  the  elec- 
toral votes.  Accordingly,  the  choice  of  a  president  fell  to  the 
House  of  Representatives.  Jackson  was  the  strongest  candi- 
date ;  the  members  who  were  opposed  to  Jackson  united  and 
elected  John  Quincy  Adams  as  president.  John  C.  Calhoun  was 
elected  vice-president  by  the  Electoral  College.  Adams  ap- 
pointed Henry  Clay  secretary  of  state.  The  friends  of  Jackson 
and  Crawford  denounced  this  appointment  as  a  corrupt  bargain 
between  Adams  and  Clay.  They  solidified  their  opposition  into 
a  new  party  known  as  the  Jacksonians,  or  Jackson  Democrats. 
Thus  new  political  organizations  took  their  rise. 

In  1836,  Lincoln  was  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature  and  an- 
nounced his  principles  through  the  columns  of  the  Sangamo 
Journal.  In  that  letter,  which  bore  the  date  at  New  Salem, 
June  13,  1836,  his  only  reference  to  national  politics  was  the 
following  sentence : 

"If  alive  on  the  first  Monday  in  November,  I  shall  vote  for 
Hugh  L.  White  for  president." 

Hugh  L.  White  was  perhaps  the  least  conspicuous  of  the  three 
Whig  candidates.  The  Jackson  Party  was  sufficiently  organized 
to  unite  on  Martin  Van  Buren,  whom  Jackson  himself  placed 
in  nomination  as  his  own  successor.     Those  opposed  to  Jackson, 


LINCOLN  THE  POLITICIAN  273 

who  from  this  time  were  called  Whigs,  had  no  sufficient  or- 
ganization to  agree  on  a  candidate,  but  divided  their  vote  among 
William  Henry  Harrison.  Daniel  Webster  and  Hugh  L.  White. 
White  was  from  Tennessee  and  presumably  had  more  local  back- 
ing in  the  neighborhood  of  New  Salem  than  either  of  the  other 
Whig  candidates.  White  was  a  Whig  only  as  Tyler  was  later  a 
Whig,  being  an  Anti-Jackson  Democrat  affiliated  with  the 
Whig  Party. 

In  1840,  Lincoln  fairly  got  into  national  politics.  He  warmly 
advocated  the  election  of  Harrison  against  the  reelection  of  Van 
Buren.  Harrison  was  elected,  but  Illinois  went  Democratic,  and 
cast  its  presidential  vote  for  Van  Buren. 

In  1844,  Henry  Clay  was  the  candidate  of  the  Whigs,  against 
James  Knox  Polk.  Lincoln  was  a  candidate  for  elector.  He 
stumped  Illinois  and  part  of  Indiana.  At  this  time  he  returned 
to  his  boyhood  home  and  was  pleasantly  received.  Lincoln  fully 
believed  that  Clay  would  be  elected.  But  Illinois  sent  nine  Demo- 
cratic electors  to  vote  for  James  K.  Polk  and  Polk  prevailed  in 
the  nation  also.  Lincoln  was  grievously  disheartened  at  this  re- 
sult. Later  he  lost  some  of  his  admiration  for  Henry  Clay,  but 
at  this  time  Clay  was  his  idol,  and  his  own  hope  of  political 
preferment  was  in  the  national  triumph  of  the  Whig  Party. 

Herndon  accounted  for  Lincoln's  marriage  to  Mary  Todd  on 
the  ground  of  his  political  ambition.  He  began  his  second  vol- 
ume with  an  account  of  Lincoln's  matrimonial  affairs : 

The  year  1840  finds  Mr.  Lincoln  entering  his  thirty-second 
year,  and  still  unmarried.  "I  have  come  to  the  conclusion,"  he 
suggests  in  a  facetious  letter  two  years  before,  "never  again  to 
think  of  marrying."  But  meanwhile  he  had  seen  more  of  the 
world.  The  state  capital  had  been  removed  to  Springfield,  and 
he  soon  observed  the  power  and  influence  one  can  exert  with 
high  family  and  social  surroundings  to  draw  upon.  The  sober 
truth  is  that  Lincoln  was  inordinately  ambitious.  He  already 
had  succeeded  in  obtaining  no  inconsiderable  political  recog- 
nition, and  numbered  among  his  party  friends  men  of  wealth  and 
reputation ;  but  he  himself  was  poor,  besides  lacking  the  graces 


274  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  ease  of  bearing  obtained  through  mingling  in  polite  society — 
in  fact,  to  use  the  expressive  language  of  Mary  Owens,  he  was 
"deficient  in  those  little  links  which  make  up  the  chain  of  a 
woman's  happiness."  Conscious,  therefore,  of  his  humble  rank 
in  the  social  scale,  how  natural  that  he  should  seek  by  marriage  in 
an  influential  family,  to  establish  strong  connections,  and  at  the 
same  time  foster  his  political  fortunes!  This  may  seem  an 
audacious  thing  to  insinuate,  but  on  no  other  basis  can  we  recon- 
cile the  strange  course  of  his  courtship,  and  the  tempestuous 
chapters  in  his  married  life.* 

It  is  not  so  easy,  however,  thus  to  account  for  Lincoln's  court- 
ships and  matrimonial  choice  on  the  basis  of  any  such  cool  and 
deliberate  calculation.  Lincoln  was  well  aware  of  his  own  social 
deficiencies,  and  he  knew  well  the  value  of  such  social  standing 
as  his  marriage  to  Mary  Todd  would  bring  to  him;  but  if  he 
reckoned  with  so  much  of  deliberation  as  Herndon  surmises,  and 
pursued  his  lady  with  so  cold  a  fire,  he  was  doomed  to  swift 
disappointment.  For  some  reason,  not  wholly  explained,  Lin- 
coln immediately  after  his  marriage  seems  to  have  suffered  some 
measure  of  political  eclipse. 

Lincoln  was  now  married  and  living  in  the  Globe  Tavern,  at 
a  total  expense  for  himself  and  wife  of  four  dollars  a  week  for 
room  and  board.  This  was  not  a  large  sum,  but  it  was  more 
than  he  had  paid  to  William  Butler,  and  Butler  did  not  send  in 
his  bill  every  week.  Lincoln  was  eager  to  be  earning  more 
money.  His  "national  debt"  still  hung  like  a  millstone  about 
his  neck.  He  had  reduced  it  a  little,  but  it  still  seemed  large, 
and  since  his  marriage  his  payments  nearly  ceased.  He  wanted 
to  go  to  Congress,  where  he  could  have  a  larger  income  and  be 
advancing  in  politics. 

In  the  spring  of  1843,  ne  thought  he  saw  his  opportunity,  and 
he  entered  into  a  fierce  battle  for  the  nomination  on  the  Whig 
ticket.  The  candidates  were  Edward  D.  Baker,  John  J.  Hardin 
and  Abraham  Lincoln.  Lincoln  encountered  unexpected  op- 
position.    Baker  was  a  member  of  the  Church  of  the  Disciples 


*Herndon's  Lincoln,  ii,  pp.  205-6. 


LINCOLN  THE  POLITICIAN  275 

of  Christ,  and  on  occasion  preached,  as  later  Garfield  did.  Baker 
was  not  unaware  of  the  political  value  of  his  pulpit  ministrations. 
The  Disciples  appear  to  have  stood  very  solidly  behind  Baker. 
Springfield  and  the  region  adjacent  went  for  Baker.  Lin- 
coln's old  friends  in  Menard,  however,  were  true  to  Lincoln. 
The  result  of  the  primary  convention  in  Springfield,  however, 
sent  Lincoln  to  the  district  convention  as  a  delegate  pledged  to 
the  support  of  Hardin.  At  this  time  he  had  a  letter  from  one  of 
his  friends  in  Menard,  asking  whether,  under  the  circumstances, 
they  should  vote  for  him  as  they  had  been  instructed.  He  re- 
plied telling  them  to  obey  their  instructions,  as  he  was  obeying 
his  instructions.  He  also  added  interesting  details  of  his  own 
situation.  He  was  required  by  his  instructions  and  his  sense  of 
honor  to  vote  for  his  rival,  being  thus  compelled  to  act  as  best 
man  at  the  wedding  of  his  girl  to  another  man;  but  he  was  per- 
forming his  part  according  to  the  rules  of  the  game : 

It  is  truly  gratifying  to  me  to  learn,  that,  while  the  people  of 
Sangamon  have  cast  me  off,  my  old  friends  of  Menard,  who 
have  known  me  longest  and  best,  stick  to  me.  It  would  astonish, 
if  not  amuse,  the  older  citizens  (a  stranger,  friendless,  unedu- 
cated, penniless  boy,  working  on  a  flat-boat  at  ten  dollars  per 
month)  to  learn  that  I  have  been  put  down  here  as  the  candi- 
date of  pride,  wealth,  and  aristocratic  family  distinction.  Yet 
so,  chiefly,  it  was.  There  was,  too,  the  strangest  combination 
of  church  influence  against  me.  Baker  is  a  Campbellite;  and 
therefore,  as  I  suppose,  with  few  exceptions,  got  that  church. 
My  wife  has  some  relations  in  the  Presbyterian  Churches,  and 
some  with  the  Episcopal  Churches;  and  therefore,  wherever  it 
would  tell,  I  was  set  down  as  the  one  or  the  other,  while  it  was 
everywhere  contended  that  no  Christian  ought  to  vote  for  me, 
because  I  belonged  to  no  church,  was  suspected  of  being  a  deist, 
and  had  talked  about  fighting  a  duel. 

This  letter  shows,  and  we  have  other  sources  of  information, 
that  Lincoln  did  not  spring  into  immediate  popularity  after  his 
marriage.  Indeed,  when  it  became  evident  to  the  county  con- 
vention that  Lincoln  was  certain  to  be  defeated,  Baker  came  to 
him  and  proposed  that  Lincoln  should  transfer  his  support  to 


276  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Baker  against  Hardin  before  it  became  evident  by  a  direct  vote 
how  small  was  Lincoln's  strength  in  the  convention.  This  was 
arranged  after  a  preliminary  battle,  and  Lincoln  accepted  his 
election  as  a  delegate  pledged  for  Baker,  having  also  Baker's 
promise  that  after  Baker  should  have  served  one  term  he  would 
then  support  Lincoln  for  the  next  term.* 

So  Lincoln  attended  the  district  convention,  and  voted  for 
Baker;  but  John  J.  Hardin  was  nominated  and  elected. 

The  Whigs  were  now  in  control  in  Sangamon  County  and  in 
the  congressional  district  in  which  it  was  the  largest  political 
unit.  There  appears  to  have  followed  a  kind  of  gentlemen's 
agreement  between  Hardin,  Baker,  Logan  and  Lincoln,  all  Whig 
aspirants  for  congressional  honors,  whereby  each  of  them  should 
have  one  term  in  Congress.  Hardin  was  the  first  to  succeed, 
and  Lincoln  was  the  next  to  follow  and  did  so  follow.  Hardin 
kept  his  agreement,  but  when  he  got  the  office  he  would  have 
been  willing  to  be  urged  to  hold  it.  Lincoln,  however,  wanted 
the  place,  and  said  in  a  letter  dated  January  7,  1846: 

That  Hardin  is  talented,  energetic,  unusually  generous  and 
magnanimous,  I  have,  before  this,  affirmed  to  you,  and  do  not 
now  deny.  You  know  that  my  only  argument  is  that  "turn 
about  is  fair  play." 

The  time  came  not  long  afterward  when  Lincoln,  according 
to  his  own  statement,  would  have  been  quite  as  willing  as  Hardin 
to  be  urged  to  serve  in  Congress  for  another  term.  He  was  not 
urged. 

All  through  1845  and  1846,  Lincoln  was  busy  endeavoring  to 
secure  his  own  election  to  Congress.  He  easily  won  the  Whig 
nomination  after  the  withdrawal  of  Hardin  in  his  favor.  His 
opponent  on  the  Democratic  ticket  was  the  Reverend  Peter  Cart- 
wright,  the  celebrated  Methodist  preacher. 

Peter   Cartwright  was  at   that  time  one  of  the   outstanding 


*I  have  the  details  of  this  information  from  Judge  E.  W.  Baker,  nephew 
of  Senator  E.   D.  Baker. 


LINCOLN  THE  POLITICIAN  277 

figures  in  Illinois.  The  son  of  pioneer  parents,  he  was  born 
in  Kentucky  in  1785,  converted  in  the  great  revival  of  1799- 
1802,  ordained  a  deacon  at  twenty-one,  an  elder  at  twenty-three 
and  in  1804  admitted  to  the  Western  Conference  of  the  Metho- 
dist Church,  which  then  embraced  all  the  territory  west  of  the 
mountains.  In  1824  he  moved  his  family  to  Illinois,  making  his 
home  at  Pleasant  Plains,  in  Sangamon  County.  His  circuit  ex- 
tended from  Kaskaskia  River  to  the  northern  bounds  of  settle- 
ment in  the  state,  including  a  mission  to  the  Pottawattomie  In- 
dians on  Fox  River.  Through  a  region  destitute  of  ferries, 
bridges  and  roads,  he  journeyed,  preaching,  exhorting,  arguing, 
denouncing,  singing  and  shouting.  For  forty-eight  years  he 
lived  in  Illinois.  He  preached  nearly  eighteen  thousand  ser- 
mons, baptized  nearly  fifteen  thousand  converts,  and  received 
into  membership  nearly  twelve  thousand  communicants.  He 
was  five  feet  ten  in  stature,  squarely  built  and  in  vigorous  health. 
For  two  generations  he  was  one  of  the  most  notable  characters 
in  Illinois.  He  was  a  man  of  heroic  courage,  a  Jackson  Demo- 
crat, a  hater  of  slavery  and  of  whisky.  He  served  two  terms  in 
the  Illinois  Legislature,  and  in  1846  had  his  notable  campaign 
against  Abraham  Lincoln  for  Congress. 

It  is  related  that  during  this  campaign,  Lincoln  made  a  speech 
in  a  town  where  Cartwright  had  an  appointment  to  preach  in  the 
evening,  and  that  Lincoln  attended  the  service  at  night,  sitting  in 
the  rear  of  the  room.  At  the  close  of  the  sermon,  Cartwright 
called  upon  all  who  expected  to  go  to  Heaven  to  rise,  and  all  rose 
except  Lincoln.  Then  Cartwright,  following  the  well-known 
evangelistic  method  of  the  period,  asked  all  who  expected  to  go 
to  hell  to  rise.  Still  Lincoln  remained  seated.  Cartwright  never 
hesitated  to  be  personal  in  his  applications  and  appeals.  He 
leaned  across  the  pulpit  and  said,  "I  have  asked  all  who  expect  to 
go  to  Heaven  to  rise,  and  all  who  expect  to  go  to  hell  to  rise ; 
and  now  I  should  like  to  inquire,  where  does  Mr.  Lincoln  expect 
to  go?"  Lincoln  rose,  saying  that  he  had  not  expected  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  service  otherwise  than  by  his  presence,  but  since 

11 


278  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Mr.  Cartwright  insisted  on  knowing  where  he  expected  to  go,  he 
would  answer;  "I  expect  to  go  to  Congress." 

In  his  old  age,  Peter  Cartwright  suffered  a  great  sorrow  and 
humiliation.  One  of  his  grandsons  was  indicted  for  murder. 
Lincoln  was  counsel  for  the  defense.  The  young  man  was 
acquitted. 

Cartwright  had  defeated  Lincoln  in  his  first  campaign  for  the 
Legislature;  Lincoln  defeated  Cartwright  in  the  race  for  Con- 
gress. The  congressional  election  was  held  in  August,  1846, 
but  Lincoln  did  not  take  his  seat  until  the  assembling  of  the  Thir- 
tieth Congress  in  December,  1847. 

In  the  interval  between  his  election  and  his  journey  to  Wash- 
ington, Lincoln  made  his  first  recorded  visit  to  Chicago. 

So  far  as  the  author  is  aware,  no  biographer  of  Lincoln  before 
the  year  1921*  had  ever  heard  of  the  River  and  Harbor  Con- 
vention of  1847.  It  is  not  mentioned  by  Herndon,  by  Nicolay 
and  Hay,  by  Arnold,  by  Morse,  or  in  Miss  Tarbell's  Life  of  Lin- 
coln. But  it  was  that  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  first  brought 
Lincoln  to  Chicago.  The  Chicago  papers,  truthful  then  as  al- 
ways, stated  that  this  was  the  first  visit  of  the  Honorable  A. 
Lincoln  to  the  metropolis  of  the  state. f 

He  was  more  welcome  than  he  might  have  been  at  some  earlier 
period  in  his  career.  In  the  first  place  he  was  the  only  Whig 
member  of  Congress  from  Illinois;  he  was  just  elected  and  had 
not  yet  taken  his  seat.     In  the  second  place,  he  was  thoroughly 


*In  that  year  I  delivered  before  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Society  an 
address  in  which  I  called  attention  to  the  importance  of  this  event,  and  in 
the  following  year  Mr.  James  Shaw,  of  Aurora,  treated  it  at  length.  Miss 
Tarbell  records  this  meeting  in  her  Following  the  Footsteps  of  the  Lincolns, 
published  in  1923,  and  properly  credits  Mr.  Shaw  for  having  called  her  at- 
tention to  it  as  he  was  the  first,  also,  to  suggest  to  me  its  significance. 

f "Abraham  Lincoln,  the  only  Whig  representative  to  Congress  from  this 
state,  we  are  happy  to  see  in  attendance  upon  the  Convention.  This  is  his 
first  visit  to  the  commercial  emporium  of  the  state,  and  we  have  no  doubt 
his  first  visit  will  impress  him  more  deeply,  if  possible,  with  the  importance, 
and  inspire  a  higher  zeal  for  the  great  interest  of  River-and-Harbor  im- 
provements. We  expect  much  from  him  as  a  representative  in  Congress,  and 
we  have  no  doubt  our  expectations  will  be  more  than  realized,  for  never  was 
reliance  placed  in  a  nobler  heart  and  a  sounder  judgment.  We  know  the 
banner  he  bears  will  never  be  soiled." — Chicago  Journal,  July  6,  1847. 


LIXCOLX  THE  POLITICIAN  279 

committed  to  the  policy  of  developing-  inland  waters  and  of  con- 
necting the  lakes  with  the  rivers.  It  is  interesting  to  consider 
what  the  Convention  did  for  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  presiding 
officer  was  Edward  Bates,  of  Missouri.  Lincoln  probably  did 
not  know  it  at  the  time,  but  then  and  there  he  formed  the  im- 
pression which  later  made  Bates  a  member  of  his  Cabinet.  It 
was  there  that  Lincoln  first  heard  Horace  Greeley,  and  Greeley 
heard  Lincoln  in  a  short  and  tactful  speech.  Greeley  did  not 
know  it,  but  he  was  forming  an  impression  of  Lincoln,  which 
thirteen  years  later  was  to  influence  his  judgment  in  accepting 
Lincoln,  though  reluctantly,  as  the  compromise  candidate  who 
could  not  only  defeat  Seward  in  the  Convention,  but  also  defeat 
the  Democratic  nominee  in  the  election  following.  What  Lin- 
coln came  to  learn  of  the  qualities  essential  to  unifying  his  own 
state  went  far  toward  making  him  capable  of  unifying  the  nation. 

The  attendance  upon  the  River  and  Harbor  Convention  was 
not  limited  to  residents  of  lake  cities.  There  were  seven  dele- 
gates from  Connecticut,  one  from  Florida,  two  from  Georgia, 
twelve  from  Iowa,  two  from  Kentucky,  two  from  Maine,  twen- 
ty-eight from  Massachusetts,  forty-five  from  Missouri,  two  from 
Xew  Hampshire,  eight  from  Xew  Jersey,  twenty-seven  from 
Pennsylvania,  three  from  Rhode  Island,  one  from  South  Caro- 
lina. There  were  long  lists  from  Xew  York,  Ohio,  Indiana.  Ill- 
inois, Michigan  and  Wisconsin.  These  were  enrolled  by  coun- 
ties and  show  a  wide-spread  representation  from  all  parts  of  these 
states.  The  convention  was  felt  to  be  of  vast  economic  interest 
and  was  by  no  means  lacking  in  political  importance.  Theoreti- 
cally it  was  assembled  for  the  consideration  of  internal  improve- 
ments ;  but  in  addition  to  this  it  was  convened  for  the  sake  of  op- 
posing James  K.  Polk  and  all  his  political  associations. 

Horace  Greeley  wrote  up  the  convention  for  the  New  York 
Tribune,  and  ever  afterward  advised  young  men  to  "Go  West, 
and  grow  up  with  the  country."  Thurlow  Weed  reported  it  for 
the  Albany  Journal,  and  gave  an  interesting  account  of  his  own 
journey  around  the  lakes  on  "the  magnificient  steamer  Empire." 


280  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

David  Dudley  Field  was  present  to  speak  for  the  administra- 
tion. He  did  it  with  shrewdness;  Greeley  gives- the  gist  of  his 
address.  The  convention  did  not  treat  him  any  too  courteously, 
and  Lincoln  followed  with  his  one  speech,  a  tactful  one,  of 
which  we  have  no  report,  but  one  that  appears  to  have  stood  for 
fair  play  while  being  ardently  in  favor  of  the  whole  plan  of  in- 
ternal improvements.  The  convention  at  its  next  session  apolo- 
gized to  Mr.  Field  for  the  uncivil  treatment  he  had  received,  but 
did  not  alter  its  program  or  change  its  convictions  on  account 
of  this  apology  for  bad  manners. 

The  River  and  Harbor  Convention  of  1847  put  Chicago  upon 
the  nation's  map.  It  did  more  than  any  previous  or  subsequent 
assembly  to  link  the  fortunes  of  the  great  state  of  Illinois  with 
the  North  and  East. 

It  must  have  been  a  very  illuminating  event  to  Lincoln.  It  was 
probably*  his  first  view  of  the  Great  Lakes.  It  was  his  first 
important  reminder  that,  while  he  was  elected  from  central  Illi- 
nois, he,  as  the  only  Whig  member  of  Congress  from  the  state, 
must  find  his  political  support  thereafter  largely  in  the  newer 
portion  of  the  state  where  the  Whigs  were  more  largely  in  con- 
trol. It  must  have  reminded  him,  and  he  was  soon  to  be  rudely 
reminded  again,  that  Chicago  and  northern  Illinois  with  her,  was 
thenceforth  to  be  reckoned  with  as  an  important  political  as  well 
as  economic  factor. 

The  Thirtieth  Congress  convened  on  December  6,  1847,  w^tn 
Robert  C.  Winthrop  as  speaker.  A  marked  change  had  come 
over  the  complexion  of  the  House  since  its  last  session.  In  the 
preceding  Congress  the  Whigs  had  had  seventy-five  members 
and  the  Democrats  one  hundred  forty-two.  In  this  the  Whigs 
had  one  hundred  sixteen  and  the  Democrats  one  hundred  eight. 
Among  Lincoln's  colleagues  from  Illinois,  all  Democrats,  were 
John  A.  McClernand,  whom  he  knew  well,  and  who  was  subse- 


*See  an  address  on  The' Influence  of  Chicago  upon  the  Career  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  delivered  before  the  Chicago  Historical  Society,  by  William 
K.  Barton,  on  Lincoln's  Birthday,  1922. 


LINCOLN  THE  POLITICIAN  281 

quently  a  general  in  the  Union  Army,  and  John  Wentworth,  of 
Chicago.  Among  his  fellow-members  on  the  floor  were  ex-Pres- 
ident John  Quincy  Adams,  George  Ashmun,  who  in  i860  pre- 
sided over  the  convention  that  nominated  Lincoln  for  president, 
John  G.  Palfrey,  the  historian,  Andrew  Johnson,  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  and  a  group  of  men  who  later  became  prominent  as 
leaders  in  the  Confederacy.  In  the  Senate  were  Daniel  Web- 
ster, John  C.  Calhoun,  Jefferson  Davis,  Thomas  H.  Benton, 
Simon  Cameron,  Lewis  Cass,  John  A.  Dix,  and  other  men 
scarcely  less  noted.  At  this  time  Lincoln  and  Alexander  H. 
Stephens  were  on  the  same  side.  Stephens  several  years  after 
Lincoln's  death,  wrote  of  him  as  he  knew  him  in  Congress : 

I  knew  Mr.  Lincoln  well  and  intimately,  and  we  were  both 
ardent  supporters  of  General  Taylor  for  president  in  1848.  Mr. 
Lincoln,  Toombs,  Preston,  myself  and  others  formed  the  first 
Congressional  Taylor  Club,  known  as  "The  Young  Indians,"  and 
organized  the  Taylor  movement,  which  resulted  in  his  nomina- 
tion. Mr.  Lincoln  was  careless  as  to  his  manners,  awkward  in 
his  speech,  but  was  possessed  of  a  very  strong,  clear,  vigorous 
mind.  He  always  attracted  and  riveted  the  attention  of  the 
House  when  he  spoke.  His  manner  of  speech  as  well  as  his 
thought  was  original.  He  had  no  model.  He  was  a  man  of 
strong  convictions,  and  what  Carlyle  would  have  called  an  ear- 
nest man.  He  abounded  in  anecdotes.  He  illustrated  everything 
he  was  talking  about  by  an  anecdote,  always  exceedingly  apt  and 
pointed,  and  socially  he  always  kept  his  company  in  a  roar  of 
laughter. 

"What  Lincoln  thought  about  Stephens  may  be  inferred  from 
the  following  letter  to  Herndon : 

Washington,  Feb.  2,  1848. 
Dear  William: 

I  just  take  up  my  pen  to  say  that  Mr.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  a 
little,  slim,  pale-faced,  consumptive  man,  with  a  voice  like 
Logan's,  has  just  concluded  the  very  best  speech  of  an  hour's 
length  I  ever  heard.     My  old,  withered,  dry  eyes  are  full  of  tears 

i 


2&2  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

yet.     If  he  writes  it  out  anything  like  he  delivered  it  our  people 
shall  see  a  good  many  copies  of  it. 

Yours  truly, 

A.  Lincoln. 

The  allusion  to  the  voice  of  Stephen  T.  Logan  is  of  interest, 
as  his  thin,  whining  tone  was  a  matter  of  mirthful  comment  in 
Springfield. 

Little  did  either  Lincoln  or  Stephens  think  how  they  were 
later  to  meet  as  the  Civil  War  was  drawing  to  its  close  when  they 
were  to  engage  in  fruitless  negotiations  for  peace. 

Lincoln  was  ambitious  to  distinguish  himself  in  Congress.  A 
few  days  after  the  House  met,  he  closed  a  letter  to  Herndon  thus : 

By  way  of  experiment,  and  of  getting  the  hang  of  the  House, 
I  made  a  little  speech  two  or  three  days  ago  on  a  post-office  ques- 
tion of  no  general  interest.  I  find  speaking  here  and  elsewhere 
almost  the  same  thing.  I  was  about  as  badly  scared  and  no  more 
than  when  I  speak  in  court. 

Lincoln  was  on  the  Committee  on  Post-Offices  and  Post 
Roads.  This  gave  him  an  excuse  for  his  first  address.  On 
December  22,  1847,  he  introduced  a  series  of  resolutions  which 
have  become  famous  as  the  "Spot  Resolutions."  He  quoted  in 
his  preamble,  from  President  Polk's  Message  of  May  11,  1846, 
in  which  the  president  charged  that  Mexico  had  invaded  our  ter- 
ritory and  shed  the  blood  of  our  citizens  on  our  own  soil.  In 
these  resolutions,  Lincoln  proposed  that  Congress  should  request 
the  president  to  designate  "the  spot"  where  this  invasion  and 
bloodshed  on  the  part  of  Mexico  had  occurred.  On  January  12. 
1848,  he  called  up  the  resolutions  and  made  a  speech  upon  them. 
It  was  a  sensible  and  very  clear  speech,  and  won  Lincoln  imme- 
diate recognition.  One  paragraph  in  this  speech  was  often 
quoted  against  him  in  the  four  years  beginning  "with  1861  : 

Any  people  anywhere,  being  inclined  and  having  the  power, 
have  the  right  to  rise  up  and  shake  off  the  existing  government, 
and  form  a  new  one  that  suits  them  better.  This  is  a  most  valu- 
able, a  most  sacred  right, — a  right  which,  we  hope  and  believe,  is 


LINCOLN  THE  POLITICIAN  283 

to  liberate  the  world.  Nor  is  this  right  confined  to  cases  in  which 
the  whole  people  of  an  existing  government  may  choose  to  exer- 
cise it.  Any  portion  of  such  people,  that  can,  may  revolutionize, 
and  make  their  own  of  so  much  of  the  territory  as  they  inhabit. 

Of  Lincoln's  brief  experience  as  a  "Yearling"  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  we  have  a  brief  account  by  Elihu  B.  Wash- 
burne  :* 

Mr.  Lincoln  took  his  seat  in  Congress  on  the  first  Monday 
in  December,  1847.  I  wras  in  attendance  on  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  at  Washington  that  winter,  and  as  he  was 
the  only  member  of  Congress  from  the  State  who  was  in  har- 
mony with  my  own  political  sentiments,  I  saw  much  of  him  and 
passed  a  good  deal  of  time  in  his  room.  He  belonged  to  a  mess 
that  boarded  at  Mrs.  Spriggs,  in  "Duff  Green's  Row"  on  Capi- 
tol Hill.  At  the  first  session,  the  mess  was  composed  of  John 
Blanchard,  John  Dickey,  A.  R.  Mcllvaine,  James  Pollock,  John 
Strohm,  of  Pennsylvania ;  Elisha  Embree,  of  Indiana ;  Joshua 
R.  Giddings,  of  Ohio ;  A.  Lincoln,  of  Illinois,  and  P.  W.  Tomp- 
kins, of  Mississippi.  The  same  members  composed  the  mess  at 
Mrs.  Spriggs'  the  short  session,  with  the  exception  of  Judge 
Embree  and  Mr.  Tompkins.  Without  exception,  these  gentle- 
men are  all  dead.  He  sat  in  the  old  hall  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  for  the  long  session  was  so  unfortunate  as  to 
draw  one  of  the  most  undesirable  seats  in  the  hall.  He  partici- 
pated but  little  in  the  active  business  of  the  House,  and  made 
the  personal  acquaintance  of  but  few  members.  He  was  atten- 
tive and  conscientious  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties,  and  fol- 
lowed the  course  of  legislation  closely.  When  he  took  his  seat 
in  the  House,  the  campaign  of  1848  for  president  was  just  open- 
ing. Out  of  the  small  number  of  Whig  members  of  Congress 
who  were  favorable  to  the  nomination  of  General  Taylor  by  the 
Whig  Convention,  he  was  one  of  the  most  ardent  and  outspoken. 

Some  of  Lincoln's  messmates  at  Mrs.  Spriggs's  table  he  was 
to  know  again  in  after  life.  James  Pollock,  of  Pennsylvania,  be- 
came in  1 86 1,  by  Lincoln's  appointment,  director  of  the  mint  at 


^Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln  by  Distinguished  Men  of  His  Times, 
pp    17-18. 


284  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Philadelphia;  it  was  he  who  first  placed  on  the  coinage  of  the 
United  States  the  motto,  "In  God  We  Trust."  Joshua  R.  Gid- 
dings  was  already  a  leader  of  note  and  it  is  believed  with  some 
reason  that  Lincoln's  anti-slavery  sentiments  may  have  been 
strengthened  by  association  with  him  during  this  period. 

As  the  only  Whig  congressman  from  Illinois,  Lincoln  had 
more  than  what  might  otherwise  have  been  his  share  of  appoint- 
ments on  committees  of  arrangement  for  formal  functions  offi- 
cially or  semi-officially  under  authority  of  Congress.  He  was  one 
of  the  official  managers  of  the  inauguration  ball  in  honor  of 
President  Taylor.  He  and  Stephen  A.  Douglas  were  the  Illinois 
delegation  on  the  committee  in  charge  of  the  celebration  of 
Washington's  birthday  in  1848.  A  pathetic  postponement  of  this 
celebration  occurred  by  reason  of  the  impending  death  of  John 
Ouincy  Adams,  who  was  stricken  with  paralysis  in  the  House 
on  February  twenty-first,  and  died  two  days  later.  The  Wash- 
ington's birthday  celebration  was  postponed  until  March  first ; 
Lincoln  was  on  the  committee  in  charge  of  the  funeral  of  ex- 
President  Adams. 

Those  who  remembered  in  later  years  the  appearance  of  Lin- 
coln in  the  House,  recalled  that  the  House  Post-office  was  a  fav- 
orite lounging-place  of  his,  and  that  there,  as  at  Mrs.  Spriggs's 
table,  his  stories  were  highly  popular. 

Early  in  July,  1848,  Lincoln  attended,  as  a  delegate  from  Ill- 
inois, the  Whig  National  Convention  in  Philadelphia.  He  was 
an  enthusiastic  advocate  of  General  Zachary  Taylor,  and  was 
happy  to  have  had  a  share  in  his  nomination.  Returning  to  Con- 
gress, he  found  prompt  opportunity  to  make  upon  the  floor  a 
campaign  speech,  in  favor  of  Taylor,  and  against  General  Cass, 
the  Democratic  candidate.  It  is  fair  to  assume  that  he  had  his 
old  constituents  in  mind  rather  than  members  of  the  House  in 
making  this  speech.  Its  humor  and  sarcasm  were  of  the  general 
type  of  stump  oratory  in  that  period. 

Lincoln  had  opposed  the  Mexican  War,  which  on  July  4, 
1848,  was  officially  ended  by  promulgation  of  a  treaty  of  peace. 


LIXCOLX  THE  POLITICIAN  285 

He  hnd  voted  for  supplies  for  the  troops,  but  he  voted  against 
practically  everything  else  that  furthered  the  plans  of  Polk's  ad- 
ministration. 

He  voted  repeatedly  for  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  an  amendment 
or  rider  introduced  by  David  Wilmot,  from  Pennsylvania,  de- 
claring that  it  should  be  a  condition  to  the  acquisition  of  any 
territory  from  Mexico,  "that  neither  slavery  nor  involuntary 
servitude  should  ever  exist  in  any  part  thereof,  except  for  crime, 
whereof  the  party  should  be  duly  convicted."  This  proviso  was 
adopted  in  the  House  but  died  in  the  Senate. 

Lincoln's  most  important  and  significant  act  while  in  Con- 
gress was  his  introduction  into  the  House  of  a  bill  providing  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  per- 
sons already  slaves  were  to  be  gradually  emancipated  with  com- 
pensation to  their  owners.  No  slaves  were  to  be  imported  into 
the  district,  and  all  children  born  to  slave  parents  were  to  be 
free.  Lincoln  did  not  like  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  As  he  wrote 
to  Speed,  he  disliked  to  see  the  poor  creatures  hunted  down  and 
returned  to  their  unrequited  toil.  But  he  was  a  Whig  and  re- 
mained a  Whig  until  the  very  end  of  that  party.  Not  liking  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  he  believed  that  the  South  was  entitled  to 
some  such  protection ;  and  in  the  bill  which  he  introduced  into 
Congress,  January  10,  1849,  providing  for  the  gradual  emanci- 
pation of  slaves  within  the  District  of  Columbia,  was  a  section 
which  would  have  enacted  a  fugitive  slave  law  for  that  district. 
The  previous  Fugitive  Slave  Law  had  not  applied  in  the  District 
of  Columbia.  Southern  people  brought  their  slaves  with  them 
and  took  them  away  again ;  but  a  slave  escaping  from  his  master 
and  reaching  the  District  of  Columbia  could  not  be  dragged 
back  to  slavery  from  under  the  shadow  of  the  Capitol  of  the  Re- 
public. Slaves  were,  however,  bought  and  sold  in  the  District 
of  Columbia.  The  fifth  section  of  this  bill,  enacting  a  fugitive 
slave  law  for  the  District  of  Columbia,  raised  deep  indignation 
on  the  part  of  the  abolitionists.  The  bill  did  not  become  a  law, 
and  so  attracted  no  large  immediate  attention.  But  when  in  i860, 


286  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  nominated  as  president  of  the  United 
States,  Wendell  Phillips  denounced  Lincoln  as  "the  slave-hound 
of  Illinois."  Had  Lincoln's  bill  been  only  a  bill  to  enable  masters 
to  recover  their  runaway  slaves  who  escaped  to  Washington,  this 
severe  epithet  might  have  been  justified;  but  the  fifth  section 
was  a  concession  aimed  to  assist  in  securing  the  passage  of  a  bill 
whose  real  purpose  was  the  restriction  of  slavery.  Lincoln  was 
willing  to  concede  the  operation  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  in 
the  District  of  Columbia  as  it  held  throughout  the  North,  if 
thereby  he  could  secure  the  final  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  capi- 
tal of  the  nation.  This  being  Lincoln's  manifest  intent,  the  fiery 
words  of  Phillips  are  seen  to  be  unjust. 

Mr.  Arnold  in  summing  up  the  record  of  Lincoln  in  the  Legis- 
lature of  Illinois  says : 

If  he  had  died  at  the  close  of  his  service  in  the  General  Assem- 
bly, neither  the  nation  nor  his  own  state  would  have  known 
much  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  had  not  yet  developed  those 
great  qualities,  nor  rendered  those  great  services,  which  have 
since  made  him  known  throughout  the  world.  All  who  closely 
studied  his  history  will  observe  that  he  continued  to  grow  and 
expand  in  intellect  and  character  to  the  day  of  his  death.* 

At  the  close  of  Lincoln's  single  term  in  Congress  not  much 
could  have  been  added  to  the  foregoing  statement.  Lincoln  did 
not  feel  that  his  experience  as  a  member  of  Congress  had  been 
a  brilliant  one.  He  hoped  that  it  was  the  beginning  of  his  career 
in  national  politics.  Instead,  he  soon  came  to  believe  that  it 
was  the  end. 


*Arnold,  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  60. 


CHAPTER  XX 

LINCOLN    OUT    OF    POLITICS 
1849-1854 

Lincoln  completed  his  one  term  in  Congress  with  the  un- 
happy realization  that  he  must  not  permit  his  name  to  be  used 
as  a  candidate  to  succeed  himself,  and  that  even  if  he  were  at 
liberty  to  do  so,  he  could  not  be  reelected.  He  and  Logan  and 
Hardin  and  Baker  had  agreed  that  the  Whig  nomination  for 
representative  in  Congress  from  the  district  to  which  Spring- 
field belonged,  should  be  passed  around  among  them.  There 
was  always,  of  course,  a  possibility  that  a  man  once  in  Congress 
might  establish  such  a  record  that  the  people  would  rise  up  and 
demand  his  renomination  and  election.  Hardin  hoped  that 
he  had  done  his  work  so  creditably  that  the  people  would  demand 
his  return.  They  did  not  demand  it  and  Lincoln  was  unwilling 
that  they  should  demand  it.  Lincoln  secured  his  nomination  by 
the  withdrawal  of  Hardin  on  a  general  understanding  which 
Lincoln  expressed  that  "turn  about  was  fair  play."  When  Lin- 
coln saw  his  term  nearing  its  end,  he  himself  began  to  seek  for 
some  indication  that  the  people  would  demand  his  reelection. 
In  this  he  was  disappointed.  Not  many  people  in  Springfield 
were  interested  in  his  support  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  or  in  his 
bill  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia;  but  many 
were  offended  because  he  did  not  more  ardently  support  the  ad- 
ministration during  the  War  with  Mexico.  Viewed  from  this 
distance,  Lincoln's  course  in  these  matters  appears  to  have  been 
decidedly  to  his  credit.  We  can  say  that  his  career  in  Congress, 
while  not  brilliant,  was  distinctly  creditable.  The  system  where- 
by the  office  of  representative  in  Congress  was  handed  around, 

287 


288  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

was  a  bad  system;  and  the  period  of  Lincoln's  service  would 
have  been  a  good  time  to  break  it.  But  Lincoln's  constituents 
were  otherwise  minded,  and  Lincoln  was  a  man  of  honor.  He 
had  made  a  bad  bargain  and  he  stood  by  it. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  was  in  Washington  with  Lincoln  during  the 
major  part  of  his  first  winter  there.  The  taste  which  she  had 
of  Washington  life  made  her  very  willing  to  consider  remaining 
there.  During  the  second  winter  she  was  in  Springfield  at- 
tending to  her  family  cares;  but  she  would  have  looked  with 
favor  upon  a  proposal  that  would  have  given  herself  and  her 
husband  a  permanent  home  in  the  nation's  capital. 

Lincoln  supported  Taylor  in  the  Philadelphia  convention  in 
1848.  He  believed  that  Taylor  could  win,  and  he  was  sure  that 
Clay  could  not.  Taylor  was  "a  Whig  but  not  an  ultra  Whig." 
As  a  popular  soldier  in  the  Mexican  War,  he  could  count  upon 
considerable  support  from  those  who  favored  the  War  with  Mex- 
ico, while  as  a  Whig  he  might  expect  the  united  support  of  those 
who  had  opposed  the  War  with  Mexico.  He  hardly  recognized 
himself  as  a  Whig;  his  party  platform  had  to  prove  it.  Any 
one  could  qualify  as  a  Whig  if  he  could  defeat  a  Democrat. 

In  this,  Taylor  and  his  supporters  were  mistaken.  James 
Russell  Lowell  in  the  Biglow  Papers  spoke  for  a  large  number 
of  influential  Whigs  in  bitter  opposition  to  Taylor  and  all  as- 
sociated with  him.  In  Massachusetts  there  was  a  formidable 
secession  of  Whig  leaders  growing  out  of  Taylor's  nomination. 
This  was  the  historic  Free-soil  movement  which  at  one  time  ap- 
peared so  significant.  It  was  led  by  Henry  Wilson,  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  Charles  Sumner,  Anson  Burlingame,  John  A. 
Andrew,  E.  Rockwood  Hoar,  John  G.  Palfrey,  and  other  men  of 
scarcely  less  prominence.  This  secession  alarmed  the  Whig  lead- 
ers of  New  England.  They  invited  certain  western  speakers,  in- 
cluding Lincoln,  to  come  to  Massachusetts  and  deliver  stump 
speeches  in  behalf  of  Taylor.  Lincoln  was  happy  to  accept.  He 
wanted  to  help  elect  Taylor,  and  he  had  no  doubt  that  Taylor 
would  reward  him  for  his  assistance. 


LINCOLN  OUT  OF  POLITICS  289 

Congress  adjourned  August  14,  1848.  Lincoln  went  to  New 
England  early  in  September.  The  Whig  State  Convention  met 
in  Worcester,  September  13,  1848.  Nowhere  in  New  England 
was  the  Free- soil  secession  more  formidable  than  in  Worcester. 
Lincoln  delivered  an  address  at  the  City  Hall  on  the  evening 
before  the  convention.  The  burden  of  his  address  was  his  op- 
position to  the  Free- soil  Party,  whose  leaders,  as  he  alleged,  by 
their  withdrawal  from  the  Whig  ticket,  were  helping  to  elect 
Cass.  In  the  main,  his  address  appears  to  have  been  tactful  and 
cogent ;  but  an  allusion  which  he  made  to  the  murder  of  Lovejoy, 
with  no  word  of  condemnation  for  those  who  had  committed  that 
atrocity,  was  deemed  by  the  Free-  soilers  to  be  heartless,  and 
Lincoln  was  careful  to  omit  it  from  his  subsequent  speeches. 
Lincoln's  argument  in  all  his  New  England  addresses  was  that 
the  nation's  hope  of  relief  from  the  iniquity  of  the  Democratic 
Party  lay  in  the  united  support  of  the  Whig  candidate ;  and 
that  any  votes  withdrawn  from  the  Whig  Party  in  support  of  the 
Free-  soil  ticket  were  half  votes  for  Cass  and  the  Democrats. 
This  line  of  argument  has  been  employed  against  all  attempts 
to  create  new  parties  and  probably  will  continue  to  be  employed 
for  many  generations  to  come. 

On  the  morning  of  September  fourteenth,  Lincoln  spoke  again 
in  Worcester,  this  time  at  an  open  air  meeting.  At  the  conven- 
tion which  was  held  that  day,  he  heard,  among  others,  a  brilliant 
speech  by  Rufus  Choate,  and  another  from  Robert  C.  Winthrop, 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 

Lincoln  spoke  in  Boston,  in  Washington  Hall  on  Bromfield 
Street,  on  Friday,  September  fifteenth.  He  spoke  in  Lowell  on 
Saturday,  September  sixteenth.  He  delivered  an  address  in 
Richmond  Hall,  Lower  Mills,  Dorchester,  on  Monday,  Septem- 
ber eighteenth.  On  Tuesday,  September  nineteenth,  he  spoke 
in  Chelsea.  On  Wednesday,  September  twentieth,  he  spoke  in 
the  daytime  in  Temperance  Hall  in  Dedham,  and  evoked  so 
much  enthusiasm  that  his  audience  was  unwilling  to  have  him 
leave  for  Cambridge,  where  he  spoke  that  night.     On  Friday, 


290  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

September  twenty-second,  he  and  William  H.  Seward  spoke  in 
Tremont  Temple.  This  is  said  to  have  been  the  only  political 
speech  that  Seward  ever  delivered  in  Boston.  Seward's  Life 
records  that  after  this  meeting  as  they  sat  together  in  their  hotel, 
Lincoln  said : 

''Governor  Seward,  I  have  been  thinking  about  what  you  said 
in  your  speech.  I  reckon  you  are  right.  We  have  got  to  deal 
with  this  slavery  question  and  got  to  give  much  more  attention 
to  it  hereafter  than  we  have  been  doing."* 

The  Whig  newspaper,  The  Atlas,  gave  more  than  a  column  to 
Seward's  speech,  but  stated  that  it  had  no  room  for  the  notes 
which  had  been  taken  of  Lincoln's.  It  described  Lincoln's 
speech,  however,  as  ' 'powerful  and  convincing,"  and  said  that 
it  was  "cheered  to  the  echo." 

None  of  Lincoln's  New  England  addresses  are  preserved  in 
full.     Herndon  thus  summarizes  the  impression  which  he  made : 

It  is  evident  from  all  the  contemporary  reports  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln made  a  marked  impression  on  all  his  audiences.  Their  at- 
tention was  drawn  at  once  to  his  striking  figure ;  they  enjoyed 
his  quaintness  and  humor;  and  they  recognized  his  logical  power 
and  his  novel  wray  of  putting  things.  Still,  so  far  as  his  points 
are  given  in  the  public  journals,  he  did  not  rise  at  any  time 
above  partisanship.  And  he  gave  no  sign  of  the  great  future 
which  awaited  him  as  a  political  antagonist,  a  master  of  lan- 
guage, and  a  leader  of  men.  But  it  should  be  noted,  in  connec- 
tion with  this  estimate,  that  the  Whig  case,  as  put  in  that  cam- 
paign, was  chiefly  one  of  personalities,  and  was  limited  to  the 
qualities  and  career  of  Taylor  as  a  soldier,  and  to  ridicule  of  his 
opponent,  General  Cass.  Mr.  Lincoln,  like  other  Whig  speakers, 
labored  to  prove  that  Taylor  was  a  Whig. 

Many  requests  came  to  the  Whig  Committee  for  addresses  to 
be  delivered  by  Lincoln,  but  on  the  day  following  the  Tremont 
Temple  speech  he  started  for  his  home  in  Illinois.   On  the  whole, 


*Seward's  Life,  ii,  p.  80. 


LINCOLN  OUT  OF  POLITICS  291 

he  made  a  good  impression  in  New  England,  and  he  went  back 
to  Springfield  with  renewed  conviction  that  Taylor  would  win 
and  that  Lincoln  would  not  lose  his  reward. 

On  his  way  home  from  New  England,  Lincoln  stopped  at 
Niagara  Falls,  and  continued  his  homeward  journey  by  way  of 
Lake  Erie.  It  was  on  this  voyage  that  this  vessel  got  stranded 
on  a  sand-bar  and  the  captain  ordered  the  deck  hands  to  fasten 
together  empty  barrels  and  force  them  under  the  water  beside 
the  boat.  This  was  what  set  Lincoln's  mind  to  work  on  an  in- 
vention for  lifting  vessels  over  shoals  by  means  of  expansive 
buoyant  air  chambers.  Lincoln  obtained  a  patent  upon  this  de- 
vice. It  is  the  most  eagerly  sought  of  the  models  in  the  Patent 
Office  in  Washington.  So  far  as  is  known  it  was  never  em- 
ployed by  any  vessel,  but  it  bears  interesting  evidence  of  Lin- 
coln's mechanical  genius  and  his  interest  in  navigation. 

On  his  way  back  to  Springfield,  Lincoln  stopped  in  Chicago, 
and  there  delivered  his  first  campaign  speech  in  that  city.  He 
had  spoken  there  but  once,  and  then  briefly,  at  the  River  and 
Harbor  Convention  in  July,  1847.  On  Friday  evening,  October 
6,  1848,  he  spoke  for  two  hours  in  the  interests  of  General 
Taylor. 

It  is  worth  noticing  that  his  next  formal  address  in  that  city 
was  on  Thursday,  July  25,  1850,  when  he  delivered,  by  invita- 
tion of  the  Common  'Council,  and  also  of  a  committee  of  in- 
fluential Whigs,  an  address  commemorative  of  President  Tay- 
lor, who  died  in  office  July  9,  1850.* 

Lincoln  appears  not  to  have  realized  until  his  return  to  Spring- 
field the  extent  to  which  sentiment  in  his  own  district  had 
changed  regarding  him.  Lincoln  wrote  to  Herndon  in  January, 
1848,  in  an  effort  to  discover  whether  his  constituents  were  likely 
to  rise  up  and  demand  his  reelection.     He  said : 

I  made  the  declaration  that  I  would  not  be  a  candidate  again, 


*This  address,  but  recently  discovered,  has  been  published  in  a  limited 
edition,  with  an  introduction  by  William  E.  Barton.  The  publishers  are 
Messrs.   Houghton   Mifflin   Company. 


292  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

more  from  a  wish  to  deal  fairly  with  others,  to  keep  peace  among 
our  friends,  and  to  keep  the  district  from  going  to  the  enemy, 
than  from  any  cause  personal  to  myself ;  so  that  if  it  should  hap- 
pen that  if  nohody  else  wishes  to  be  elected,  I  could  not  refuse 
the  people  the  right  of  sending  me  again.  But  to  enter  myself 
as  a  competitor  of  others,  or  to  authorize  any  one  so  to  enter  me, 
is  what  my  word  and  honor  forbid. 

Herndon  was  not  entirely  unwilling  that  Lincoln  should  be 
disillusioned.  He  knew  how  a  group  of  men,  who  had  been  for 
some  time  prominent  in  Whig  politics,  had  parceled  out  all  pros- 
pective political  favors  among  themselves,  leaving,  as  Herndon 
believed,  no  hope  for  younger  men  or  for  the  party.  He  be- 
lieved that  the  Whig  Party  was  going  on  the  rocks  and  he  was 
willing  to  see  it  go.  He  felt  strongly  resentful  of  the  attitude  of 
the  older  politicians,  and  a  little  later,  told  Lincoln  so.  He  said 
in  respect  to  certain  letters  which  Lincoln  wrote  to  him,  while 
Lincoln  was  still  in  Washington : 

He  was  endeavoring  through  me  to  rouse  up  all  the  enthusi- 
asm among  the  youth  of  Springfield  possible  under  the  circum- 
stances. But  I  was  disposed  to  take  a  dispirited  view  of  the  sit- 
uation, and  therefore  was  not  easily  warmed  up.  I  felt  at  this 
time,  somewhat  in  advance  of  its  occurrence,  the  death-throes  of 
the  Whig  Party.  I  did  not  conceal  my  suspicions,  and  one  of  the 
Springfield  papers  gave  my  sentiments  liberal  quotation  in  its 
columns.  I  felt  gloomy  over  the  prospect,  and  cut  out  these 
newspaper  slips  and  sent  them  to  Lincoln.  Accompanying  these 
I  wrote  him  a  letter  equally  melancholy  in  tone,  in  which  among 
other  things  I  reflected  severely  on  the  stubbornness  and  bad 
judgment  of  the  old  fossils  in  the  party  who  were  constantly 
holding  the  young  men  back. 

This  was  the  communication  to  which  Lincoln  replied  in  his 
well-known  letter  of  July  10,  1848,  in  which  he  advised  Herndon 
to  get  over  his  feeling  of  jealousy,  and  to  depend  upon  his  own 
exertions,  assuring  Herndon  that  he  himself  had  never  waited 
for  old  men  to  hunt  him  up  and  push  him  forward.  Lincoln 
wrote  as  an  old  man,  beino-  at  that  time  thirtv-nine  years  old. 


LINCOLN  OUT  OF  POLITICS  293 

His  associations,  however,  were  with  the  older  element  of  the 
Whig  Party. 

When  he  came  to  see  that  he  was  not  going  to  he  asked  to  run 
again,  he  frankly  accepted  the  situation  as  one  in  which  he  was 
already  bound  by  his  word  and  honor.  He  made  no  effort  to 
secure  a  renomination.  He  stepped  aside  for  Judge  Stephen  T. 
Logan,  who  was  duly  nominated  and  defeated.  The  defection  in 
the  Whig  Party  in  Lincoln's  district  was  more  serious  than  he 
thought. 

Lincoln  immediately  began  to  consider  what  office  he  could 
secure  for  himself  by  presidential  appointment.  The  best  politi- 
cal plum  which  was  likely  to  fall  to  an  Illinois  Whig  was  that 
of  commissioner  of  the  Land  Office  in  Washington.  Other  men 
besides  Lincoln  had  their  eyes  on  this.     Lincoln  wrote  to  Speed : 

I  believe  that,  so  far  as  the  Whigs  in  Congress  are  concerned, 
I  could  have  the  General  Land  Office  almost  by  common  con- 
sent; but  then  Sweet  and  Don  Morrison  and  Cyrus  Edwards  all 
want  it,  and,  what  is  worse,  while  I  think  I  could  easily  take  it 
myself,  I  fear  I  should  have  trouble  to  get  it  for  any  other  man 
in  Illinois. 

Lincoln  found  that  he  could  not  get  the  Land  Office  for  any 
of  these  men.  and  he  set  himself  industriously  to  obtain  it  for 
himself.  He  was  correct  in  his  judgment  that  he  could  more 
probably  secure  it  for  himself  than  for  any  of  these  applicants, 
and  he  greatly  desired  it.  Nevertheless,  he  made  no  effort  to 
obtain  it  until  it  became  evident  that  none  of  these  men  could 
have  it ;  either  it  would  come  to  Lincoln  himself  or  to  Justin 
Butterfield,  of  Chicago. 

There  was  more  than  one  reason  why  Lincoln  did  not  desire 
that  Butterfield  should  have  the  position.  Butterfield  was  a 
Whig  who  had  supported  the  Mexican  War.  Butterfield  repre- 
sented the  growing  Whig  interests  in  the  northern  end  of  the 
state.  Whatever  hope  Lincoln  and  his  friends  had  of  retaining 
their    prestige   with    the    Whig   administration    depended    upon 


294  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

their  standing-  out  against  the  ascendent  interests  of  Chicago 
in  Whig  politics.  Before  Lincoln  left  Washington  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1848  he  discovered  the  impossibility  of  securing  the  Land 
Office  for  Cyrus  Edwards.  On  May  19,  1849,  he  wrote  a  letter 
to  Judge  Gillespie  saying  that  Butterfield  would  be  commissioner 
of  the  General  Land  Office  unless  prevented  by  strong  and 
speedy  efforts.  He  did  not  suggest  to  Gillespie  who  was  to  be 
recommended  instead  of  Butterfield,  but  he  declared  that  But- 
ter field's  appointment  would  be  a  fatal  blunder  to  the  admin- 
istration and  to  the  Whigs  of  Illinois. 

When  Cyrus  Edwards  learned  that  Lincoln  had  applied  for  the 
position  himself,  he  was  offended,  and  accused  Lincoln  of  treach- 
ery. There  appears  no  ground  for  this  charge ;  on  the  contrary, 
Lincoln  appears  to  have  been  loyal  to  his  political  friends  to  his 
own  disadvantage.  Had  he  earlier  inaugurated  his  own  cam- 
paign, quite  possibly  he  might  have  received  the  appointment. 
But  Justin  Butterfield*  had  personal  friends  in  New  England 
who  had  personal  influence  with  Daniel  Webster.  Webster  had 
not  favored  the  election  of  Taylor,  but  he  was  too  prominent  a 
Whig  to  be  ignored.  Moreover,  it  was  evident  that  the  Whig 
Party  must  increasingly  find  its  support  in  northern  Illinois. 
President  Taylor  appointed  Butterfield  against  Lincoln's  strenu- 
ous endeavor  to  secure  the  position  for  himself. 

Lincoln  went  back  to  Springfield  and  faced  a  constituency  dis- 
gruntled by  his  career  in  Congress,  and  he  had  to  meet  Judge 
Logan,  who  had  some  reason  to  feel  that  he  owed  his  own  defeat 
to  Lincoln's  opposition  to  the  Mexican  War.  He  had  also  to 
meet  Cyrus  Edwards,  who  unjustly  accused  Lincoln  of  treach- 
ery. It  was  anything  but  a  cheerful  experience  for  Abraham 
Lincoln.     Again  he  wrote  thus  to  Joseph  Gillespie : 


*Justin  Butterfield  was  born  in  Keene,  N.  H.,  in  1790.  He  studied  at 
Williams  College,  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar  at  Watertown,  N.  Y.,  in  1812. 
After  some  years  of  practise  in  New  York  State  he  removed  to  New  Orleans, 
and  in  1835,  to  Chicago.  He  soon  attained  high  rank  in  his  profession.  In 
1 841,  he  was  appointed  by  President  Harrison,  United  States  District  At- 
torney. He  was  logical  and  resourceful  and  many  stories  are  told  of  his 
quick  wit.     He  died  October  25,   1855. 


LINCOLN  OUT  OF  POLITICS  295 

Springfield,  July   13,   1849. 
Dear  Gillespie : 

Mr.  Edwards  is  unquestionably  offended  with  me  in  connec- 
tion with  the  matter  of  the  General  Land  Office.  He  wrote  a 
letter  against  me  which  was  filed  at  the  Department. 

The  better  part  of  one's  life  consists  of  his  friendships;  and,  of 
them,  mine  with  Mr.  Edwards  was  one  of  the  most  cherished. 
I  have  not  been  false  to  it.  At  a  word  I  could  have  had  the 
office  any  time  before  the  Department  was  committed  to  Mr. 
Butterfield — at  least  Mr.  Ewing  and  the  president  say  as  much. 
That  word  I  forbore  to  speak,  partly  for  other  reasons,  but 
chiefly  for  Mr.  Edwards'  sake — losing  the  office  that  he  might 
gain  it.  I  was  always  for  [him]  ;  but  to  lose  his  friendship,  by 
the  effort  for  him,  would  oppress  me  very  much,  were  I  not  sus- 
tained by  the  utmost  consciousness  of  rectitude.  I  first  deter- 
mined to  be  an  applicant,  unconditionally,  on  the  2d  of  June ; 
and  I  did  so  then  upon  being  informed  by  a  telegraphic  despatch 
that  the  question  was  narrowed  down  to  Mr.  B.and  myself,  and 
that  the  Cabinet  had  postponed  the  appointment  three  weeks  for 
my  benefit.  Xot  doubting  that  Mr.  Edwards  was  wholly  out  of 
the  question,  I  nevertheless,  would  not  then  have  become  an  ap- 
plicant had  I  supposed  he  would  thereby  be  brought  to  suspect 
me  of  treachery  to  him.  Two  or  three  days  afterwards  a  con- 
versation with  Levi  Davis  convinced  me  Mr.  Edwards  was  dis- 
satisfied ;  but  I  was  then  too  far  in  to  get  out.  His  own  letter, 
written  on  the  25th  of  April,  after  I  had  fully  informed  him  of 
all  that  had  passed,  up  to  within  a  few  days  of  that  time,  gave 
assurance  I  had  that  entire  confidence  from  him  which  I  felt 
my  uniform  and  strong  friendship  for  him  entitled  me  to. 
Among  other  things  it  says  :  "Whatever  course  your  judgment 
may  dictate  as  proper  to  be  pursued  shall  never  be  excepted  to  by 
me."  I  also  had  a  letter  from  Washington,  saying  Chambers,  of 
the  Republic,  had  brought  a  rumor  there,  that  Mr.  E.  had  de- 
clined in  my  favor,  which  rumor  I  judged  came  from  Mr.  E. 
himself,  as  I  had  not  then  breathed  of  his  letter  to  any  living 
creature.  In  saying  I  had  never,  before  the  2d  of  June,  deter- 
mined to  be  an  applicant,  unconditionally,  I  mean  to  admit  that, 
before  then,  I  had  said,  substantially,  I  would  take  the  office 
rather  than  it  should  be  lost  to  the  State,  or  given  to  one  in  the 
State  whom  the  Whigs  did  not  want ;  but  I  aver  that  in  every 
instance  in  which  I  spoke  of  myself  I  intended  to  keep,  and  now 


296  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

believe  I  did  keep,  Mr.  E.  above  myself.  Mr.  Edwards'  first 
suspicion  was  that  I  had  allowed  Baker  to  overreach  me,  as  his 
friend,  in  behalf  of  Don  Morrison.  I  know  this  was  a  mistake  ; 
and  the  result  has  proved  it.  I  understand  his  view  now  is,  that 
if  I  had  gone  to  open  war  with  Baker  I  could  have  ridden  him 
down,  and  had  the  thing  all  my  own  way.  I  believe  no  such 
thing.  With  Baker  and  some  strong  man  from  the  Military 
tract  and  elsewhere  for  Morrison,  and  we  and  some  strong  men 
from  the  Wabash  and  elsewhere  for  Mr.  E.,  it  was  not  possible 
for  either  to  succeed.  I  believed  this  in  March,  and  I  know  it 
now.  The  only  thing  which  gave  either  any  chance  was  the  very 
thing  Baker  and  I  proposed — an  adjustment  with  themselves. 

You  may  wish  to  know  how  Butterfield  finally  beat  me.  I 
cannot  tell  you  particulars  now,  but  will  when  I  see  you.  In  the 
meantime,  let  it  be  understood  I  am  not  greatly  dissatisfied — I 
wish  the  office  had  been  so  bestowed  as  to  encourage  our  friends 
in  future  contests,  and  I  regret  exceedingly  Mr.  Edwards'  feel- 
ings towards  me.  These  two  things  away,  I  should  have  no  re- 
grets— at  least  I  think  I  would  not.     Write  me  soon. 

Your  friend,  as  ever, 
A.  Lincoln. 

Lincoln  returned  to  Springfield  disappointed,  humiliated  and 
burdened.  He  had  lost  favor  with  his  own  constituents,  but 
being  a  Whig  in  a  Whig  administration  he  had  not  released 
himself  from  the  responsibilities  of  his  former  position.  The 
defeat  of  Judge  Logan  left  Lincoln,  though  without  office,  re- 
sponsible for  the  Whig  patronage  of  his  district.  He  was  com- 
pelled to  take  the  responsibility  and  blame  of  securing  offices 
for  other  men,  and  could  get  nothing  that  he  wanted  for  him- 
self. The  high  standing  to  which  he  should  have  been  entitled  as 
the  only  Whig  representative  from  Illinois  in  the  preceding  Con- 
gress, and  as  one  who  had  labored  effectively  to  secure  Taylor's 
nomination  and  election,  had  not  come  to  him.  He  was  rocked 
in  the  trough  of  the  political  sea.  The  Whigs  at  Springfield 
blamed  him  for  Judge  Logan's  defeat,  and  the  administration  at 
Washington  gave  him  no  credit  for  Taylor's  victory.  His  law 
practise  had  suffered  by  his  absence.    There  was  only  one  bright 


LINCOLN  OUT  OF  POLITICS  297 

star  in  his  sky.  He  had  lived  economically  in  Washington,  and 
saved  up  money  enough  to  pay  the  balance  of  the  debt  which 
he  had  incurred  in  New  Salem.  It  had  taken  him  fifteen  years 
to  establish  himself  in  business  and  remove  this  burdensome  ob- 
ligation. It  had  been  in  part  a  debt  of  honor  and  he  had  honor- 
ably discharged  it.  Whatever  his  mistakes  in  the  Legislature 
and  in  Congress,  he  had  not  profited  financially  by  any  of  the 
various  opportunities  which  political  life  had  offered  to  him. 
By  hard  toil  and  painful  economy  he  had  paid  his  debt.  Having 
done  this,  he  was  compelled  to  begin  life  over  again. 

The  new  administration  was  not  totally  oblivious  of  its  obli- 
gation to  Abraham  Lincoln.  Though  President  Taylor  did  not 
see  fit  to  offer  him  the  Land  Office  in  Washington,  his  succes- 
sor, President  Fillmore,  did  offer  him  the  governorship  of  Or- 
egon. Lincoln  was  sorely  tempted  to  accept.  He  anticipated 
little  joy  in  Springfield.  There  was  much  that  was  irksome  to 
him  in  the  practise  of  law.  He  did  not  care  much  to  be  gov- 
ernor of  the  territory,  but  he  reflected  that  before  long  Oregon 
would  be  a  state,  and  that  the  territorial  governor  would  stand 
a  chance  of  being  one  of  the  first  senators. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  vetoed  this  proposition.  She  had  no  intention  of 
going  to  live  in  Oregon.  If  she  could  not  live  in  Washington, 
Springfield  was  the  next  best  thing.  Her  home  was  there,  and 
her  friends  were  there,  and  she  had  more  faith  than  Lincoln  had 
just  then  in  his  political  future. 

In  considering  Lincoln's  political  position  in  1849,  we  are  ml~ 
pressed  by  his  caution  and  conservatism.  He  was  not  an  aboli- 
tionist; he  was  not  even  a  Free-soiler.  He  had  not  yet  risen  to 
the  high  vision  of  his  subsequent  statesmanship.  In  his  several 
efforts  to  limit  the  power  of  slavery,  notably  by  his  support  of 
the  Wilmot  Proviso,  and  his  bill  for  the  elimination  of  slavery 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  he  manifested  the  faith  that  was 
surely  in  him,  but  he  did  not  carry  his  convictions  beyond  the 
restricted  limits  of  their  logical  requirement.  He  did  not  belong 
to  the  more  progressive  element  of  the  Whig  Party.     He  had 


298  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

seen  Clay  defeated  in  1844,  and  he  advocated  the  nomination  and 
election  of  Taylor,  chiefly  because  he  believed  that  Taylor  was 
the  Whig  candidate  who  would  most  certainly  be  elected.  He 
wrote  almost  exultantly  concerning  the  prospects  for  the  election 
of  "Old  Rough  and  Ready"  because  Taylor  would  gather  in 
large  numbers  of  the  disaffected.     He  said: 

In  my  opinion  we  shall  have  a  most  overwhelming  triumph. 
One  unmistakable  sign  is  that  all  the  odds  and  ends  are  with  us 
— Barn-burners,  Native  Americans,  Tyler  men,  disappointed  of- 
fice-seeking locofocos,  and  the  Lord  knows  what  not.  Taylor's 
nomination  takes  the  locos  on  the  blind  side.  It  turns  the  war 
thunder  against  them.  The  war  is  now  to  them  the  gallows  of 
Hainan,  which  they  built  for  us  and  on  which  they  are  doomed 
to  be  hanged  themselves. 

Lincoln  was  correct  in  his  prediction  concerning  the  election 
of  Taylor,  but  entirely  mistaken  in  supposing  that  the  Whig 
Party  was  to  be  permanently  stronger  by  the  accretion  of  these 
odds  and  ends.  Not  only  in  Massachusetts,  but  in  his  own  dis- 
trict, was  the  Whig  Party  disintegrated  by  the  loss  of  some  of 
its  most  valuable  strength. 

It  is  interesting  to  recall  that  Lincoln  gained  no  marked  politi- 
cal advantage  from  his  visit  to  Massachusetts.  The  Whig  lead- 
ers whom  he  met  on  that  journey  did  not  become  his  permanent 
friends  or  political  supporters.  George  Lunt,  who  presided  at 
Tremont  Temple  when  Lincoln  and  Seward  gave  their  addresses 
there,  was  to  the  end  of  his  life  a  pro-slavery  conservative.  Hon- 
orable Benjamin  F.  Thomas  met  Lincoln  at  the  Worcester 
Convention,  and  spoke  on  the  same  platform  at  the  open  air 
meeting,  but  as  a  member  of  Congress  in  the  early  part  of  the 
Civil  War  he  was  obstructive  of  the  president's  policy.  Honor- 
able Rufus  Choate,  whose  acquaintance  Lincoln  formed  in  New 
England,  died  in  1859,  "but  judged  by  his  latest  utterances,  his 
marvelous  eloquence  would  have  been  no  patriotic  inspiration  if 
he  had  outlived  the  national  struggle."  Honorable  Robert  C. 
Winthrop,  whom  Lincoln  had  met  on  the  platform  in  New  Eng- 


LINCOLN  OUT  OF  POLITICS  299 

land,  presided  over  the  House  of  Representatives  during*  Lin- 
coln's first  term,  voted  against  Lincoln  in  i860  and  again  in 
1864.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Free-soilers  whom  Lincoln  went 
to  Massachusetts  to  discredit,  became  to  a  man  his  supporters. 
Charles  Sumner  and  Henry  Wilson  and  Charles  Francis  Adams 
and  John  A.  Andrew  and  Anson  Burlingame  and  Charles  A. 
Dana  and  John  G.  Palfrey  in  1848  were  all  on  the  stump  against 
Taylor  when  Lincoln  was  speaking  for  him,  but  they  became 
during  the  Civil  War  Lincoln's  stalwart  supporters. 

We  can  not  help  asking,  and  we  need  not  attempt  to  answer, 
whether  it  would  have  been  better  if  Lincoln  in  1847  nad  entire- 
ly abandoned  the  Whig  Party  and  gone  with  the  Free-soilers? 
Would  it  have  been  better  if  he  could  have  discerned  that  the 
defeat  of  Clay  in  1844  was  really  the  doom  of  the  Whig  Party 
and  of  all  schemes  of  compromise?  Would  he  have  been  a 
braver,  more  capable  leader,  if  at  that  time  he  had  joined  the 
ranks  of  the  ardent  young  Free-soilers  who  were  demanding  re- 
lease from  the  footless  series  of  makeshifts  which  for  years  had 
prevented  the  Whigs  from  accomplishing  their  mission? 

Abraham  Lincoln  retired  from  politics  before  the  Whig  Party 
met  its  final  and  utter  doom.  Wearily  and  sadly  he  went  back 
to  Springfield,  and  took  up  again  the  practise  of  law. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER 
1 848- 1 860 

Lincoln's  partnership  with  Colonel  Stuart  was  dissolved  when 
Stuart  became  a  member  of  Congress.  The  partnership  with 
Judge  Logan  was  dissolved  because  both  he  and  Lincoln  desired 
to  be  elected  to  Congress,  and  Logan,  who  was  an  older  man  of 
established  reputation,  did  not  look  with  favor  upon  the  aspira- 
tions of  his  junior  partner.  On  the  same  day  on  which  the  firm 
of  Logan  and  Lincoln  dissolved,  the  firm  of  Lincoln  and  Hern- 
don  was  established  in  a  partnership  between  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  William  H.  Herndon.  This  partnership  was  never  dissolved 
but  continued  until  the  death  of  Lincoln. 

During  Lincoln's  partnership  with  Stuart,  that  gentleman  was 
looking  after  his  own  political  interests,  and  left  Lincoln  largely 
in  charge  of  the  office.  During  Lincoln's  short  partnership 
with  Judge  Logan,  Lincoln  was  forced,  against  his  inclination,  to 
pay  attention  to  the  details  of  legal  practise,  for  Judge  Logan 
was  a  successful  lawyer,  and  accurate  in  the  drawing  of  all  legal 
documents. 

In  each  of  these  two  offices  Lincoln  as  the  younger  man  was 
the  one  more  readily  available  to  send  out  upon  unimportant 
cases  in  other  county-seats.  Lincoln  liked  this  work  much  better 
than  he  liked  office  work,  and  continued  it  during  his  partner- 
ship with  Herndon.  A  part  of  the  time  Herndon  accompanied 
him  on  his  travels;  but  Lincoln  established  a  method  of  becom- 
ing associate  counsel  with  some  local  lawyer  in  almost  every 
county-seat  in  the  judicial  district,  and  this  obviated  the  neces- 

300 


LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER  301 

sity  of  taking  his  associate  with  him,  reduced  expense  of  travel, 
and  kept  his  partner  in  the  office. 

These  local  associations  are  often  spoken  of  as  partnerships; 
they  were  not  technically  so.  Lincoln  had  but  three  partners,  as 
heretofore  indicated.  But  he  had  a  number  of  more  or  less  per- 
manent associations,  some  of  them  continuing-  for  a  number  of 
years  and  making  him  a  quasi  member  of  several  different  firms. 
Usually  his  local  associate  was  a  younger  lawyer,  who  found  it  an 
advantage  to.  be  able  to  offer  the  service  of  Lincoln  with  his  own, 
and  so  to  increase  the  number  of  his  clients  and  his  hope  of  win- 
ning his  cases. 

Milton  Hay,  who  was  a  law-student  when  Lincoln  was  in 
practise  in  Springfield,  and  who  at  times  shared  Lincoln's  bed, 
says  of  the  legal  practise  of  those  days : 

In  forming  our  ideas  of  Lincoln's  growth  and  development 
as  a  lawyer,  we  must  remember  that  in  those  early  days  litiga- 
tion was  very  simple  as  compared  with  that  of  modern  times. 
Population  was  sparse  and  society  scarcely  organized,  land  was 
plentiful  and  employment  abundant.  There  was  an  utter  ab- 
sence of  the  abstruse  questions  and  complications  which  now  be- 
set the  law.  There  was  no  need  of  that  close  and  searching 
study  into  principles  and  precedents  which  keeps  the  modern  law- 
student  buried  in  his  office.  On  the  contrary,  the  very  character 
of  this  simple  litigation  drew  the  lawyer  into  the  street  and 
neighborhood,  and  into  close  and  active  intercourse  with  all 
classes  of  his  fellow-men.  The  suits  consisted  of  actions  of  tort 
and  assumpsit.  If  a  man  had  an  uncollectible  debt,  the  current 
phrase  was,  "I'll  take  it  out  of  his  hide."  This  would  bring  on 
an  action  for  assault  and  battery.  The  free  comments  of  the 
neighbors  on  the  fracas  or  the  character  of  the  parties  would  be 
productive  of  slander  suits.  A  man  would  for  his  convenience 
lay  down  an  irascible  neighbor's  fence,  and  indolently  forget  to 
put  it  up  again,  and  an  action  of  trespass  would  grow  out  of 
it.  The  suit  would  lead  to  a  free  fight,  and  sometimes  furnish 
the  bloody  incidents  for  a  murder  trial. 

Occupied  with  this  class  of  business,  the  half-legal,  half-po- 
litical lawyers  were  never  found  plodding  in  their  offices.     In 


302  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  case  they  would  have  waited  long  for  the  recognition  of 
their  talents  or  a  demand  for  their  services.  Out  of  this  char- 
acteristic of  the  times  also  grew  the  street  discussions  I  have 
adverted  to.  There  was  scarcely  a  day  or  hour  when  a  knot  of 
men  might  not  have  been  seen  near  the  door  of  some  promi- 
nent store,  or  about  the  steps  of  the  court-house,  eagerly  discuss- 
ing a  current  political  topic — not  as  a  question  of  news,  for  news 
was  not  then  received  quickly  or  frequently,  as  it  is  now,  but 
rather  for  the  sake  of  debate ;  and  the  men  from  the  country,  the 
pioneers  and  farmers,  always  gathered  eagerly  about  these 
groups  and  listened  with  open-mouthed  interest,  and  frequently 
manifested  their  approval  or  dissent  in  strong  words,  and  car- 
ried away  to  their  neighbors  a  report  of  the  debaters'  wit  and 
skill.  It  was  in  these  street  talks  that  the  rising  and  aspiring 
young  lawyer  found  his  daily  and  hourly  forum.  Often  by  good 
luck  or  prudence  he  had  the  field  entirely  to  himself,  and  so 
escaped  the  dangers  and  discouragements  of  a  decisive  conflict 
with  a  trained  antagonist. 

During  his  term  in  Congress  Lincoln  continued  as  Herndon's 
partner,  but  his  connection  with  the  firm  of  Lincoln  and  Hern- 
don  had  become  merely  nominal.  Springfield  was  still  his  home, 
but  Lincoln  hoped  that  he  was  never  to  return  to  live  in  Spring- 
field. One  of  the  great  disappointments  of  his  life  rose  up  and 
smote  him  when  he  went  back  to  his  dingy  office.  Law  offices 
at  the  time  were  seldom  orderly  places,  and  that  of  Lincoln  was 
regarded  by  other  lawyers  as  the  very  most  disorderly  of  them 
all.  A  new  law  student,  who  once  undertook  to  put  things  in 
order,  found  upon  the  table  a  package  of  congressional  garden 
seeds  which  had  begun  to  sprout  amid  the  accumulated  litter. 

Grant  Goodrich,  a  Chicago  lawyer,  proposed  in  1849  to  take 
Lincoln  into  partnership,  and  suggested  Lincoln's  removal  to  that 
city.  Lincoln  declined  the  offer,  giving  as  a  reason  that  he 
tended  to  consumption,  and  if  he  moved  to  Chicago  would  have 
to  address  himself  more  diligently  to  office  work  than  was  good 
for  him.  He  preferred  a  more  general  practise,  and  one  that 
took  him  out  upon  the  circuit. 

Law   practise    in   Lincoln's   day   was   not   specialized.      Each 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
Photograph  by  Alexander  H.  Hessler 


LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER  303 

lawyer  took  whatever  cases  came  to  him.  Criminal  law.  civil 
practise  and  equity  cases  were  all  included  in  the  routine  of  every 
office.  The  people  of  central  Illinois  were  litigious,  but  most  of 
the  practise  was  petty.  There  were  lawsuits  over  line  fences  and 
the  sale  of  livestock;  there  were  criminal  prosecutions  for  as- 
sault, and  occasional  trials  for  murder  or  arson.  There  were  no 
personal-injury  cases,  but  there  was  much  prosecution  for 
slander.  Lincoln  took  his  share  in  whatever  cases  came.  Now 
and  then  he  refused  a  case  where  he  strongly  believed  that  justice 
was  on  the  other  side.  In  a  few  instances  where  he  felt  that 
right  lay  wholly  with  the  other  party,  he  left  the  conduct  of  the 
case  entirely  to  his  partner.  But  in  the  main,  Lincoln  took 
whatever  practise  walked  into  his  office  or  was  secured  by  his 
local  associate. 

Herndon  thus  describes  the  return  of  Lincoln  to  practise,  with 
some  account  of  the  change  which  at  this  time  came  over  Lin- 
coln : 

While  a  member  of  Congress  and  otherwise  immersed  in 
politics  Lincoln  seemed  to  lose  all  interest  in  the  law.  Of  course, 
what  practise  he  controlled  had  passed  into  other  hands.  I  re- 
tained all  the  business  I  could,  and  worked  steadily  on  until,  when 
he  returned,  our  practise  was  as  extensive  as  that  of  any  other 
firm  at  the  bar.  Lincoln  realized  that  much  of  this  was  due  to 
my  efforts,  and  on  his  return  he  therefore  suggested  that  he  had 
no  right  to  share  in  the  business  and  profits  which  I  had  made. 
I  responded  that  as  he  had  aided  me  and  given  me  prominence 
when  I  was  young  and  needed  it,  I  could  afford  now  to  be 
grateful  if  not  generous.  I  therefore  recommended  a  continua- 
tion of  the  partnership,  and  we  went  on  as  before.  I  could  notice 
a  difference  in  Lincoln's  movement  as  a  lawyer  from  that  time 
forward.  He  had  begun  to  realize  a  certain  lack  of  discipline — 
a  want  of  mental  training  and  method.  Ten  years  had  wrought 
some  change  in  the  law,  and  more  in  the  lawyers,  of  Illinois. 
The  conviction  had  settled  in  the  minds  of  the  people  that  the  py- 
rotechnics of  court  room  and  stump  oratory  did  not  necessarily 
imply  extensive  or  profound  ability  in  the  lawyer  who  resorted 
to  it.     The  courts  were  becoming  graver  and  more  learned,  and 


304  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  lawyer  was  learning  that  as  a  preliminary  and  indispensible 
condition  to  success  he  must  be  a  close  reasoner,  besides  having 
at  command  a  broad  knowledge  of  the  principles  on  which  the 
statutory  law  is  constructed.  There  was  of  course  the  same 
riding  on  circuit  as  before,  but  the  courts  had  improved  in  tone 
and  morals,  and  there  was  less  laxity — at  least  it  appeared  so  to 
Lincoln.  Political  defeat  had  wrought  a  marked  effect  on  him. 
It  went  below  the  skin  and  made  a  changed  man  of  him.  He  was 
not  soured  at  his  seeming  political  decline,  but  still  he  deter- 
mined to  eschew  politics  from  that  time  forward  and  devote  him- 
self entirely  to  the  law.  And  now  he  began  to  make  up  for  time 
lost  in  politics  by  studying  law  in  earnest.  No  man  had  greater 
powers  of  application  than  he.  Once  fixing  his  mind  on  any 
subject,  nothing  could  interfere  or  disturb  him.  Frequently  I 
would  go  out  on  the  circuit  with  him.  We,  usually,  at  the  little 
country  inns,  occupied  the  same  bed.  In  most  cases  the  beds 
were  too  short  for  him,  and  his  feet  would  extend  over  the 
foot-board,  thus  exposing  a  limited  expanse  of  shin  bone.  Plac- 
ing a  candle  on  a  chair  at  the  head  of  the  bed,  he  would  read 
and  study  for  hours.  I  have  known  him  to  study  in  this  position 
till  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Meanwhile,  I  and  others  who 
chanced  to  occupy  the  same  room  would  be  safely  and  soundly 
asleep.  On  the  circuit  in  this  way  he  studied  Euclid  until  he 
could  with  ease  demonstrate  all  the  propositions  in  the  six  books. 
How  he  could  maintain  his  mental  equilibrium  or  concentrate 
his  thoughts  on  an  abstract  mathematical  proposition  while 
Davis,  Logan,  Swett,  Edwards  and  I  so  industriously  and  vol- 
ubly filled  the  air  with  our  interminable  snoring  was  a  problem 
none  of  us  could  ever  solve.  I  was  on  the  circuit  with  Lincoln 
probably  one-fourth  of  the  time.  The  remainder  of  my  time 
was  spent  in  Springfield  looking  after  the  business  there,  but  I 
know  that  life  on  the  circuit  was  a  gay  one.  It  was  rich  with 
incidents,  and  afforded  the  nomadic  lawyers  ample  relaxation 
from  all  irksome  toil  that  fell  to  their  lot.  Lincoln  loved  it.  I 
suppose  it  would  be  a  fair  estimate  to  state  that  he  spent  over 
half  the  year  following  Judges  Treat  and  Davis  around  on  the 
circuit.  On  Saturdays  the  court  and  attorneys,  if  within  rea- 
sonable distance,  would  usually  start  for  their  homes.  Some  went 
for  a  fresh  supply  of  clothing,  but  the  greater  number  went 
simply  to  spend  a  day  of  rest  with  their  families.  The  only  ex- 
ception was  Lincoln,  who  usually  spent  his   Sundays  with  the 


LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER  305 

loungers  at  the  country  tavern,  and  only  went  home  at  the  end 
of  the  circuit  or  term  of  court.* 

In  this  fashion  Lincoln  spent  somewhat  more  than  half  his 
time  from  1849  unt^  i860.  The  taverns  were  crude  enough.  In 
general  they  were  two-story  buildings  with  only  a  few  large 
rooms.  The  lawyers  were  placed  two  in  a  bed,  and  most  of  the 
rooms  had  at  least  two  beds.  The  food  was  abundant,  but  badly 
cooked.  Lincoln  was  as  nearly  immune  to  the  discomforts  of 
tavern  life  as  any  of  his  associates.  He  never  seemed  to  notice 
whether  the  food  was  good  or  poor,  or  whether  the  beds  were 
clean  or  soiled.  None  of  the  beds  were  long  enough  for  him, 
and  he  did  not  expect  that  they  would  be.  He  accepted  the 
situation,  and  made  the  most  of  it  without  much  conscious  dis- 
comfort. 

Lincoln  once  attempted  some  study  of  algebra,  and  his  text- 
book on  that  subject  is  in  the  Library  of  the  Chicago  Historical 
Society.  Inside  the  back  cover  are  memoranda  which  he  made  in 
pencil,  perhaps  for  use  in  an  address  to  young  lawyers,  or  in- 
structions to  a  law-student :     They  are  mere  catch-words  : 

Your  Honor — When  in  court — Face  the  Court 

(Study)  Be  prepared  to  the  full  extent  of  the  case  tried. 

Never  contradict  the  court — 

if  so  be  sure  you  have  the  law  without  doubt 

on  your  side — 
Be  on  time  when  court  is  ready  to  call  your  case. 
Converse  with  client — consent  of  court. 
Have  client  appear  neat  as  possible  in  front  of  court. 

Whatever  the  purpose  for  which  Lincoln  designed  these  notes, 
their  meagerness  is  apparent. 

He  traveled  with  Judge  Davis  from  one  county-seat  to  an- 
other, and  if  the  judge  had  a  bed  to  himself  in  the  tavern  it  was 
not  chiefly  because  his  judicial  dignity  entitled  him  to  it,  but  be- 

*Life  of  Lincoln,  i,  pp.  307-309. 


306  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

cause  his  great  bulk  left  but  little  room  in  the  bed  for  a  com- 
panion. In  some  of  the  taverns  there  was  a  room  with  a  single 
bed  for  Judge  Davis  and  a  double  bed  occupied  by  Lincoln  and 
some  other  lawyer.  Into  the  judge's  room  in  the  evening  were 
gathered  nearly  all  the  members  of  the  bar  and  the  choice  spirits 
of  the  local  county-seat,  and  they  sat  up  late  at  night  swapping 
stories,  Lincoln  being  the  acknowledged  leader  in  the  art  of 
story-telling. 

Some  of  the  lawyers  rode  on  horseback  from  one  county- 
seat  to  another.  Lincoln  more  frequently  drove  his  own  horse 
hitched  to  a  buggy.  He  almost  invariably  had  a  brother  law- 
yer in  the  seat  with  him.  Sometimes,  however,  he  depended 
upon  the  stage-coach,  especially  for  reaching  the  more  remote 
county-seats. 

Only  a  part  of  his  free  time  did  Lincoln  give  to  story-telling. 
He  was  always  inclined  to  meditation,  and  the  habit  grew  upon 
him.  He  usually  rose  earlier  in  the  morning  than  his  associates, 
and  sometimes  sat  before  the  fire  moodily  meditating,  and  at 
other  times  reading  in  desultory  fashion  a  volume  which  he  had 
brought  with  him.  Herndon,  who  was  with  him  perhaps  a 
fourth  of  the  time,  says : 

During  the  six  years  following  his  retirement  from  Congress. 
Lincoln,  realizing  in  a  marked  degree  his  want  of  literary  knowl- 
edge, extended  somewhat  his  research  in  that  direction.  He  was 
naturally  indisposed  to  undertake  anything  that  savored  of  ex- 
ertion, but  his  brief  public  career  had  exposed  the  limited  area 
of  his  literary  attainments.  Along  with  his  Euclid,  therefore,  he 
carried  a  well  worn  copy  of  Shakespeare. 

Lincoln  had  always  had  an  ear  for  poetry,  though  not  for 
music.  He  committed  stanzas  of  poetry,  and  sometimes  entire 
poems,  including  Poe's  Raven  and  other  compositions  generally 
of  a  mournful  nature.  In  New  Salem  he  had  learned  the  poem, 
"Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?"  He  may  have 
learned  this  from  Ann  Rutledge,  though  her  sister  did  not  know 


LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER  307 

it,  and  could  not  remember  that  Ann  knew  it.  It  was  Lincoln's 
favorite,  and  he  often  asked  and  probably  never  learned  who  was 
its  author.* 

Of  the  new  vigor  which  Lincoln  brought  to  the  practise  of  the 
law  in  1849,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  In  his  autobiographical 
sketch  written  for  Jesse  W.  Fell  he  says : 

In  1846  I  was  once  elected  to  the  lower  House  of  Congress. 
Was  not  a  candidate  for  reelection.  From  1849  to  I&54,  both 
inclusive,  practised  law  more  assiduously  than  ever  before. 

In  his  short  autobiography  written  for  Scripps,  in  June,  i860, 
he  says,  speaking  throughout  of  himself  in  the  third  person : 

Upon  his  return  from  Congress  he  went  to  the  practise  of 
law  with  greater  earnestness  than  ever  before. 

The  Eighth  Judicial  District  comprised  thirteen  counties. t 
There  was  one  judge  for  the  entire  circuit.  Honorable  David 
Davis  presided  over  this  court  during  nearly  the  whole  period  of 
Lincoln's  life  as  a  lawyer  after  his  return  from  Congress  and 
until  his  inauguration  as  president.  Lincoln  had  a  growing  prac- 
tise outside  this  district,  but  the  greater  number  of  his  cases  were 
in  these  thirteen  counties. 

Lincoln's  law  cases  were  not  all  jury  trials.  He  appeared  as 
counsel  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois  in  one  hundred  sev- 
enty-five cases — a  record  equaled  by  very  few  lawyers  in  the 
history  of  the  state.  The  greater  number  of  these  cases  occurred 
after  his  return  from  Congress.  In  addition  he  appeared  in 
two  cases  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  to 
which  he  was  admitted  to  practise  March  7,   1849. 

Before  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  he  appeared  alone  as 
counsel   in   fifty-one  cases,   and  thirty-one   were   decided   in  his 


*The  author  was  William  Knox,  an  English  poet.  Lincoln  and  those 
who  learned  the  poem  from  him  called  it  "Immortality" — a  most  inappropri- 
ate title;  the  real  title,  given  it  by  Knox,  was  "Mortality." 

fFor  a  description  of  the  Eighth  Judicial  Circuit,  see  the  Appendix. 
12 


308  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

favor.  Of  the  whole  number  of  cases  in  which  he  was  associate 
counsel,  one  hundred  twenty-four,  the  parties  in  whose  behalf 
he  appeared  were  successful  in  sixty-five.  It  would  appear  that 
Lincoln  did  not  advise  his  clients  to  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court 
unless  there  was  a  strong  possibility  of  success ;  and  that  his  own 
judgment  in  that  matter  averaged  better  than  the  judgment  of 
attorneys  with  whom  from  time  to  time  he  was  associated.  Al- 
together the  record  is  highly  to  his  credit.  Out  of  the  whole 
number  of  cases,  one  hundred  seventy-five,  in  which  he  appeared 
before  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  either  alone  or  as  associate 
counsel,  he  was  successful  in  ninety-six.* 

As  Lincoln's  fame  grew,  it  was  associated  as  attorney  in  a 
number  of  important  cases,  several  of  which  have  become  nota- 
ble. In  1855  occurred  his  suit  as  attorney  for  the  Illinois  Cen- 
tral Railroad.  For  this  he  received  the  large  fee  of  five  thousand 
dollars,  one-half  of  which  went  to  his  partner,  Herndon.  There 
has  been  much  dispute  about  this  case.  Herndon  tells  the  story 
in  a  way  that  makes  the  action  of  the  railroad  a  very  ungener- 
ous one  and  it  is  certain  that  Lincoln  had  to  sue  the  company  to 
secure  this  fee.  The  railroad  company,  however,  gives  a  some- 
what different  version  of  the  affair.  The  fee  was  large,  and  it 
was  felt  that  some  other  authority  than  the  attorney's  demand 
for  it  should  be  given  the  officials  of  the  company  before  they 
paid  it.  A  friendly  suit  was  therefore  entered,  and  when  Lin- 
coln won,  the  company  paid  the  amount  promptly  and  cheer- 
fully. This  account  of  the  affair  might  seem  to  lack  probability 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  the  relations  between  the  company 
and  Lincoln  appear  to  have  remained  friendly,  and  he  acted  as 
attorney  for  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  afterward.  It  is  often 
stated  that  the  lawyer  opposed  to  Lincoln  in  this  case  was  George 
B.  McClellan.  This  is  not  true.  McClellan  was  out  or  the 
country  at  the  time.  It  is  true,  however,  that  Lincoln's  employ- 
ment as  attorney  with  the  Illinois  Central  gave  him  his  first  ac- 
quaintance with  McClellan. 


* Abraham    Lincoln — the    Lawyer-Statesman,    by    John    T.    Richards,    pp. 
64-70;  Lincoln,  the  Litigant,  by  William  H.  Townsend. 


LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER  309 

Another  case  is  notable  for  its  bringing  Lincoln  into  contact 
with  a  man  who  afterward  sustained  important  relations  to  Lin- 
coln. This  was  the  well-known  Reaper  case  which  was  tried  in 
Cincinnati  in  September,  1855.  Lincoln  was  junior  counsel  in 
this  case,  his  associates  being  George  Harding,  of  Philadelphia, 
and  Edwin  M.  Stanton.  Stanton  was  unfavorably  impressed  by 
Lincoln's  appearance,  and  did  not  permit  Lincoln  to  make  one 
of  the  arguments  in  the  case.  Lincoln  was  deeply  hurt  by  Stan- 
ton's incivility. 

Lincoln's  legal  business  brought  him  to  Chicago  occasionally, 
and  there  he  practised  in  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States. 
The  Chicago  fire  in  187 1  destroyed  the  records  of  all  these  cases. 
Only  two  of  them  are  known.  The  first  of  these  was  the  case 
of  Hurd  vs.  the  Rock  Island  Railroad  Bridge.  It  is  popularly 
known  as  the  "Effie  Afton  case."  The  Effie  Afton  was  a  steam- 
boat owned  in  St.  Louis.  She  ran  against  one  of  the  piers  of 
the  Rock  Island  Railroad  Bridge  and  took  fire.  The  bridge 
was  damaged  and  the  boat  was  wholly  destroyed.  The  case  was 
considered  of  great  importance,  because  St.  Louis  depended  for 
its  hope  of  growth  on  the  commerce  of  the  Mississippi  River, 
and  Chicago  depended  on  her  railroads  and  the  lakes.  It  was 
popularly  charged  in  Chicago  that  the  St.  Louis  Board  of  Trade 
had  bribed  the  steamboat  captain  to  steer  his  boat  against  the 
pier  of  the  bridge.  Lincoln  appeared  for  the  Railroad  Company. 
His  argument  is  not  on  record,  but  it  is  remembered  that  he 
based  his  claim  for  the  railroad  upon  the  simple  proposition  that 
''one  man  has  as  good  a  right  to  cross  the  stream  as  another  man 
had  to  navigate  it." 

The  other  case  was  that  of  Johnson  vs.  Jones,  and  was  tried  in 
the  United  States  District  Court  in  Chicago  in  April,  i860.  But 
little  more  than  a  month  later  Lincoln  was  nominated  to  the 
presidency.  This  was  his  last  appearance  in  the  city  of  Chicago 
before  his  nomination.  The  case  involved  the  ownership  of  cer- 
tain lands  north  of  the  mouth  of  the  Chicago  River,  formed  bv 


♦Reported  in  McLean's  U.  S.  Reports,  vi,  p.  539. 


310  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

accretion  from  the  lake.  It  is  popularly  known  as  "the  Sandbar 
Case."  It  had  been  in  litigation  for  some  years  before  Lincoln 
became  connected  with  the  case,  and  it  subsequently  went  to  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  Lincoln's  connection  with 
it,  however,  ceased  with  the  trial  in  Chicago  in  April,  i860.  This 
trial  occupied  several  days.  It  was  on  the  occasion  of  this  visit 
that  the  Volk  life-mask  of  Lincoln  was  made.  Volk  was  a 
cousin  by  marriage  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  and  had  already 
made  a  bust  of  Douglas.  Lincoln's  fame  as  an  opponent  of 
Douglas  caused  the  sculptor  to  propose  that  Lincoln  should  sit 
for  a  life-mask.  The  undertaking  was  a  complete  success,  and 
the  result  is  a  most  perfect  record  of  the  living  features  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

While  Lincoln  was  not  notably  a  criminal  lawyer,  his  practise 
was  diversified,  covering  the  whole  range  of  civil  and  criminal 
law  and  equity  and  he  appeared  as  attorney  in  not  a  few  criminal 
cases.  Most  noted  of  these  is  the  Armstrong  case,  which  was 
tried  in  Beardstown,  Illinois,  May  7,  1858.  This  case  has  at- 
tained a  prominence  greater  than  it  deserves,  on  account  of  Lin- 
coln's personal  relation  to  the  parents  of  the  defendant  and  a 
question  which  has  risen  concerning  Lincoln's  ethics  in  defense 
of  a  criminal.  The  trial  arose  out  of  the  murder  of  a  man  named 
James  Preston  Metzker,  which  occurred  near  a  camp-meeting  at 
Virgin's  Grove  in  Mason  County,  on  Saturday  night,  August  29, 
1857.  It  was  illegal  to  sell  liquor  within  one  mile  of  a  camp- 
meeting.  A  bar  was  established  about  a  mile  from  the  meeting, 
and  a  number  of  rough  young  men  drank  heavily.  Among 
those  drinking  were  Preston  Metzker,  James  H.  Norris  and  Will- 
iam Armstrong,  popularly  known  as  Duff.  Duff  Armstrong 
was  the  son  of  Jack  Armstrong  of  the  Clary  Grove  gang.  A 
fight  occurred  between  ten  and  eleven  o'clock  on  the  Saturday 
night  in  question,  and  Metzker  was  badly  beaten  by  Norris  and 
Armstrong.  He  rode  away  to  his  home,  falling  from  his  horse 
once  or  more,  and  on  his  arrival  at  home  went  to  bed,  having 
sustained  severe  injury.     Three  days  later  he  died. 


LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER  311 

Both  Norris  and  Armstrong  were  arrested,  charged  with  the 
murder  of  Metzker.  Norris  already  had  killed  a  man  named 
Thornburg,  at  Havana,  about  a  year  before,  but  had  been  ac- 
quitted on  the  ground  of  self-defense.  He  was  tried  for  the  mur- 
der of  Metzker,  was  found  guilty  of  manslaughter,  and  sen- 
tenced to  the  penitentiary  for  ten  years.  He  served  eight  years, 
and  then  was  pardoned  by  Governor  Richard  Yates. 

The  local  attorneys  for  Armstrong  secured  for  him  a  change 
of  venue,  which  delayed  the  trial  and  caused  it  to  be  held  in 
Beardstown  some  months  later.  Jack  Armstrong,  William  Arm- 
strong's father,  died,  and  was  buried  in  Concord  Cemetery,  where 
Ann  Rutledge  was  first  buried.  His  interment  occurred  on  the 
very  day  of  his  son's  arrest.  His  widow,  "Aunt  Hannah,"  drove 
to  Springfield  and  besought  Lincoln  to  come  to  Beardstown 
and  defend  her  son.  Lincoln  promised  to  do  so,  and  on  the  night 
before  the  trial  he  arrived  in  Beardstown. 

The  trial  of  Norris  had  disclosed  the  evidence  of  the  prosecu- 
tion. The  local  attorneys  had  doubtless  informed  Lincoln  of  its 
general  character.  The  principal  witness  for  the  prosecution 
was  Charles  Allen.  He  had  sworn  in  the  trial  of  Norris  that  by 
the  aid  of  the  brightly  shining  moon  he  had  seen  the  fatal  blow 
inflicted  by  Armstrong  with  a  slung-shot.  Metzker,  as  the  post 
mortem  showed,  had  two  wounds  in  the  head,  one  in  the  back  of 
the  brain  alleged  to  have  been  produced  by  Norris  using  the 
neck-yoke  of  a  wagon,  and  the  other  in  front,  said  to  have  been 
caused  by  a  blow  from  Armstrong  with  the  slung-shot.  Either 
one  of  these  blows,  it  was  alleged,  was  sufficient  to  have  caused 
the  death  of  Metzker.*     In  the  defense  of  Norris  attempt  had 


*A  reasonably  full  outline  of  the  evidence  in  this  case  is  on  file  in 
Springfield  in  the  office  of  the  governor.  It  was  submitted  July  10,  1863, 
by  William  YV.  Allen,  who  had  been  one  of  the  attorneys  for  Xorris.  This 
evidence  with  all  the  documents  accompanying  was  unearthed  for  me  by 
Honorable  Frank  O.  Lowden,  at  that  time  governor  of  Illinois.  I  was  par- 
ticularly desirous  of  learning  whether  in  the  appeal  for  a  pardon  for  Xorris 
it  was  alleged  that  Armstrong  was  really  the  guilty  man.  No  such  affirma- 
tion was  made  in  the  papers  on  file  in  Springfield.  Rather,  it  was  assumed 
that  both  men  were  falsely  accused.  The  fight  was  not  denied,  but  it  was 
denied  that  Allen  could  have  been  a  witness  to  the  killing  or  either  of  the 


312  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

been  made  to  prove  that  Allen  could  not  have  witnessed  the  kill- 
ing, as  he  was  declared  by  certain  witnesses  to  have  been  in  an- 
other part  of  the  grounds  at  that  time ;  but  no  one  in  the  first 
trial  appears  to  have  challenged  the  moonlight.  Lincoln,  how- 
ever, produced  an  almanac  showing  that  on  the  night  in  question 
the  moon  did  not  give  sufficient  light  at  the  time  the  murder 
took  place. 

When  Edward  Eggleston  published  his  story,  The  Graysons, 
he  caused  the  issue  of  the  trial  to  hinge  upon  this  question  of  the 
position  of  the  moon.  He  also  represented  the  case  of  the  crime 
as  having  occurred  while  Lincoln  was  still  a  young  and  obscure 
lawyer.  Eggleston  wrote  this  story  while  he  was  in  Europe,  and 
he  took  pains  to  state  that  he  did  not  attempt  to  follow  accurately 
the  historic  detail.  The  prominence  which  he  gave  to  the  al- 
manac centered  upon  that  pamphlet  an  attention  far  greater  than 
it  had  received  in  the  trial. 

It  has  often  been  declared  that  Lincoln  produced  an  almanac 
showing  that  there  was  no  moon  on  the  night  of  the  murder.  If 
such  an  almanac  was  produced,  it  was  not  a  genuine  almanac 
for  the  year  and  date  in  question.  Professor  Edwin  B.  Frost, 
of  the  Yerkes  Observatory  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  Pro- 
fessor Joel  Stebbins,  Director  of  the  Observatory  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Illinois,  and  Professor  W.  S.  Eichelberger,  of  the  United 
States  Naval  Observatory  at  Washington,  have  separately  com- 
puted the  position  of  the  moon  on  the  night  in  question  and 
agree  that  it  set  in  Cass  County,  Illinois,  on  Saturday  night, 
August  29,  1857,  at  five  minutes  after  midnight,  that  is,  at  five 
minutes  after  the  beginning  of  Sunday.* 

An  almanac  is  in  existence  which  claims  to  be  the  one  which 
Lincoln  used.     It  is  an  almanac  ingeniously  made  over  from  one 


two  men  accused  struck  the  fatal  blow.  The  Armstrong  evidence  is  not  re- 
viewed in  the  plea  to  the  governor.  But  the  evidence  against  Norris  shows 
the  essential  character  of  the  charge  against  Armstrong. 

*I  acknowledge  the  courtesy  of  these  distinguished  astronomers  in  mak- 
ing this  computation  for  me.  The  point  assumed  by  them  was  the  center  of 
Cass  County  and  they  all  agreed  precisely  in  their  answer  to  my  question. 


LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER  313 

of  the  vear  1853.*     If  that  almanac  was  the  one  really  used,  a 
fraud  was  perpetrated  upon  the  court. 

I  have  examined  this  almanac  with  great  care,  and  compared 
the  stories  about  its  preparation.  These  stories  for  the  most 
part  agree  that  Lincoln  himself,  aided  by  some  local  penman, 
prepared  the  almanac  on  the  night  before  the  trial.  It  could  not 
have  been  so  prepared,  nor  does  any  story  account  for  it  as  it  is. 
I  do  not  believe,  however,  that  Abraham  Lincoln  used  this  fraud- 
ulent almanac.     The  reasons  are  these : 

1.  No  fraud  was  necessary.  The  truth  was  all  that  Lincoln 
needed.  There  was  a  moon  on  the  night  in  question,  but  it  was 
too  low  down  and  too  dim  to  have  permitted  Allen  to  see  what 
he  declared  that  he  saw. 

2.  Lincoln  could  not  have  afforded  such  a  fraud.  He  was 
at  that  time  not  an  obscure  lawyer  in  whom  the  ruse  if  dis- 
covered would  have  been  pardoned  as  a  clever  trick,  but  was, 
next  to  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  the  most  prominent  man  in  Illinois 
politics.  He  had  come  within  measurable  distance  of  being 
chosen  as  his  party's  candidate  for  vice-president  in   1856,  was 


*This  almanac  was  in  the  Gunther  collection.  Mr.  Gunther  was  an 
enthusiastic  but  not  always  a  discriminating  collector.  His  collection  was 
sold  to  the  Chicago  Historical  Society,  which  does  not,  however,  profess  any 
confidence  in  its  genuineness.  Gunther  paid  fifty  dollars  for  it,  and  re- 
ceived with  it  a  certificate  from  the  man  who  sold  the  books  of  J.  Henry 
Shaw,  that  this  almanac  was  among  those  books.  I  have  a  signed  statement 
from  Mr.  T.  L.  Mathews,  formerly  of  Beardstown,  but  now  of  Fremont, 
Nebraska,  a  banker  and  a  man  of  standing  in  that  town,  concerning  the  man 
who  furnished  this  almanac  : 

"I  knew  him  very  well.  He  was  not  considered  a  very  amicable  man. 
He  was  a  bitter  Democrat,  and  was  said  to  have  been  a  member  cf  the 
'Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle.'  He  was  arrested  for  disloyalty  during  the 
war,  and  taken  to  Jacksonville,  and  held  there  in  custody  for  some  time. 
Many  years  later,  he  produced  this  almanac,  professing  to  have  discovered  it 
among  the  effects  of  J.  Henry  Shaw.  I  consider  his  claim  without  founda- 
tion. After  Shaw  died,  his  books  and  papers  were  placed  in  my  charge,  and 
I  had  an  inventory  made  of  them,  and  employed  this  man,  who  was  an 
auctioneer,  to  sell  them  at  public  vendue.  If  he  found  such  an  almanac,  he 
did  not  inform  me,  and  retained  it  without  my  knowledge  and  without  right 
to  do  so.  When  I  read  in  the  papers,  some  years  after  the  sale,  the  story  of 
the  alleged  discovery,  I  went  to  see  him,  and  asked  him  to  show  me  the 
almanac.  In  a  hesitating  way  he  answered  that  he  had  found  the  almanac, 
and  had  sold  it  to  some  person  in  New  York,  but  could  not  give  me  the 
purchaser's  name." 


3 14  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

certain  to  be  a  candidate  for  senator,  and  was  already  mentioned 
as  a  candidate  for  the  presidency  in  i860. 

Lincoln  was  not  given  to  careful  preparation  of  his  criminal 
cases.  He  took  them  as  they  came,  and  depended  far  more  upon 
his  ability  to  influence  a  jury  with  the  story  of  the  kindness  of 
Duff  Armstrong's  parents  to  him,  when  a  poor  boy,  than  he  did 
upon  astronomical  evidence.  Lincoln  was  well  known  in  Beards- 
town.  He  spoke  there  against  Douglas  in  the  following  year, 
not  on  the  same  day,  for  Beardstown  was  not  one  of  the  seven 
appointed  places  for  joint  debate,  but  on  the  day  following  the 
speech  of  Douglas.  His  returning  to  Beardstown  for  this  trial 
was  something  of  an  event,  for  Lincoln  was  now  at  the  head  of 
the  Illinois  bar,  and  had  been  associated  more  or  less  intimately 
with  Beardstown  ever  since  his  coming  to  Illinois. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  man  of  extreme  caution.  He  was 
not  reasonably,  but  unreasonably  cautious.  If  he  had  been  a 
man  bad  enough  to  perpetrate  the  fraud  described,  he  had  far 
too  much  at  stake ;  and  he  did  not  need  to  do  it.  He  knew  how 
to  make  an  appeal  to  a  Beardstown  jury  that  would  clear  Duff 
Armstrong,  and  he  did  it. 

3.  The  fraud,  if  Lincoln  had  attempted  it,  would  certainly 
have  been  discovered.  The  evidence  had  emphasized  the  fact 
that  the  murder  occurred  on  Saturday  night,  the  twenty-ninth 
of  August,  1857.  In  the  1853  almanac,  which  was  alleged  to 
have  been  used,  it  was  plainly  shown  that  the  twenty-ninth  of 
August  occurred  on  Monday.  No  juror  looking  down  the  col- 
umn to  find  the  figures  "29"  could  have  failed  to  note  that  the 
day  shown  in  the  next  column  was  not  Saturday  but  Monday. 
Neither  the  judge  nor  the  opposing  counsel  would  have  permit- 
ted so  palpable  a  fraud  to  have  gone  to  the  jury.  Fourteen  men 
at  the  very  least  inspected  the  almanac,  the  judge,  the  prosecut- 
ing attorney  and  the  jury.  It  is  barely  possible  that  some  one 
man  out  of  the  fourteen  might  have  been  stupid  enough  to  be 
imposed  upon,  but  certainly  not  the  whole  fourteen. 

4.  The  almanac  shown  is  one  issued  by  the  American  Tract 


LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER  315 

Society.  Several  persons  who  were  present  at  the  trial  have 
told  me  that  Lincoln  sent  out  to  the  drug  store  and  obtained  a 
patent  medicine  almanac  which  he  used.*  Lincoln  knew  that  the 
moonlight  would  enter  into  the  case,  and  doubtless  had  con- 
sulted the  almanac  and  knew  what  it  would  show,  and  at  the 
proper  time  he  sent  Jacob  Jones,  a  cousin  of  Armstrong,  across 
the  corner  to  the  drug  store.  Jones  brought  back  the  almanac, 
and  Lincoln  found  the  place,  passed  it  to  the  judge,  who  gave 
it  to  the  opposing  counsel  and  it  was  then  handed  to  the  jury. 

I  am  devoting  more  space  to  this  incident  than  it  deserves, 
because  I  have  been  told  by  so  many  and  such  respectable  peo- 
ple about  this  fraud,  which  Lincoln  is  alleged  to  have  perpetrated, 
that  I  have  gone  to  unusual  lengths  to  ascertain  the  facts.  I  do 
not  wish  to  leave  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  any  doubt  as  to  my 
own  conviction  of  the  matter.  I  think  I  have  followed  this  ques- 
tion to  the  limit  of  possibility  of  learning  further  truth  concern- 
ing it,  and  I  believe  that  the  almanac  used  by  Lincoln  was  one 
obtained  from  the  local  drug  store,  and  that  it  showed  that  there 
was  a  moon,  but  too  low  and  dim  to  have  enabled  Allen  to  see 
what  he  declared  that  he  had  seen. 

I  regret  to  state  that  since  I  made  my  last  examination  of  this 
almanac,  in  1922,  it  has  disappeared  from  the  library  of  the 
Chicago  Historical  Society.  At  the  present  writing  it  is  not 
known  whether,  being  a  smalUitem,  in  an  envelope,  which  came 
in  with  the  Gunther  Collection,  it  has  been  mislaid  in  the  mass 
of  that  material,  or  whether  it  has  been  stolen.  I  do  not  think 
that  those  who  profess  to  have  examined  this  almanac  gave  it 
very  careful  attention,  for  their  published  accounts  are  not  ac- 
curate ;  and  I  am  glad  to  have  examined  it  minutely,  at  different 
times,  and  with  use  of  a  microscope. 


*The  almanac  which  local  tradition  declares  to  have  been  used  was 
Ayer's  American  Almanac.  The  general  manager  of  the  Ayer's  Company  in- 
forms me  that  their  firm  has  always  understood  that  their  almanac  was  so 
employed  and  has  sent  me  photographs  of  the  title  page  and  the  page  for 
August  for  1857  made  from  the  only  copy  of  the  almanac  which  the  firm 
has.  These  photographs  show  plainly  that  the  almanac  as  then  issued  showed 
the  time  of  the  sunrise  and  sunset  and  also  the  phases  of  the  moon  and  f'me 
of  its  setting.     That  almanac,  therefore,  would  have  served  his  purpose. 


316  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  am  able  to  state  definitely  that  this  almanac  could  not  possi- 
bly have  been  produced  in  the  hasty  manner  described  by  those 
who  have  undertaken  to  account  for  it.  The  changes  required 
the  use  both  of  pen  and  type,  and  skill  in  the  use  of  both.  My 
own  judgment  is  that  it  was  made  to  sell. 

The  trial  of  Duff  Armstrong  attracted  little  attention  at  the 
time.  In  Springfield,  all  that  was  said  was  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  out  of  town,  trying  a  case  in  Beardstown.  In  Beardstown 
there  was  interest  in  his  coming,  but  not  much  in  the  trial;  the 
case  had  been  brought  over  from  another  county,  and  no  one 
in  Beardstown  was  particularly  concerned  with  it.  Lincoln  had 
no  occasion  to  give  the  case  more  than  usual  attention.  The 
trial  of  Norris  had  made  him  aware  just  what  evidence  would 
be  introduced,  and  Lincoln  knew  its  weak  points.  One  man 
was  in  jail  already  for  the  murder,  and  popular  demand  for 
justice  was  fairly  well  satisfied. 

That  Lincoln  was  sure  of  securing  an  acquittal  was  shown  on 
the  night  of  his  arrival  in  Beardstown,  for  the  relatives  of  Duff 
came  to  him  and  told  him  that  Allen,  the  principal  witness 
against  Armstrong,  was  not  at  all  anxious  to  testify;  that  they 
had  slipped  him  out  of  town;  that  he  was  staying  in  the  hotel 
at  Virginia,  and  the  prosecution  would  fail  without  him.  Lin- 
coln insisted  that  they  drive  over  to  Virginia  and  produce  Allen 
and  have  him  in  court  in  the  morning.  Lincoln  knew  that  Allen 
would  be  compelled  to  say  what  he  had  said  at  the  trial  of  Norris, 
but  that  he  would  not  add  to  the  story  to  the  needless  harm  of 
Armstrong. 

The  trial  was  not  nearly  so  dramatic  as  has  been  represented. 
The  almanac  was  a  mere  incident.  The  real  feature  of  the  trial, 
and  one  that  brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of  the  jury,  was  Lin- 
coln's story  of  how  he  came,  a  poor  boy,  to  the  home  of  Duff's 
father  and  mother,  and  how  good  they  had  been  to  him. 

The  prosecuting  attorney,  J.  Henry  Shaw,  remembered  what  it 
was  that  impressed  the  jury: 


LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER  317 

He  told  the  jury  of  his  once  being  a  poor,  friendless  boy ; 
that  Armstrong's  parents  took  him  into  their  home,  fed  and 
clothed  him  and  gave  him  a  home.  There  were  tears  in  his  eyes 
as  he  spoke.  The  sight  of  his  tall,  quivering  frame,  and  the  par- 
ticulars of  the  story  he  so  pathetically  told,  moved  the  jury  to 
tears,  and  they  forgot  the  guilt  of  the  defendant  in  their  admira- 
tion of  the  advocate.  It  was  the  most  touching  scene  I  ever  wit- 
nessed.* 

The  prosecuting  attorney  believed  Armstrong  guilty,  but  he 
knew  that  his  evidence  was  of  little  value  against  such  a  story. 
The  almanac  was  chiefly  useful  as  throwing  additional  doubt  on 
the  question  whether  Allen  could  have  seen  as  much  as  he  pro- 
fessed to  see.  Lincoln  would  have  won  easily  without  the  al- 
manac, but  the  almanac  helped.    And  its  use  was  legitimate. 

5.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  too  honest  a  man  to  have  perpe- 
trated a  fraud  of  this  character.  In  all  the  years  of  his  practise 
no  similar  case  is  charged  against  him.  His  whole  career  at 
the  bar  proves  him  to  have  been  morally  incapable  of  such  a  de- 
ception. 

Lincoln's  argument  sought  first  to  break  down  the  testimony 
of  Allen  by  showing  that  he  was  not  near  enough  to  have  seen 
what  he  professed  to  see,  and  that  it  was  not  light  enough  for  him 
to  have  witnessed  what  he  described  so  accurately.  Lincoln's 
instructions  to  the  jury  which  the  judge  accepted  and  which  are 
preserved  in  his  handwriting  show  plainly  that  he  did  not  rely 
upon  the  moon  incident,  but  endeavored  to  shift  the  blame  upon 
Norris,  who  already  had  been  convicted  and  was  serving  his 
sentence.  Lincoln's  strongest  plea,  however,  was  his  narration 
of  the  kindness  of  Jack  and  Hannah  Armstrong  in  the  days  when 
he  was  poor  and  friendless.  Lincoln  by  this  time  was  a  great 
man.  Every  one  knew  that  he  had  come  to  Beardstown  to  plead 
for  this  young  man  because  of  his  own  gratitude  to  Armstrong's 
father  and  mother.  Lincoln  knew  that  that  kind  of  plea  meant 
more  to  the  jury  than  any  display  of  almanac. 


*J.  Henry  Shaw,  Letter  to  Herndon,  August  22,  1866. 


318  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Armstrong  was  acquitted,  as  every  one  in  Beardstown  was 
willing  he  should  be ;  and  that  night  Lincoln  delivered  a  political 
speech,  which  was  listened  to  with  interest  by  judge,  jurors 
and  the  parties  to  the  trial.  For  Beardstown  had  known  Lincoln 
since  his  flat-boating  days,  and  he  had  now  become  famous,  and 
was  the  predestined  rival  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  whom  also 
Beardstown  hoped  soon  to  hear. 

It  should  be  said  in  conclusion  that  William  Armstrong  gave 
up  drink  and  became  a  good  citizen.*  He  and  three  of  his  broth- 
ers served  in  the  Union  Army.  Armstrong  became  rather  prom- 
inent as  a  member  and  an  officer  in  the  Disciples'  Church.  He 
maintained  to  the  end  of  his  life  that  he  did  not  strike  Metzker 
with  anything  harder  than  his  fist.  The  jury  appears  to  have 
had  no  doubt  of  the  soundness  of  Lincoln's  plea.  Lincoln  seldom 
had  an  easier  legal  victory. 


♦William  or  Duff  Armstrong  himself  told  the  story  of  the  trial  to  J. 
McCann  Davis  in  1896.  I  have  a  signed  statement  prepared  for  me  by- 
Armstrong's  brother  John  and  a  detailed  statement  by  Honorable  Thomas 
P.  Reep,  of  Petersburg,  a  prominent  attorney  and  a  nephew  by  marriage  of 
Jack  Armstrong.  I  also  have  interviewed  many  people  present  at  the  trial 
or  resident  in  the  neighborhood  at  the  time  or  in  the  years  immediately  suc- 
ceeding. Duff  Armstrong's  life  subsequent  to  the  trial  was  respectable,  and 
his  good  conduct  did  much  to  temper  the  judgment  even  of  those  who  be- 
lieved that  Lincoln,  as  a  reward  for  Hannah  Armstrong's  kindness  to  him 
when  he  was  a  poor  boy,  had  cleared  a  guilty  man.  I  am  quoting  the  sub- 
stance of  his  own  statement  in  the  Appendix. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

HOME    LIFE    IN    SPRINGFIELD 
1 842- 1 860 

After  their  marriage  Lincoln  and  his  wife  established  them- 
selves in  the  Globe  Tavern,  which  was  situated  about  two  hun- 
dred yards  southwest  of  the  old  state-house.  Arnold,  in  his 
Life  of  Lincoln,  testifies  that  it  was  a  very  comfortable  hotel. 

After  the  birth  of  Robert,  August  1,  1843,  the  Lincolns  were 
esteemed  less  desirable  boarders  than  they  had  previously  been, 
Robert  cried  and  annoyed  some  of  the  other  boarders,  and  Mrs. 
Lincoln  found  the  situation  inconvenient.  In  the  autumn  the 
family  moved  to  a  small  house  at  214  South  Fourth  Street, 
where  the  Argus  Hotel  now  stands.  There  they  lived  in  a 
small  rented  cottage  until  the  purchase  of  their  permanent  home. 

In  1844  Air.  Lincoln  purchased  from  Reverend  Charles  Dress- 
er* a  house  at  that  time  a  story  and  a  half  in  height,  and  which 
Airs.  Lincoln,  during  one  of  Lincoln's  absences  on  the  circuit, 
raised  to  be  two  stories  high.  This  was  their  home  until  he  left 
Springfield  to  be  inaugurated  president  of  the  United  States. 

The  yard  was  bare.  Lincoln  was  no  gardener.  One  year  only 
he  cultivated  a  garden,  then  gave  it  up.  He  planted  no  shade  or 
fruit  trees,  no  vines  or  shrubbery,  except  a  few  roses,  and  these 
died  of  neglect.  His  wife's  sister,  Mrs.  Wallace,  tried  to  re- 
move the  nakedness  of  the  house  by  planting  a  few  flowers,  but 
these  were  uncared  for  and  perished. 


♦Reverend  Charles  Dresser  was  the  Episcopal  minister  who  married 
Abraham  Lincoln  to  Mary  Todd.  The  contract  for  the  sale  of  the  house, 
dated  January  16,  1844,  is  in  Lincoln's  handwriting.  The  consideration  was 
S1.200.  The  deed  is  dated  May  2,  1844.  The  house,  still  standing,  and  the 
property  of  the  state  of  Illinois,  was  then  in  the  outskirts  of  Springfield. 

3*9 


320  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  had  a  horse  and  cow.  He  curried  and  fed  his  own 
horse,  and  milked  his  own  cow.  He  did  the  family  marketing, 
carrying  a  basket  on  one  arm  and  leading  one  of  his  boys  with 
the  other  hand.  The  boy  chatted,  and  sometimes  Lincoln  heard, 
and  sometimes  he  was  deep  in  his  own  thoughts. 

Lincoln  habitually  dressed  in  black,  wearing  a  frock  coat  and 
tall  hat,  neither  of  them  any  too  well  brushed.  In  winter  he 
wore  a  gray  shawl  around  his  shoulders.  This  was  not  uncom- 
mon in  his  day.*  He  made  the  daily  purchases  at  the  market, 
walked  home  with  his  basket  of  meat  and  groceries,  and  then 
made  his  way  to  his  office. 

While  Springfield's  custom  as  to  the  dress  of  men  as  promi- 
nent as  Lincoln  called  for  the  long  coat  and  the  tall  hat,  and  that 
apparel  was  a  mark  of  dignity  and  almost  of  gentility,  it  did  not 
require  that  the  owner  of  the  coat  should  brush  it  before  putting 
it  on,  much  less  that  he  should  brush  or  blacken  his  boots.  Lin- 
coln was  his  own  bootblack,  and  is  known  to  have  continued  so 
to  be  while  in  the  White  House.  "In  England,  Mr.  Lincoln,  no 
gentleman  blacks  his  own  boots,"  is  said  to  have  been  the  sur- 
prised remark  of  an  Englishman  of  rank  as  he  came  upon  Mr. 
Lincoln  in  the  act  of  applying  blacking  to  his  own  pedal  cover- 
tures. "Whose  boots  does  he  black?"  inquired  Lincoln  as  he 
spat  on  his  brush.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  when  he  got  to  the 
White  House  he  used  the  brush  more  frequently  than  in  Spring- 
field. In  summer,  the  long  black  coat,  which  was  Lincoln's 
habitual  dress,  gave  place  to  one  of  bombazine,  not  any  too  well 
fitted,  and  sometimes  to  a  linen  duster,  that  was  not  always  im- 
maculately clean.  His  straw  hat  is  said  to  have  cost  twenty-five 
cents,  and  to  have  been  just  about  worth  the  price. 

Lincoln  never  formed  the  habit  of  shaving  himself,  but  pat- 


*My  own  father,  physician  and  druggist  in  Illinois,  wore  a  shawl  as  Lin- 
coln did.  He  had  an  overcoat,  a  very  heavy  one,  as  I  remember  it,  but  this 
he  rarely  wore.  In  all  but  the  most  extremely  cold  weather,  if  he  needed  a 
wrap,  he  wore  his  gray  shawl.  There  was  a  certain  art  in  the  wearing  of 
those  shawls,  and  they  did  not  lack  dignity.  In  the  days  of  my  travel  in  the 
Kentucky  mountains,  I  sometimes  carried  a  "saddle-shawl"  of  this  char- 
acter.    When  not  in  use,  it  was  more  conveniently  carried  than  a  coat. 


HOME  LIFE  IN  SPRINGFIELD  321 

ronized  a  barber.  His  son  Robert  declares  that  Abraham  Lin- 
coln never  owned  a  razor. 

Lincoln  during  nearly  the  whole  of  his  residence  in  Spring- 
field wore  no  beard ;  but  not  till  he  reached  the  White  House 
did  he  shave  daily.  There  a  colored  barber  took  him  in  hand, 
and  cared  for  him  every  morning;  in  Springfield  two  or  at  most 
three  shaves  a  week,  with  an  extra  one  for  an  important  social 
event,  were  all  that  custom  required. 

Lincoln  spent  most  of  his  day  at  his  office,  and  his  evening 
with  companions  at  the  store  or  state-house.  But  his  habits 
about  the  house  are  well  defined.  He  was  not  quite  at  home  in 
his  own  house.  His  favorite  position  was  lying  on  the  floor, 
with  a  chair  tilted  so  as  to  give  a  slanting  support  to  his  back. 
There  he  would  lie  and  read.  The  habit  he  had  learned  in  the 
"blab  school"  never  left  him;  and  it  w^as  not  easy  for  him  to 
read  or  write  silently.  He  read  aloud ;  and  when  he  wrote,  he 
spoke  the  words  as  he  slowly  wrote  them,  weighing  each  one  as 
he  uttered  and  recorded  it.  Lying  on  the  floor,  coatless,  and 
with  hair  awry,  he  sometimes  answered  a  knock  at  the  door, 
much  to  the  displeasure  of  Mrs.  Lincoln.  She  had  a  maid,  and 
wanted  her  callers  to  know  that  the  maid  was  properly  aware  of 
her  duties.  But  Lincoln,  if  he  wTas  lying  on  the  floor  of  the  liv- 
ing-room, would  rise,  welcome  the  callers,  and  excuse  himself 
while  he  went  back  to  "trot  out"  Mrs.  Lincoln. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  had,  indeed,  a  maid,  many  maids.  She  did  not 
find  it  easy  to  keep  help.  She  wrote  to  her  Kentucky  sisters, 
congratulating  them  that  they,  at  least,  could  keep  their  help, 
while  she  had  to  wrestle  with  the  "wild  Irish."  The  wild  Irish 
in  Mrs.  Lincoln's  kitchen  lost  little  of  their  wildness. 

Lincoln  and  his  wife  were  both  of  a  generous  nature,  but  their 
home  wras  one  of  somewhat  restricted  hospitality.  Mrs.  Lincoln 
had  the  problem  of  limited  resources,  and  in  addition  the  long 
and  frequent  absences  of  her  husband,  and  his  lack  of  social 
graces.  Lincoln  was  not  wholly  wrong  when  he  wrote  to  Mary 
Owens  that  if  she  married  him  she  wrould  see  other  people  enjoy- 
ing wealth,  and  be  unable  to  share  it. 


322  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  have  heard  it  said  in  Springfield,  "Lincoln  never  felt  free 
to  invite  a  guest  to  his  home;  his  poverty  and  Mrs.  Lincoln's 
inability  to  keep  help  prevented  any  hospitality."  But  this  is  not 
true.  I  find  in  Senator  Browning's  Diary  many  such  entries  as 
these : 

Springfield,  Monday,    [1852  January] 
At  night  delivered  a  lecture  in  3rd  Presbyterian  church   for 
the  benefit  of  the  poor.     After  the  lecture  went  to   Mr.   Lin- 
coln's to  supper. 

Thursday  July  22  [1852] 
After  tea  Mrs  B  &  self  called  at  Mr.  Ridgleys,  Mr.  Edwards, 
&  spent  the  evening  at  Lincolns 

Thursday  Feby  5   [1857] 

At  night  attended  large  &  pleasant  party  at  Lincolns. 

Wednesday  Feby  2,    1859. 

At  large  party  at  Lincoln's  at  night. 

Thursday  June  9,  [1859] 
Went  to  a  party  at  Lincolns  at  night. 

The  Lincolns  did  less  entertaining  than  some  of  their  more 
prosperous  neighbors,  but  they  did  their  share. 

When  there  was  company  at  the  Lincoln  home,  Mrs.  Lincoln 
had  her  trials.  She  was  never  sure  that  her  husband  would  use 
the  butter-knife,  and  not  reach  for  butter  with  his  own  knife. 
He  tried  to  please  her,  but  if  he  got  interested  in  telling  stories, 
he  sometimes  forgot  and  reverted  to  his  early  habits.  There  was 
no  separate  knife  for  the  butter  in  the  home  of  Nancy  Hanks, 
and  probably  none  in  the  Rutledge  tavern,  nor  was  there  always 
one  in  the  "City  Hotel"  at  the  county-seat  wThere  Lincoln  at- 
tended court. 

Still,  Lincoln  acquired  some  measure  of  what  may  truly  be 
called  culture.  One  who  knew  him  well  said  that  whatever  Mr. 
Lincoln  lacked  of  social  grace  was  made  up  by  his  kindness  of 
heart;  he  was  so  inherently  kind  that  he  could  not  help  being  a 
gentleman. 

I  have  witnessed  with  genuine  satisfaction,  and  more  than 
once,  a  play  entitled  Abraham  Lincoln  written  by  a  talented  Eng- 


HOME  LIFE  IN  SPRINGFIELD  323 

lishman,  John  Drinkwater.  It  is  wrong  in  all  its  details  and 
right  in  its  essential  message.  It  opens  with  a  scene  in  Lincoln's 
home  in  Springfield  just  before  the  arrival  of  the  committee 
sent  down  from  the  Chicago  Convention  to  inform  Lincoln 
of  his  nomination.  That  scene  depicts  a  small  group  of 
Lincoln's  neighbors,  sitting  in  Mrs.  Lincoln's  parlor,  smok- 
ing and  talking  about  Lincoln.  They  refer  to  him  as  "Abra- 
ham." They  use  that  name  in  speaking  to  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
when  she  enters  and  finds  them  smoking  before  her  open 
fire.  But  in  Lincoln's  parlor  there  was  no  open  fire.  The  par- 
lor had  been  modernized  with  a  hot-air  stove.  Those  men  would 
never  have  thought  of  smoking  in  that  parlor  or  any  other ;  they 
might  have  chewed  tobacco  and  spat  into  the  open  fire.,  if  there 
had  been  one,  but  they  would  not  have  smoked.  And  they 
would  not  have  called  Mr.  Lincoln  "Abraham"  to  his  wife.  Nor 
would  she  have  called  him  "Abraham"  to  them.  She  would  have 
spoken  of  him  as  "Mr.  Lincoln." 

Springfield  had  its  social  laws  and  requirements.  Mary  Todd 
was  a  born  aristocrat,  and  her  marriage  to  a  man  socially  her  in- 
ferior did  not  demote  her  socially.  Her  husband  was  not  of 
prominent  family  as  she  was,  but  he  was  an  increasingly  popular 
politician,  and  from  the  beginning  he  stood  well  in  the  capital 
city  of  Illinois.  The  social  set  in  which  they  both  moved  prior  to 
their  marriage  was  the  best  in  Springfield,  and  that  is  saying 
much;  and  during  their  married  life  they  maintained  their  posi- 
tion. 

Springfield  was  a  town  with  a  fashionable  life  of  its  own; 
and  Lincoln  and  his  wife  were  not  outside  the  fashionable  group. 
Lincoln's  little  eccentricities  did  not  make  him  unwelcome  in 
even  the  best  homes  in  Springfield;  indeed,  he  had  a  kind  of 
adaptation  which  made  him  feel  at  home  even  when  he  did  not 
know  all  the  details  of  what  might  be  required  of  him  socially. 

The  Lincoln's  had  visiting  cards.  Those  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  were 
neat  and  of  the  proper  size  and  style;  Lincoln's  were  writ- 
ten, and  neatly  written ;  and  that,  also,  was  good  form.     He  did 


324  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

not  make  many  social  calls  with  her,  but  she  left  his  card  with 
her  own,  and  it  was  a  proper  card. 

While  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his  personal  appearance  and  attire  was 
not  all  that  a  vain  and  society-loving  woman  might  have  desired, 
he  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  their  full  share  in  the  best  social  life  of 
Springfield,  and  she  had  far  more  frequent  occasion  to  be 
pleased  with  him  than  to  be  ashamed  of  him.  Indeed,  she  was 
inordinately  proud  of  him ;  nor  did  she  ever  see  any  other  man 
whose  social  graces  made  sufficient  compensation  for  Lincoln's 
more  important  qualifications  to  cause  her  to  regret  having  mar- 
ried him.  And  Lincoln  was  proud  of  his  plump  little  wife,  and 
was  happy  when  his  increasing  prosperity  enabled  her  to  dress 
as  became  her  station.  Not  that  she  ever  had  dressed  shabbily ; 
Mary  Todd  always  made  a  good  appearance  in  society ;  but  there 
came  a  time  when  Lincoln  could  afford  to  provide  her  money 
to  buy  for  herself  some  things  which  he  could  not  have  afforded 
when  they  were  first  married. 

They  had  as  much  social  life  as  she  cared  for,  and  perhaps 
rather  more  than  Lincoln  cared  for,  and  it  was  of  the  best. 

Springfield  was  not  without  intellectual  stimulus  in  those 
days.  It  was  the  period  of  the  Lyceum  lecture;  and  this  gave 
Springfield  and  the  Lincolns  contact  with  the  larger  interests 
of  the  time. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  used  to  lecture  in  Springfield  on  his 
western  trips ;  and  distinguished  men  from  different  parts  of 
the  nation  came  thither  and  talked  on  a  multitude  of  topics,  edu- 
cational, philanthropic  and  entertaining. 

The  time  of  Lincoln's  return  from  Washington  was  a  time 
of  importance  in  his  family  life  and  in  the  life  of  the  country. 
He  came  back  to  Springfield  with  his  debts  paid.  From  that 
time  on,  the  family  had  a  little  more  freedom  in  matters  financial. 

It  was  the  time  of  discovery  of  gold  in  California;  and  thai- 
event  was  giving  to  America  a  new  frontier  on  the  Pacific  coast, 
and  compelling  vast  changes  looking  toward  its  future  develop- 
ment. 


HOME  LIFE  IN  SPRINGFIELD  325 

It  was  a  time  of  significance  in  the  world.  It  was  the  time 
when  Cavour  and  Victor  Immanuel  were  coming  to  the  front, 
as  well  as  Louis  Napoleon  and  Bismarck.  In  England  it  was  a 
time  of  labor  agitation,  of  Chartism,  of  effort  to  lift  the  intoler- 
able burdens  of  child  labor  and  the  dehumanization  of  woman 
under  the  weight  of  grinding  toil.  It  was  the  period  of  Chris- 
tian Socialism,  with  Kingsley  and  Maurice  and  Ruskin  and  Car- 
lyle  writing  and  preaching  their  reforms. 

In  America  it  was  the  dawn  of  the  golden  age  in  literature, 
with  Emerson  and  Lowell  and  Longfellow  and  Bryant  and 
Whittier  and  Poe  and  Hawthorne  and  Irving  and  Prescott  and 
Motley  and  Bancroft  and  Parkman  dipping  their  pens  deep  into 
the  warm  life  of  the  time ;  while  Britain  had  its  Wordsworth  and 
Coleridge,  its  Tennyson,  Macaulay,  Thackeray,  Dickens,  George 
Eliot,  Bulwer  and  the  Brownings. 

It  was  a  time  when  men  were  interested  in  making  the  world 
better.  There  was  real  hope  of  universal  peace.  There  was  new 
vigor  in  the  temperance  movement.  There  was  new  interest  in 
the  welfare,  of  prisoners  and  the  insane.  Boards  of  education 
and  of  health  were  organized.  It  was  an  age  of  steam,  just  com- 
ing to  its  own ;  an  age  of  invention  and  discovery.  Springfield 
was  not  too  remote  from  the  course  of  the  world's  progress  to 
feel  the  effect  of  all  of  these  developments. 

It  was  a  period  of  new  life  for  women.  Beside  the  rugged 
pioneer  had  journeyed  a  "gaunt  and  sad-faced  woman,  sitting  on 
the  front  seat  of  the  wagon,  following  her  lord  where  he  might 
lead,  her  face  hidden  in  the  same  ragged  sunbonnet  which  had 
crossed  the  Appalachians."  That  woman  had  been  succeeded  by 
another,  to  whom  life  was  not  so  strenuous ;  she  had  a  home  with 
several  rooms,  one  of  them,  shut  up  most  of  the  time  except  for 
funerals,  a  parlor  with  a  store  carpet  and  horse-hair  furniture. 
She  had  a  silk  dress,  and  a  bonnet  very  unlike  the  old  sunbonnet ; 
and  in  time  she  discarded  half  of  her  white  petticoats  and  wore 
hoop-skirts. 

About   185 1,  there  came  a  period  of  dress  reform.     Women 


326  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

were  no  longer  to  submit  to  the  restrictions  of  their  prescribed 
dress.  Mrs.  Amelia  Bloomer  taught  them  the  new  freedom. 
The  period  of  sex-emancipation  had  come,  and  women  were  no 
longer  to  be  "street-sweepers."  Not  only  in  Springfield  and  Chi- 
cago, but  in  Bloomington  and  Aurora  and  as  far  south  as  Cairo 
there  was  evidence  of  the  new  day  for  woman. 

What  matter  that  we  know  now  that  the  wave  of  reform  re- 
ceded, and  that  hoop-skirts  and  bustles  and  trails  and  all  the 
other  follies  came  back,  as  they  will  come  back  again?  Those 
days  of  which  we  are  writing  were  great  days  for  women  as  well 
as  for  men;  and  Springfield  felt  its  share  in  the  movements  of 
the  time. 

But  Springfield  was  conservative.  It  had  to  set  a  standard  for 
less  favored  communities.  It  was  not  a  city  set  on  a  hill,  but  it 
could  not  be  hid;  and  to  it  the  tribes  went  up,  to  court,  to  the 
Legislature,  and  to  great  political  conventions,  which  were  then 
becoming  popular ;  though  conservative  men  like  Lincoln  did  not 
like  them. 

Children  came  to  Abraham  and  Mary  Lincoln  with  becoming 
regularity.  They  had  no  daughters,  but  four  sons.  Robert  Todd 
Lincoln  was  born  August  i,  1843,  and  is  living  as  this  book  is 
written;  Edward  Baker  Lincoln  was  born  March  10,  1846,  and 
died  in  Springfield  February  1,  1850;  William  Wallace  Lincoln 
was  born  December  21,  1850,  and  died  in  the  White  House,  Feb- 
ruary 20,  1862;  and  Thomas,  or  "Tad"  Lincoln  was  born  April 
4,  1853,  and  died  in  Chicago,  July  15,  1871.  The  care  of  these 
children  restricted  Mrs.  Lincoln's  social  activities.  She  was 
not  a  model  mother ;  she  was  too  nervous,  too  impetuous ;  her 
eludings  and  her  caresses  depended  too  much  upon  her  own 
moods.  In  time  of  sickness,  she  was  too  anxious  and  too  excit- 
able to  be  a  good  nurse.     But  she  loved  her  children  passionately. 

She  was  a  good  housekeeper,  but  she  did  not  get  on  well  with 
her  help.  Her  own  correspondence  tells  this,  and  gives  her 
long  list  of  reasons  why  her  "hired  girls"  were  unsatisfactory; 


HOME  LIFE  IN  SPRINGFIELD  327 

the  neighbors  gave  some  reasons  why  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  not 
always  satisfactory  to  the  hired  girls.* 

As  for  Lincoln,  he  was  not  easily  disturbed  by  the  hired  girl 
or  by  the  misdemeanors  of  the  children  or  by  the  changing  moods 
of  his  wife.  Little  annoyances  did  not  greatly  irritate  him,  and 
he  bore  the  larger  ones,  for  the  most  part,  philosophically. 

In  their  early  years,  of  married  life,  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Episcopal  Church,  and  when  she  attended,  attended 
there.  Lincoln  rarely  went  with  her.  A  sermon  interested  him, 
but  not  a  liturgy. 

But  an  important  change  in  the  family's  habit  came  in  1850. 
Little  Edward  died,  and  Mr.  Dresser  was  out  of  town.  The 
family  called  in  Reverend  James  Smith,  pastor  of  the  First 
Presbyterian  Church,  who  conducted  the  funeral  service.  He 
became  a  war^n  friend  of  the  Lincoln  family.  Mrs.  Lincoln 
joined  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  Lincoln  took  a  pew,  and 
paid  his  pew-rent  regularly  till  his  departure  for  Washington. 
He  became  a  somewhat  regular  attendant,  and  his  views  of 
Christian  truth  were  definitely  modified  by  his  contact  with 
Doctor  Smith. f  Doctor  Smith  declared  that  Lincoln's  views  of 
doctrine  were  changed  by  the  reading  of  Doctor  Smith's  book, 
The  Christian  s  Defense,  and  by  conferences  with  Doctor  Smith, 
and  Lincoln  did  not  deny  that  this  was  the  case.  Lincoln  never 
united  with  any  church,  but  his  attitude  toward  Christian  doc- 
trine underwent  a  marked  change  under  the  instruction  of  James 
Smith. 


*Mrs.  Harriet  Chapman,  daughter  of  Dennis  Hanks,  who  spent  some 
months  in  the  Lincoln  home,  told  partly  in  words  and  partly  in  discreet  si- 
lence the  story  of  her  trials.     See  Weik,   The  Real  Lincoln,  p.  55. 

fThis  subject  is  fully  treated  in  my  book,  The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

LINCOLN   AND  SLAVERY 
I 848- I 854 

Abraham  Lincoln  kept  rather  well  out  of  politics  from  1849 
to  1854.  In  1852  he  made  a  few  political  speeches  in  favor  of 
General  Scott  who  was  running  for  president  on  the  Whig  ticket. 
Lincoln  was  one  of  the  Whig  nominees  for  presidential  elector, 
but  he  had  no  great  enthusiasm  for  the  cause,  and  no  clear  con- 
viction that  his  work  was  of  any  value.  In  the  sketch  which  he 
furnished  to  Scripps  he  said  of  himself : 

In  1852  he  was  upon  the  Scott  electoral  ticket,  and  did  some- 
thing in  the  way  of  canvassing,  but  owing  to  the  hopelessness  of 
the  cause  in  Illinois,  he  did  less  than .  in  previous  presidential 
campaigns. 

While  Lincoln  was  keeping  out  of  politics,  slavery  was  getting 
deeper  into  politics. 

John  C.  Calhoun  died  in  1850.  Henry  Clay  and  Daniel  Web- 
ster both  died  in  1852.  Thus  simultaneously  passed  from  the 
stage  the  men  of  the  great  triumvirate  who  so  long  had  held  the 
political  leadership  of  the  country.  The  foremost  men  in  the 
Democratic  Party  now  were  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  of  Illinois, 
and  Jefferson  Davis,  of  Mississippi.  Among  the  Whigs,  Alex- 
ander H.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  still  held  the  South,  but  there 
was  lack  of  a  great  national  leader  as  well  as  of  a  clear  convic- 
tion of  issue.  Daniel  Webster  had  died  in  1852,  but  his  political 
death  occurred  when  he  delivered  his  seventh  of  March  speech 
in   1850,  defending  the  Compromise,  a  part  of  which  was  the 

328 


LINCOLN  AND  SLAVERY  329 

Fugitive  Slave  Law.  California,  one  of  the  first  fruits  of  the 
Mexican  War,  had  entered  the  L'nion  as  a  free  state  September  9, 
1850.  The  slavery  issue  was  destined  to  be  the  rock  on  which 
the  nation  was  to  split. 

The  Mexican  War  was  waged  by  a  Democratic  president,  but 
both  its  leading  generals,  Scott  and  Taylor,  were  Whigs.  The 
Whig  Party  had  won  the  election  of  1848  by  nominating  one  of 
the  heroes  of  the  Mexican  War,  Zachary  Taylor,  who  was  popu- 
larly known  as  "Old  Rough  and  Ready."  He  acknowledged  him- 
self to  be  a  Whig,  "but  not  an  ultra-Whig."  President  Taylor 
died  in  office,  July  9,  1850.*  The  Whig  Party  thought  it  had 
learned  how  to  win  an  election,  and  put  up  as  his  successor,  in 
1852.  the  other  famous  Mexican  War  hero,  General  Winfield 
Scott,  whom  the  soldiers  called  "Old  Fuss  and  Feathers."  The 
Free-soil  Party  was  again  in  the  field,  this  time  with  John  P. 
Hale,  of  New  Hampshire,  as  its  candidate.  The  Free-soilers 
polled  an  ominously  smaller  vote  than  they  had  registered  four 
years  previously.  The  Whigs  carried  only  four  states,  two 
northern  and  two  southern,  Massachusetts,  Vermont,  Tennessee 
and  Kentucky.  The  Democrats  carried  the  country  overwhelm- 
ingly in  the  election  of  Franklin  Pierce.  It  seemed  as  though 
the  slavery  issue  had  been  side-tracked,  if  not  permanently  re- 
moved from  American  politics. 

In  that  year,  1850,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  published  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin.  Within  twelve  months  from  the  day  of  its  publi- 
cation, three  hundred  thousand  copies  had  been  sold. 

What  did  Abraham  Lincoln  think  about  the  various  efforts 
to  create  a  new  party  based  on  the  slavery  issue  ?  The  answer  is 
that  Lincoln  did  not  sympathize  with  any  of  these  attempts.  He 
was  a  very  conservative  Whig".     In  1844,  he  opposed  the  Liberty 


*Both  Whig  presidents,  Harrison  and  Taylor,  died  soon  after  their  in- 
auguration. It  was  freely  charged  that  both  were  murdered  in  order  to 
throw  the' government  into  the  hands  of  the  vice-presidents  alleged  to  have 
been  in  secret  sympathy  with  the  opposition.  See,  for  instance,  History  of 
the  Plots  and  Crimes  of  the  Great  Conspiracy  to  Overthrow  Liberty  m 
America,  by  John  Smith  Dye — New  York,   1866. 


330  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Party,  which  was  organized  in  that  year  with  James  G.  Birney 
as  its  candidate.  He  charged  that  party  with  responsibility  for 
the  defeat  of  Henry  Clay.  In  1848,  he  opposed  the  Free-soilers 
in  New  England  and  elsewhere,  and  again  was  strongly  opposed 
to  them  in  Illinois  in  1852.  His  letter  to  Williamson  and  Madi- 
son Durley,  of  Hennepin,  Illinois,  written  October  3,  1845,  sets 
forth  his  view  upon  the  slavery  question  as  it  belonged  to  poli- 
tics at  this  time: 

When  I  saw  you  at  home  it  was  agreed  that  I  should  write  to 
you  and  your  brother  Madison.  Until  I  then  saw  you  I  was  not 
aware  of  your  being  what  is  generally  called  an  abolitionist,  or, 
as  you  call  yourself,  a  Liberty  man,  though  I  well  knew  there 
were  many  such  in  your  county. 

I  was  glad  to  hear  that  you  intended  to  attempt  to  bring  about, 
at  the  next  election  in  Putnam,  a  union  of  the  Whigs  proper  and 
such  of  the  Liberty  men  as  are  Whigs  in  principle  on  all  questions 
»iav'e  only  that  of  slavery.  So  far  as  I  can  perceive,  by  such 
union  neither  party  need  yield  anything  on  the  point  in  differ- 
ence between  them.  If  the  Whig  abolitionists  of  New  York  had 
voted  with  us  last  fall,  Mr.  Clay  would  now  be  president,  Whig 
principles  in  the  ascendant,  and  Texas  not  annexed ;  whereas,  by 
the  division,  all  that  either  had  at  stake  in  the  contest  was  lost. 
Andr  indeed,  it  was  extremely  probable,  beforehand,  that  such 
would  be  the  result.  As  I  always  understood,  the  Liberty  men 
deprecated  the  annexation  of  Texas  extremely;  and  this  being 
sc,  why  they  should  refuse  to  cast  their  votes  [so]  as  to 
prevent  it,  even  to  me  seemed  wonderful.  What  was  their  pro- 
cess of  reasoning,  I  can  only  judge  from  what  a  single  one  of 
them  told  me.  It  was  this :  "We  are  not  to  do  evil  that  good  may 
come."  This  general  proposition  is  doubtless  correct;  but  did 
it  apply?  If  by  your  votes  you  could  have  prevented  the  exten- 
sion, etc.,  of  slavery,  would  it  not  have  been  good,  and  not  evil. 
so  to  have  used  your  votes,  even  though  it  involved  the  casting 
of  them  for  a  slave-holder?  By  the  fruit  the  tree  is  to  be  known. 
An  evil  tree  can  not  bring  forth  good  fruit.  If  the  fruit  of  elect- 
ing Mr.  Clay  would  have  been  to  prevent  the  extension  of  slav- 
ery, could  the  act  of  electing  have  been  evil  ? 

But  I  will  not  argue  further.  I  perhaps  ought  to  say  that  indi- 
vidually I  was  never  much  interested  in  the  Texas  question.     1 


LINCOLN  AND  SLAVERY  331 

never  could  see  much  good  to  come  of  annexation,  inasmuch  as 
they  were  already  a  free  republican  people  on  our  own  model. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  never  could  very  clearly  see  how  the  annexa- 
tion would  augment  the  evil  of  slavery.  It  always  seemed  to  me 
that  slaves  would  be  taken  there  in  about  equal  numbers,  with  or 
without  annexation,  And  if  more  were  taken  because  of  an- 
nexation still  there  would  be  just  so  many  the  fewer  left  where 
they  were  taken  from.  It  is  possibly  true,  to  some  extent,  that, 
with  annexation,  some  slaves  may  be  sent  to  Texas  and  con- 
tinued in  slavery  that  otherwise  might  have  been  liberated.  To 
whatever  extent  this  may  be  true,  I  think  annexation  an  evil.  I 
hold  it  to  be  a  paramount  duty  of  us  in  the  free  States,  due  to 
the  Union  of  the  States,  and  perhaps  to  liberty  itself  (paradox 
though  it  may  seem),  to  let  the  slavery  of  the  other  States  alone; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  I  hold  it  to  be  equally  clear  that  we 
should  never  knowingly  lend  ourselves,  directly  or  indirectly,  to 
prevent  that  slavery  from  dying  a  natural  death — to  find  new 
places  for  it  to  live  in,  when  it  can  no  longer  exist  in  the  old. 
Of  course  I  am  not  now  considering  what  would  be  our  duty 
in  cases  of  insurrection  among  the  slaves.  To  recur  to  the  Texas 
question,  I  understand  the  Liberty  men  to  have  viewed  annexa- 
tion as  a  much  greater  evil  than  ever  I  did;  and  I  would  like  to 
convince  you,  if  I  could,  that  they  could  have  prevented  it,  with- 
out violation  of  principle,  if  they  had  chosen. 

I  intend  this  letter  for  you  and  Madison  together;  and  if  you 
and  he  or  either  shall  think  fit  to  drop  me  a  line,  I  shall  be 
pleased. 

Yours  with  respect, 

A.  Lincoln. 

When  Lincoln  delivered  his  State  Fair  speech  in  reply  to 
Douglas,  in  October,  1854,  he  had  a  narrow  escape  from  being 
committed  in  advance  to  the  policy  of  abolition.  Among  those 
who  heard  him  was  Owen  Love  joy,  who  felt  that  a  new  cham- 
pion had  risen  for  the  abolition  cause.  As  soon  as  Lincoln  had 
finished  his  speech  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  Lovejoy 
moved  forward,  and  announced  that  there  would  be  a  meeting 
of  all  the  friends  of  freedom,  in  that  place  in  the  evening.  Hern- 
don,  who  was  a  radical  abolitionist,  has  told  the  story  of  Lin- 
coln's action  following  that  announcement : 


332  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Among  those  who  mingled  in  the  crowd  and  listened  to  them 
was  Owen  Lovejoy,  a  radical,  fiery,  brave,  fanatical  man,  it  may 
be,  but  one  full  of  the  virus  of  Abolitionism.  I  had  been  thor- 
oughly inoculated  with  the  latter  myself,  and  so  had  many 
others,  who  helped  to  swell  the  throng.  The  Nebraska  move- 
ment had  kindled  anew  the  old  zeal,  and  inspired  us  with  re- 
newed confidence  to  begin  the  crusade.  As  many  of  us  as  could 
assembled  together  to  organize  for  the  campaign  before  us.  As 
soon,  therefore,  as  Lincoln  finished  his  speech  in  the  hall  of 
the  House  of  Representatives,  Lovejoy,  moving  forward  from 
the  crowd,  announced  a  meeting  in  the  same  place  that  evening 
of  all  the  friends  of  freedom.  That,  of  course,  meant  the  Abol- 
itionists with  whom  I  had  been  in  conference  all  the  day.  Their 
plan  had  been  to  induce  Mr.  Lincoln  to  speak  for  them  at  their 
meeting.  Strong  as  I  was  in  the  faith,  yet  I  doubted  the  pro- 
priety of  Lincoln's  taking  any  stand  yet.  As  I  viewed  it,  he  was 
ambitious  to  climb  to  the  United  States  Senate,  and  on  grounds 
of  policy  it  would  not  do  for  him  to  occupy  at  that  time  such 
advanced  ground  as  we  were  taking.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was 
equally  as  dangerous  to  refuse  a  speech  for  the  Abolitionists.  I 
did  not  know  how  he  felt  on  the  subject,  but  on  learning  that 
Lovejoy  intended  to  approach  him  with  an  invitation,  I  hunted 
up  Lincoln  and  urged  him  to  avoid  meeting  the  enthusiastic 
champion  of  Abolitionism.  "Go  home  at  once,"  I  said.  "Take 
Bob  with  you  and  drive  somewhere  into  the  country  and  stay 
until  this  thing  is  over."  Whether  my  admonition  and  reason- 
ing moved  him  or  not  I  do  not  know,  but  it  only  remains  to 
state  that  under  the  pretense  of  having  business  in  Tazewell 
County  he  drove  out  of  town  in  his  buggy,  and  did  not  return 
until  the  apostles  of  Abolitionism  had  separated  and  gone  to 
their  homes.  I  have  always  believed  that  this  little  arrangement 
— it  would  dignify  it  too  much  to  call  it  a  plan — saved  Lincoln. 
If  he  had  endorsed  the  resolutions  passed  at  that  meeting,  or 
spoken  simply  in  favor  of  freedom  that  night,  he  would  have 
been  identified  with  all  the  rancor  and  extremes  of  Abolitionism. 
If,  on  the  contrary,  he  had  been  invited  to  join  them,  and  then 
had  refused  to  take  a  position  as  advanced  as  theirs,  he  would 
have  lost  their  support.* 

There  was  real  danger  to  Lincoln's  career  of  his  being  identi- 


*Herndon's  Lincoln,  ii,  pp.  40-41. 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  BATTLE  OF  ANTIETAM 


By  the  end  of  1861,  it  had  become  evident,  both  in  the  North 
and  the  South,  that  the  struggle  would  be  severe  and  long.  In 
most  of  the  actual  battles  the  Confederates  had  had  the  advan- 
tage. The  cheerful  confidence  of  the  Northern  Army  that  it  could 
subdue  the  South  in  ninety  days  was  entirely  gone.  But  the 
South  itself  had  had  time  for  very  serious  thought.  Although 
the  Confederates  had  been  recognized  as  a  belligerent,  their  gov- 
ernment had  not  been  acknowledged  by  any  European  nation. 
They  had  failed  to  hold  Maryland,  Kentucky  or  Missouri.  In 
the  West  they  had  lost  ground,  and  in  the  East  they  were  on  the 
defensive. 

The  first  fighting  of  1862  was  in  the  West.  General  Ulysses 
S.  Grant,  who  had  already  done  some  inconspicuous  but  success- 
ful campaigning,  began  that  year  with  an  advance,  and  captured 
Port  Henry  on  the  Tennessee,  and  Fort  Donelson  on  the  Cumber- 
land. In  this  he  was  materially  aided  by  a  fleet  of  gunboats  un- 
der the  command  of  Commodore  A.  H.  Foote.  This  was  the 
first  important  victory  on  the  Union  side.  Very  soon,  General 
George  H.  Thomas  won  a  victory  at  Mill  Springs,  which  with 
the  victories  of  Grant,  compelled  the  evacuation  by  the  Con- 
federate Armies  of  Kentucky  and  a  considerable  part  of  Ten- 
nessee. On  April  6,  1862,  Grant  was  attacked  at  Pittsburg 
Landing,  or  Shiloh,  on  the  Tennessee  River,  by  General  Albert 
Sidney  Johnston.  On  the  first  day  the  Union  Army  was  se- 
verely beaten,  but  on  the  second  day  the  tide  turned,  and  in 
the  hour  of  victory  reenforcements  came  under  Buell,  rendering 

123 


124  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  Confederate  defeat  impossible  to  retrieve.  Although  the 
Union  losses  were  larger  than  the  Confederate,  and  Grant  did 
not  pursue  the  army,  which  he  had  repulsed,  the  Confederates 
were  compelled  to  withdraw,  leaving  the  river  in  the  hands  of 
the  Union  Army.  Soon  after,  Corinth,  an  important  railroad 
center  near  by,  was  abandoned  by  the  Confederates.  Just  as 
Grant  was  driving  back  the  Confederate  forces  at  Shiloh  on 
April  seventh,  Commodore  Foote  captured  Island  No.  10  on  the 
Mississippi.  The  Confederate  front  was  thus  pushed  a  consider- 
able distance  farther  south  along  the  whole  western  border. 

But  while  these  victories  in  the  West  were  cheering  the  heart 
of  the  North,  there  was  nothing  but  discouragement  in  the  East. 
McClellan  had  failed  to  capture  Richmond;  Pope  had  fought 
and  lost  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run  on  August  29  and  30, 
1862.  The  Confederates,  swollen  with  the  pride  of  victory,  pre- 
pared to  move  on  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia.  They  crossed  in- 
to Maryland,  captured  Harper's  Ferry,  and  met  McClellan's 
army  at  Antietam. 

The  majority  of  Lincoln's  Cabinet  were  opposed  to  the  reap- 
pointment of  McClellan.  Stanton  and  Chase,  on  August  twenty- 
ninth,  drew  up  a  formal  protest,  which  was  signed  by  both  of 
them  and  also  by  the  attorney  general  and  the  secretary  of  the  in- 
terior. The  secretary  of  the  navy  agreed  with  them,  but  declined 
to  sign  the  paper  lest  his  doing  so  should  embarrass  Lincoln. 
The  appointment,  however,  stood,  and  McClellan  set  himself  to 
work  in  a  manner  that  appeared  to  justify  Lincoln's  partly  re- 
stored confidence.  Fortunately,  he  found  his  army  in  not  so 
deplorable  a  condition  as  appeared  after  the  defeat  of  Pope.  All 
told,  he  had  a  hundred  thousand  men,  and  he  himself  reported 
eighty-seven  thousand  under  his  command  at  the  time  of  the 
battle  of  Antietam.  Lee  had  forty  thousand.  At  the  outset 
McClellan  felt  sure  that  Lee's  army  was  nearly  twice  as  large  as 
it  actually  was. 

General  Lee's  invasion  of  Maryland  was  his  own  undertaking. 
He  believed  that  his  invasion  of  that  state  would  bring  to  his 


THE  BATTLE  OF  ANTIETAM  125 

army  a  large  number  of  men  resident  in  that  state  and  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  South,  and  also  that  he  would  be  able  to  draw 
McClellan's  army  away  from  Washington  to  a  position  where 
Lee  could  fight  it  on  ground  of  his  own  selection.  McClellan 
had  worked  industriously  in  getting  his  army  into  shape  for 
fighting.  He  now  approached  Lee  with  very  great  deliberation 
and  on  September  seventeenth  fought  a  bloody  battle  at  Antie- 
tam.  McClellan  was  favored  by  a  fortunate  accident  through 
which  he  captured  papers  disclosing  the  entire  plan  of  Lee.  If 
McClellan  had  moved  more  promptly  he  might  have  come  upon 
Lee's  army  divided,  and  almost  have  wiped  it  out  of  existence. 
McClellan  knew  Lee's  plan :  he  could  no  longer  deceive  himself 
with  his  habitual  delusion  that  the  enemy  was  stronger  than  he. 
for  he  had  learned  authoritatively  that  Lee's  army  was  less  than 
half  as  large  as  his  own. 

It  was  a  battle  which  McClellan  could  not  wholly  lose,  but 
which  his  delays  and  indecisions  brought  to  a  close  in  a  meager 
victory,  of  which  he  took  no  advantage. 

The  losses  on  both  sides  were  heavy.  On  the  L'nion  side  12,- 
410  were  lost  in  the  battle  of  Antietam,  and  the  whole  campaign 
involved  a  loss  of  15,203.  This  does  not  include  the  Union  loss 
of  12,737  involved  in  Lee's  capture  of  Harper's  Ferry.  The 
Confederate  loss  as  nearly  as  can  be  ascertained,  was  11,172  at 
Antietam  and  their  whole  loss  in  this  campaign  of  13,964.  Nev- 
ertheless, it  was  a  Union  victory.  Lee  suffered  a  loss  which  he 
could  not  afford,  and  he  saw  before  him  no  possible  success  re- 
sulting from  further  penetration  of  the  North.  He  withdrew  his 
army  across  the  Potomac. 

If  McClellan  had  only  renewed  the  battle  on  the  morning  of 
the  eighteenth,  he  might  materially  have  shortened  the  war ;  but 
he  was  inordinately  gratified  by  his  success  on  the  preceding 
day,  and  quite  unwilling  to  risk  his  laurels  by  any  further  im- 
mediate venture.  His  corps  commanders,  according  to  their 
own  testimony,  earnestly  advised  him  to  renew  the  battle  on  the 
following  morning  and  McClellan  said  he  would  consider  it. 
The  next  morning  he  wrote : 


126  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Those  in  whose  judgment  I  rely  tell  me  that  I  fought  the 
battle  splendidly,  and  that  it  was  a  masterpiece  of  art. 

Two  days  later  he  wrote: 

I  feel  that  I  have  done  all  that  can  be  asked  in  twice  saving 
the  country. 

Lincoln  rejoiced  in  McClellan's  success,  but  was  profoundly 
saddened  when  McClellan  permitted  Lee  to  return  across  the 
Potomac.  He  himself  paid  a  visit  to  McClellan's  army.  Appar- 
ently he  could  discover  no  hope  that  McClellan  had  any  plans 
for  aggressive  action.  Lincoln  now  removed  McClellan  from 
command,  and  that  general  ceased  to  be  a  figure  of  military 
importance  from  that  time  forward.  But  as  he  disappeared 
from  the  military  horizon,  his  star  rose  as  a  political  rival  of 
Lincoln. 

Lincoln  had  not  consulted  his  Cabinet  about  the  appointment 
of  McClellan  to  the  chief  command  after  the  disaster  of  Pope. 
There  was  a  Cabinet  meeting  that  afternoon,  and,  the  members 
assembling  before  Lincoln  came,  Stanton  in  a  voice  that  trem- 
bled with  anger  and  excitement  told  the  others  what  Lincoln 
had  done.  When  Lincoln  arrived,  their  attitude  was  one  of  ac- 
cusation. Lincoln  admitted  that  he  had  done  it  against  their 
judgment,  but  thought  it  justified  on  two  grounds,  McClellan's 
organizing  ability  and  the  confidence  of  the  army  in  him.  They 
certainly  did  not  think  that  McClellan  was  the  only  man  who 
could  save  Washington.  Glad  enough  were  they  when  Mc- 
Clellan after  the  battle  of  Antietam  was  finally  removed.  But  it 
is  not  certain  that  they  were  better  judges  of  the  situation  than 
Lincoln.  McClellan  had  accomplished  the  thing  for  which  Lin- 
coln had  recalled  him.  He  had  organized  the  Army  of  the  Po- 
tomac as  it  had  not  been  organized  before,  and  he  had  won  a 
victory,  though  not  a  brilliant  one. 

The  significance  of  the  battle  of  Antietam,  for  the  purpose  of 
this  biography  of  Lincoln,  is,  first,  in  its  bearing  upon  Lincoln's 


THE  BATTLE  OF  ANTIETAM  127 

relations  with  the  general  from  whom  so  much  had  been  ex- 
pected and  who  had  accomplished  so  little.  It  is  even  more 
notable  in  its  relation  to  Lincoln's  long  deferred  Proclamation 
of  Emancipation. 


CHAPTER  XI 

EMANCIPATION 

Lincoln's  personal  convictions  concerning  the  sin  of  slavery, 
and  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to  eliminate  that  evil  from 
its  moral  and  political  and  economic  life  were  pealed  forth  in 
trumpet  tones  in  his  Peoria  speech  of  October  16,  1854.  Never 
did  he  recede  from  the  position  there  taken.  But  the  practical 
difficulties  that  might  attend  the  elimination  of  slavery  either 
in  peace  or  war  were  never  underestimated  by  him.  Because  of 
what  seemed  to  many  his  wavering  policy  with  respect  to  that 
question,  let  us  remind  ourselves  of  what  he  said  in  that  memor- 
able address,  for  here,  if  anywhere,  Lincoln  spoke  his  deepest 
convictions  concerning  slavery: 

This  declared  indifference,  but,  as  I  must  think,  covert  zeal  for 
the  spread  of  slavery,  I  cannot  but  hate.  I  hate  it  because  of 
the  monstrous  injustice  of  slavery  itself.  I  hate  it  because  it 
deprives  our  republican  example  of  its  just  influence  in  the 
world ;  enables  the  enemies  of  free  institutions  with  plausibility 
to  taunt  us  as  hypocrites;  causes  the  real  friends  of  freedom  to 
doubt  our  sincerity;  and  especially  because  it  forces  so  many 
really  good  men  among  ourselves  into  an  open  war  with  the  very 
fundamental  principles  of  civil  liberty,  criticising  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  and  insisting  that  there  is  no  right  prin- 
ciple of  action  but  self-interest. 

The  doctrine  of  self-government  is  right, — absolutely  and 
eternally  right, — but  it  has  no  just  application  as  here  attempted. 
Or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say  that  whether  it  has  such  just  ap- 
plication, depends  upon  whether  a  negro  is  not,  or  is,  a  man. 
If  he  is  not  a  man,  in  that  case  he  who  is  a  man  may  as  a  mat- 

128 


EMANCIPATION  129 

ter  of  self-government  do  just  what  he  pleases  with  him.  But  if 
the  negro  is  a  man,  is  it  not  to  that  extent  a  total  destruction  of 
self-government  to  say  that  he  too  shall  not  govern  himself? 
When  the  white  man  governs  himself,  that  is  self-government ; 
but  when  he  governs  himself  and  also  governs  another  man,  that 
is  more  than  self-government — that  is  despotism. 

What  I  do  say  is,  that  no  man  is  good  enough  to  govern  an- 
other man  without  that  other's  consent. 

The  master  not  only  governs  the  slave  without  his  consent, 
but  he  governs  him  by  a  set  of  rules  altogether  different  from 
those  which  he  prescribes  for  himself.  Allow  all  the  governed 
an  equal  voice  in  the  government ;  that,  and  that  only,  is  self- 
government. 

Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfishness  of  man's  nature — oppo- 
sition to  it  in  his  love  of  justice.  These  principles  are  an  eternal 
antagonism;  and  when  brought  into  collision  so  fiercely  as  slav- 
ery extension  brings  them,  shocks  and  throes  and  convulsions 
must  ceaselessly  follow.  Repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise — 
repeal  all  compromise — repeal  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
— repeal  all  past  history — still  you  cannot  repeal  human  nature. 

I  particularly  object  to  the  new  position  which  the  avowed 
principle  of  this  Nebraska  law  gives  to  slavery  in  the  body  pol- 
itic. I  object  to  it  because  it  assumes  that  there  can  be  moral 
right  in  the  enslaving  of  one  man  by  another.  I  object  to  it  as 
a  dangerous  dalliance  for  a  free  people, — a  sad  evidence  that 
feeling  prosperity,  we  forget  right, — that  liberty  as  a  principle 
we  have  ceased  to  revere. 

Little  by  little,  but  steadily  as  man's  march  to  the  grave,  we 
have  been  giving  up  the  old  for  the  new  faith.  Near  eighty 
years  ago  we  began  by  declaring  that  all  men  are  created  equal ; 
but  now  from  that  beginning  we  have  run  down  to  the  other 
declaration  that  for  some  men  to  enslave  others  is  a  "sacred 
right  of  self-government."  These  principles  cannot  stand  to- 
gether.    They  are  as  opposite  as  God  and  mammon. 

Our  Republican  robe  is  soiled  and  trailed  in  the  dust.     Let  us 


130  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

repurify  it.  Let  us  turn  and  wash  it  white,  in  the  spirit  if  not 
the  blood  of  the  Revolution.  Let  us  turn  slavery  from  its  claims 
of  "moral  right"  back  upon  its  existing  legal  rights,  and  its 
arguments  of  "necessity."  Let  us  return  it  to  the  position  our 
fathers  gave  it,  and  there  let  it  rest  in  peace.  Let  us  readopt  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  the  practices  and  policy  which 
harmonize  with  it.  Let  North  and  South — let  all  Americans — 
let  all  lovers  of  liberty  everywhere — join  in  the  great  and  good 
work.  If  we  do  this,  we  shall  not  only  have  saved  the  Union, 
but  we  shall  have  so  saved  it,  as  to  make  and  to  keep  it  for- 
ever worthy  of  the  saving.  We  shall  have  so  saved  it  that  the 
succeeding  millions  of  free,  happy  people,  the  world  over,  shall 
rise  up  and  call  us  blessed  to  the  latest  generation. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  administration  Lincoln  was  far  from 
being  ready  to  give  immediate  freedom  to  all  the  slaves.  But 
he  hoped  to  increase  the  area  of  freedom  by  inducing  some  of 
the  border  states  to  free  their  slaves.  He  went  further.  By  the 
end  of  1 86 1,  many  slaves  had  been  freed  by  the  war  itself:  as 
early  as  May  27,  1861,  General  Benjamin  F.  Butler  had  ingen- 
iously and  unanswerably,  from  the  standpoint  of  a  recognition  of 
the  slaves  as  property,  declared  them  to  be  "contraband  of  war." 
Lincoln  knew  that,  by  certain  processes  of  law,  certain  states 
had  acquired  title  to  negroes,  and  he  held  it  to  the  lasting  honor 
of  Kentucky  that  that  state  had  never  put  such  negroes  on  the 
f.uction-block.  Whose  were  the  negroes  whom  the  war  had 
freed  ?  If  not  the  property,  they  were  morally  the  wards  of  the 
nation.  Why  not  accept  them  as  such,  and,  under  the  law  of 
confiscation,  take  such  others  as  might  properly  be  taken,  and 
colonize  them?  And  why  not  colonize,  also,  such  free  negroes 
as  desired  it?  This  is  the  portion  of  his  message  to  Congress, 
December  3,   1861,  which  gave  rise  to  the  Compensation  Bill: 

The  war  continues.  In  considering  the  policy  to  be  adopted 
for  suppressing  the  insurrection,  I  have  been  anxious  and  care- 
ful that  the  inevitable  conflict  for  this  purpose  shall  not  degener- 
ate into  a  violent  and  remorseless  revolutionary  struggle.  I 
have,  therefore,  in  every  case,  thought  it  proper  to  keep  the  in- 


EMANCIPATION  131 

tegrity  of  the  Union  prominent  as  the  primary  object  of  the  con- 
test on  our  part,  leaving  all  questions  which  are  not  of  vital  mili- 
tary importance  to  the  more  deliberate  action  of  the  legislature. 
In  the  exercise  of  my  best  discretion  I  have  adhered  to  the 
blockade  of  the  ports  held  by  the  insurgents,  instead  of  putting 
in  force,  by  proclamation,  the  law  of  Congress  enacted  at  the  late 
session  for  closing  those  ports.  So,  also,  obeying  the  dictates 
of  prudence,  as  well  as  the  obligations  of  law,  instead  of  tran- 
scending, I  have  adhered  to  the  act  of  Congress  to  confiscate 
property  used  for  insurrectionary  purposes.  If  a  new  law  upon 
the  same  subject  shall  be  proposed,  its  propriety  will  be  duly 
considered.  The  Union  must  be  preserved;  and  hence,  all  in- 
dispensable means  must  be  employed.  We  should  not  be  in 
haste  to  determine  that  radical  and  extreme  measures,  which 
may  reach  the  loyal  as  well  as  the  disloyal,  are  indispensable. 

This  was  the  method  which  Lincoln  favored  in  liberating  the 
slaves.  Senator  Browning  spent  the  Sunday  afternoon  with 
him  before  his  sending  to  Congress  his  message  including  the 
Compensation  Provision,  and  wrote: 

He  is  very  hopeful  of  ultimate  success.  He  suggested  to  me 
the  policy  of  paying  Delaware,  Maryland,  Kentucky  and  Mis- 
souri S500  apiece  for  all  the  negroes  they  had  according  to  the 
census  of  i860,  provided  they  would  adopt  a  system  of  gradual 
emancipation  which  should  work  the  extinction  of  slavery  in 
twenty  years,  and  said  it  would  require  only  about  one-third  of 
what  was  necessary  to  support  the  war  for  one  year ;  and  agreed 
with  me  that  there  should  be  connected  with  it  a  scheme  for  col- 
onizing the  blacks  somewhere  in  the  American  continent.  There 
was  no  disagreement  in  our  view  upon  any  subject  we  discussed. 

In  April,  1862,  Congress  passed  a  bill  to  abolish  slavery  in 
the  District  of  Columbia.  Lincoln  signed  it,  but  not  with  full 
approval.  Senator  Browning  wrote  in  his  Diary,  April  14, 
1862,  this  rather  astounding  entry: 

At  night  went  to  the  President's  to  lay  before  him  the  bill  to 
abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  Had  a  talk  with 
him.     He  told  me  he  would  sign  the  bill — but  he  regretted  the 


132  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

bill  had  been  passed  in  its  present  form — that  it  should  have 
been  for  gradual  emancipation — that  now  families  should  at  once 
be  deprived  of  cooks,  stable  boys,  &c,  and  they  of  their  pro- 
tectors, without  any  provision  for  them.  He  further  told  me 
that  he  would  not  sign  the  bill  before  Wednesday.  That  old 
Governor  Wickliff  had  two  family  servants  with  him  who  were 
sickly,  and  who  would  not  be  benefited  by  freedom,  and  wanted 
time  to  remove  them  but  could  not  get  them  out  of  the  city  until 
Wednesday,  and  that  the  Governor  had  come  frankly  to  him 
and  asked  for  time.  He  added  to  me  that  this  was  told  me  in 
the  strictest  confidence. 

For  two  days  Abraham  Lincoln  pocketed  the  bill  to  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  in  order  to  give  Ex-Gov- 
ernor Wickliff  time  to  send  two  old  slaves  back  to  Kentucky 
before  the  bill  became  a  law. 

When  Lincoln  became  president  he  cherished  and  expressed 
deep  concern  for  the  support  of  the  border  states.  Kentucky, 
Missouri  and  Maryland  were  all  slave  states.  Lincoln  feared  to 
alienate  them  by  too  pronounced  a  policy  in  favor  of  emanci- 
pation. It  was  said  of  Lincoln  in  that  day,  "Abraham  Lincoln 
hopes  that  he  has  God  on  his  side,  but  thinks  he  must  have  Ken- 
tucky." 

Lincoln  was  himself  a  border  state  man.  Not  until  he  had 
given  up  hope  of  winning  the  border  states  to  a  policy  of  com- 
pensated emancipation,  did  he  commit  himself  in  his  own  mind 
to  the  plan  of  freeing  the  slaves  by  executive  proclamation.  He 
believed  that  he  had  the  power  to  do  this  as  a  war  measure,  but 
he  did  not  believe  that  he  was  justified  in  doing  it,  if  in  so 
doing  he  would  weaken  the  cause  of  the  Union  by  the  alienation 
of  the  border  states,  and  without  material  gain  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  republic. 

From  the  date  of  his  election  Lincoln  was  deluged  with  advice 
from  both  sides.  Loyal  men  from  the  border  states  told  him 
that  a  policy  of  emancipation  would  drive  those  states  into  the 
confederacv.     On  the  other  hand,  the  friends  of  freedom  were 


*^**^ 


#Ci|^    '**  $  n  i;  \* 


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UNION  GENERALS  PROMINENT  IN  FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  WAR 

From  First  Volume  of  Greeley's  American   Conflict 


EMANCIPATION  133 

confidently  demanding  that  he   should   immediately  liberate   all 
slaves. 

The  sharp  antithesis  between  Lincoln's  advisers  is  well  illus- 
trated in  two  speeches  that  were  delivered  on  succeeding  days, 
one  in  the  Senate  and  the  other  in  the  House  of  Representatives. 
On  April  23,  1862,  Senator  John  J.  Crittenden,  of  Kentucky, 
speaking  on  the  Confiscation  Bill,  said: 

There  is  a  niche  in  the  temple  of  fame,  a  niche  near  to  Wash- 
ington, which  should  be  occupied  by  the  statue  of  him  who  shall 
save  this  country.  Mr.  Lincoln  has  a  mighty  destiny.  It  is  for 
him,  if  he  will,  to  step  into  that  niche.  It  is  for  him  to  be  but  a 
President  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  there  will  his 
statue  be.  But  if  he  choose  to  be,  in  these  times,  a  mere  sectarian 
and  a  party  man,  that  niche  will  be  reserved  for  some  future  and 
better  patriot.  It  is  in  his  power  to  occupy  a  place  next  to  Wash- 
ington, the  Founder  and  Preserver,  side  by  side. 

On  the  next  day  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in  a  speech 
for  the  same  bill,  Owen  Lovejoy  said: 

I,  too,  have  a  niche  for  Abraham  Lincoln;  but  it  is  in  Free- 
dom's holy  fane,  and  not  in  the  blood-besmeared  temple  of 
human  bondage ;  not  surrounded  by  slave-fetters  and  chains,  but 
with  the  symbols  of  freedom;  not  dark  with  bondage,  but  ra- 
diant with  the  light  of  Liberty.  In  that  niche  he  shall  stand 
proudly,  nobly,  gloriously,  with  shattered  fetters  and  broken 
chains,  and  slave-whips  beneath  his  feet.  If  Abraham  Lincoln 
pursues  the  path  evidently  pointed  out  for  him  in  the  Providence 
of  God,  as  I  believe  he  will,  then  he  will  occupy  the  proud  posi- 
tion I  have  indicated.  That  is  a  fame  worth  living  for;  aye, 
more :  that  is  a  fame  worth  dying  for,  though  that  death  led 
through  the  blood  of  Gethsemane  and  the  agony  of  the  accursed 
tree.  .  .  .  Let  Abraham  Lincoln  make  himself  .  .  .  the  emanci- 
pator, the  liberator  .  .  .  and  his  name  shall  not  only  be  enrolled 
in  this  earthly  temple,  but  it  will  be  traced  on  the  living  stones 
of  that  temple  which  rears  itself  amid  the  thrones  and  hierarchies 
of  Heaven. 


£34  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  the  early  part  of  the  war  Lincoln  took  very  conservative 
ground  concerning  attempts  to  force  emancipation.  He  rebuked 
Fremont  and  restrained  Hunter,  and  said  in  his  special  message 
to  Congress  on  March  6,  1862,  "In  my  judgment,  gradual,  and 
not  sudden  emancipation  is  better  for  all."  In  this  message  he 
proposed  to  Congress  that  the  United  States  should  give  pecuni- 
ary aid  to  any  state  that  would  provide  for  a  gradual  emancipa- 
tion of  its  slaves,  with  full  compensation  to  the  owners.  It  was 
this  policy  that  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  condemned: 

Pay  ransom  to  the  owner, 

And  fill  up  the  bag  to  the  brim ; 
But  who  is  owner?     The  slave  is  owner 

And  ever  was;  pay  him! 

On  March  10,  1862,  the  president  held  a  conference  with  rep- 
resentatives of  the  border  states,  and  earnestly  urged  this  plan 
for  their  consideration.     It  brought  no  practical  result. 

On  May  19,  1862,  in  a  communication  called  forth  by  the 
proclamation  of  General  Hunter,  declaring  slaves  in  the  states  of 
Georgia,  Florida  and  South  Carolina  free,  the  president  again 
alluded  to  this  effort  by  which  he  hoped  to  retain  the  loyalty  of 
the  border  states  to  the  Union,  while  providing  for  gradual  eman- 
cipation.    He  said : 

To  the  people  of  those  states  I  now  earnestly  appeal.  I  do  not 
argue — I  beseech  you  to  make  the  argument  for  yourselves — you 
cannot  if  you  would,  be  blind  to  the  signs  of  the  times.  I  beg 
of  you  a  calm  and  enlarged  consideration  of  them,  ranging,  if  it 
may  be,  far  above  personal  and  partisan  politics.  This  proposal 
makes  a  common  cause  for  a  common  object,  casting  no  re- 
proach upon  any.  It  acts  not  the  Pharisee.  The  change  it  con- 
templates would  come  as  gently  as  the  dews  of  heaven,  not 
rending  or  wrecking  anything.  Will  you  not  embrace  it?  So 
much  good  has  not  been  done  by  one  effort  in  all  past  time,  as,  in 
the  Providence  of  God,  it  is  now  your  high  privilege  to  do.  May 
the  vast  future  not  have  to  lament  that  you  have  neglected  it. 

On  July   12,    1862,  Lincoln  invited  all  the  members  of  Con- 


EMANCIPATION  135 

gress  of  the  border  states  to  meet  him  at  the  White  House.     In 
the  address  made  on  that  occasion  he  said : 

I  intend  no  reproach  or  complaint  when  I  assure  you  that  in 
my  opinion,  if  you  all  had  voted  for  the  resolution  in  the  grad- 
ual emancipation  message  of  last  March,  the  war  would  now  be 
substantially  ended.  And  the  plan  therein  proposed  is  yet  one 
of  the  most  potent  and  swift  means  of  ending  it.  Let  the  states 
which  are  in  rebellion  see  definitely  and  certainly  that  in  no 
event  will  the  states  you  represent  ever  join  their  proposed  con- 
federacy, and  they  cannot  much  longer  maintain  the  contest.  .  .  . 

If  the  war  continues  long,  as  it  must,  if  the  object  be  not 
sooner  attained,  the  institution  in  your  states  will  be  extin- 
guished by  mere  friction  and  abrasion,  by  the  mere  incidents  of 
the  war.  It  will  be  gone,  and  you  will  have  nothing  valuable  in 
lieu  of  it.  Much  of  its  value  is  gone  already.  How  much  better 
for  you  and  for  your  people  to  take  the  step  which  at  once 
shortens  the  war  and  secures  substantial  compensation  for  that 
which  is  sure  to  be  wholly  lost  in  any  other  event !  How  much 
better  to  thus  save  the  money  which  else  we  sink  forever  in  the 
war!  How  much  better  to  do  it  while  we  can,  lest  the  war  ere 
long  render  us  pecuniarily  unable  to  do  it !  How  much  better  for 
you  as  seller,  and  the  nation  as  buyer,  to  sell  out  and  buy  out 
that  without  which  the  war  could  never  have  been,  than  to  sink 
both  the  thing  to  be  sold  and  the  price  of  it  in  cutting  one  an- 
other's throats! 

I  do  not  speak  of  emancipation  at  once,  but  of  a  decision  to 
emancipate  gradually.  .  .  . 

Upon  these  considerations  I  have  again  begged  your  attention 
to  the  message  of  March  last.  Before  leaving  the  Capitol,  con- 
sider and  discuss  it  among  yourselves.  You  are  patriots  and 
statesmen,  and  as  such  I  pray  you  consider  this  proposition  and 
at  the  least  commend  it  to  the  consideration  of  your  states  and 
people.  As  you  would  perpetuate  popular  government  for  the 
best  people  in  the  world,  I  beseech  you  that  you  do  in  nowise 
omit  this.  Our  common  country  is  in  great  peril,  demanding  the 
loftiest  views  and  boldest  action  to  bring  a  speedy  relief.  Once 
relieved,  its  form  of  government  is  saved  to  the  world,  its  be- 
loved history  and  cherished  memories  are  vindicated,  and  its 
happy  future  fully  assured  and  rendered  inconceivably  grand. 
To  you,  more  than  to  any  others,  the  privilege  is  given  to  as- 


136  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sure  that  happiness  and  swell  that  grandeur,  and  to  link  your 
own  names  therewith  forever. 

To  the  president's  bitter  disappointment  the  border  state  rep- 
resentatives did  not  accept  his  suggestion.  He  believed  then, 
and  said  later,  that  their  refusal  to  follow  his  advice  in  this  mat- 
ter brought  nearer  the  necessity  for  emancipation. 

Lincoln  had  believed  that  he  understood  the  border  states,  and 
that  they  understood  him.  Perhaps  he  was  never  more  bitterly 
disappointed  than  in  their  refusal  to  accept  his  plan. 

"Oh,  how  I  wish  the  Border  States  would  accept  my  propo- 
sition," he  said  to  Isaac  N.  Arnold  and  Owen  Love  joy  one  day; 
"then  you,  Lovejoy,  and  you,  Arnold,  and  all  of  us  would  not 
have  lived  in  vain.  The  labor  of  your  life,  Lovejoy,  would  be 
crowned  with  success.  You  would  live  to  see  the  end  of  slavery." 

"Could  you  have  seen  the  President,"  wrote  Sumner  once  to  a 
friend,  "as  it  was  my  privilege  often — while  he  was  considering 
the  great  questions  on  which  he  has  already  acted — the  invita- 
tion to  emancipation  in  the  States,  emancipation  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  and  the  acknowledgment  of  the  independence  of 
Haiti  and  Liberia,  even  your  zeal  would  have  been  satisfied. 

"His  whole  soul  was  occupied,  especially  by  the  first  proposi- 
tion, which  was  peculiarly  his  own.  In  familiar  intercourse  with 
him,  I  remember  nothing  more  touching  than  the  earnestness 
and  completeness  with  which  he  embraces  this  idea.  To  his 
mind  it  was  just  and  beneficent,  while  it  promised  the  sure  end 
of  slavery." 

All  these  efforts  failed.  To  Lincoln  it  then  seemed  clear  that 
the  alternative  was  a  proclamation  of  emancipation.  He  him- 
self has  fixed  the  time  of  this  decision  in  his  letter  to  A.  G. 
Hodges,  of  Kentucky,  written  April  4,  1864: 

When  in  March.  May  and  July,  1862,  I  made  earnest  and  suc- 
cessive appeals  to  the  border  States  in  favor  of  compensated 
emancipation,  I  believed  the  indispensable  necessity  for  military 


EMANCIPATION 


+37 


emancipation  and  arming  of  blacks  would  come,  unless  arrested 
by  that  measure.  They  declined  the  proposition,  and  I  was,  in 
my  best  judgment,  driven  to  the  alternative  of  either  surrender- 
ing the  Union,  or  issuing  the  emancipation  proclamation. 

On  July  22,  1862,  just  ten  days  after  his  futile  meeting  with 
the  representatives  of  the  border  states,  Mr.  Lincoln  called  to- 
gether his  Cabinet  and  read  to  them  a  proclamation  of  emanci- 
pation. He  proposed  to  free  all  slaves  that  were  held  in  the 
states  then  in  rebellion,  the  proclamation  to  become  effective  on 
January  1,  1863. 

An  excellent  account  of  this  Cabinet  meeting  was  preserved 
by  Frank  B.  Carpenter,  the  artist  who  painted  the  life-size  pic- 
ture commemorative  of  the  event,  and  who  recorded  the  story 
while  all  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  living.  He  related  that 
Lincoln  read  his  proposed  proclamation  and  that  after  some  sug- 
gestions from  others,  Secretary  Seward  said  in  substance : 

"Mr.  President,  I  approve  of  the  proclamation,  but  I  question 
the  expediency  of  its  issue  at  this  juncture.  The  depression  of 
the  public  mind,  consequent  upon  our  repeated  reverses,  is  so 
great  that  I  fear  the  effect  of  so  important  a  step.  It  may  be 
viewed  as  the  last  measure  of  an  exhausted  government,  a  cry 
for  help;  the  government  stretching  forth  its  hands  to  Ethiopia, 
instead  of  Ethiopia  stretching  forth  her  hands  to  the  govern- 
ment." His  idea  was  that  it  would  be  considered  our  last  shriek, 
on  the  retreat.  "Now,"  continued  Mr.  Seward,  "while  I  approve 
the  measure,  I  suggest,  sir,  that  you  postpone  its  issue,  until  you 
can  give  it  to  the  country,  supported  by  military  success,  instead 
of  issuing  it,  as  would  be  the  case  now,  upon  the  greatest  dis- 
asters of  the  war!"  The  wisdom  of  the  view  of  the  Secretary 
of  State  struck  me  with  very  great  force.  It  was  an  aspect  of 
the  case  that,  in  all  my  thoughts  upon  the  subject,  I  had  entirely 
overlooked.  The  result  was  that  I  put  the  draft  of  the  proclama- 
tion aside,  as  you  do  your  sketch  for  a  picture,  waiting  for  a 
victory.  From  time  to  time  I  added  or  changed  a  line,  touching 
it  up  here  and  there,  anxiously  waiting  the  progress  of  events.* 

*Carpenter,  Six  Months  in  the  White  House,  p.  21. 


138  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Seward's  suggestion  that  the  time  was  inopportune  had  weight 
with  Lincoln.  He  felt  the  force  of  the  proposal  to  delay  it  until 
there  was  a  decisive  Union  victory.  On  this  account  he  waited, 
hoping  more  earnestly  than  ever  for  some  turn  in  the  military 
situation  to  indicate  to  him  and  his  Cabinet  that  a  fit  time  for 
issuing  the  proclamation  had  come. 

Lincoln  never  contemplated  with  satisfaction  the  prospect  of  a 
liberated  negro  race  living  side  by  side  with  the  white  race. 
Emancipation  in  his  mind  was  logically  joined  to  colonization. 
Soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  war,  it  became  evident  that  the 
progress  of  that  struggle  would  free  many  slaves,  perhaps  all  of 
them.  He  earnestly  desired  Congress  to  appropriate  money  for 
the  colonization  of  such  slaves  as  should  be  freed,  and  who  might 
willingly  accept  colonization  with  their  freedom.  He  carefully 
considered  whether  it  might  be  wise  to  make  it  a  condition  of 
emancipation  that  the  liberated  slaves  should  leave  America.  At 
his  earnest  solicitation  Congress  in  1862  appropriated  six  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  and  left  it  to  be  expended  by  the  president 
in  removing,  with  their  own  consent,  free  persons  of  African 
descent  to  some  country  which  they  might  select  as  adapted  to 
their  condition  and  necessities.  He  appointed  a  negro  commis- 
sioner of  emigration,  Reverend  O.  J.  Mitchell,  to  promote  the  ob- 
ject of  this  appropriation.  We  are  familiar  with  the  office  of  com- 
missioner of  immigration,  but  Mr.  Mitchell's  office  was  of 
quite  another  sort.  To  Mr.  Mitchell  we  owe  the  report  of  an 
extended  conference  which  the  president  held  on  Thursday, 
August  14,  1862,  with  a  group  of  free  colored  men  who  were 
believed  to  be  leaders  of  their  race.  The  president  did  most  of 
the  talking.  He  admitted  at  the  outset  the  great  wrongs  which 
the  negro  race  in  America  had  endured  at  the  hands  of  white 
men,  but  said  that  the  presence  of  the  negro  in  America  had  been 
the  occasion  of  much  injury  to  the  other  race.  "But  for  your 
race  among  us,  there  could  be  no  war,"  he  said.  There  was  a 
war,  and  white  men  were  cutting  each  other's  throats  and  no  one 
knew  where  it  would  end.     The  negroes  in  America  suffered 


EMANCIPATION  139 

inevitable  disadvantages,  whether  free  or  slave,  and  the  white 
men  suffered  on  their  account.  He  said  to  them  that  it  would 
be  far  better  for  both  races  if  the  two  were  separated,  and  that 
he  had  available  a  large  sum  of  money  to  assist  in  the  separation. 
He  said  it  was  important  that  the  newly  emancipated  slaves,  with 
minds  clouded  by  slavery,  should  have  the  leadership  of  men  of 
their  own  race  who  had  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  freedom.  He 
recognized  that  those  who  were  already  free  might  prefer  not  to 
leave  America.  "This  is  (I  speak  in  no  unkind  sense)  an  ex- 
tremely selfish  view  of  the  case.  You  ought  to  do  something 
to  help  those  who  are  not  so  fortunate  as  yourselves."  He  said 
that  if  the  white  people  could  know  that  emancipated  slaves  were 
to  leave  America,  one  chief  objection  to  emancipation  would  be 
removed.  Free  negroes,  therefore,  who  refused  to  be  leaders  in 
a  movement  for  colonization,  obstructed  the  freedom  of  their 
own  people.  Those  colored  people  whom  the  war  had  freed,  had 
gained  their  liberty  at  the  cost  of  white  men's  blood:  were  they 
to  do  nothing  themselves  by  way  of  sacrifice  for  their  own  peo- 
ple? If  they  remained  in  this  country  when  they  might  honor- 
ably go  elsewhere,  they  purchased  physical  comfort  at  the  cost  of 
self-respect. 

But  where  were  they  to  go  ?  The  first  answer  was,  to  Liberia. 
The  president  had  been  in  conference  with  "the  old  president" 
of  Liberia,  Roberts.  There  was  much  to  be  said  for  Liberia  as 
the  ultimate  home  of  the  American  negro.  But  he  was  favorable 
to  a  nearer  situation  on  this  side  of  the  ocean.  He  recommended 
the  purchase  of  a  tract  in  Central  America,  within  the  republic 
of  New  Granada.  It  was  well  adapted  in  climate  to  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  American  negro,  and  favorable  to  the  growing  of 
cotton  and  other  crops  to  which  the  negro  was  accustomed. 

The  president  appears  to  have  made  an  impression  on  some  of 
the  colored  leaders.  An  agreement  was  entered  into  between  the 
president  and  A.  W.  Thompson  for  the  settlement  of  a  tract  in 
New  Granada,  and  Senator  S.  E.  Pomeroy,  of  Kansas,  proposed 
to  accompany  and  oversee  the  establishment  of  the  colonists.   But 


i4o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  government  of  New  Granada  objected  to  the  settlement  of  a 
large  colony  of  negroes  in  that  republic  and  this  plan  had  to  be 
abandoned. 

Then  the  president  turned  to  Hayti,  whose  government  was 
found  to  be  willing  to  receive  the  colonists.  In  April,  1863,  a 
group  of  honest  contractors  began  the  export  of  negroes,  receiv- 
ing fifty  dollars  for  each  American  negro  deported,  on  official 
certificate  of  his  having  been  landed  in  Hayti.  After  about 
eighty  thousand  dollars  had  been  expended,  it  was  found  that 
the  region  set  apart  for  this  colony  was  wholly  unsuitable,  and 
the  negroes  were  brought  back  at  the  expense  of  the  original 
agents  who  had  given  a  fraudulent  description  of  the  country.* 

Reluctantly,  and  with  deep  sorrow,  Lincoln  faced  the  problem 
of  emancipation  without  the  correlative  plan  of  the  removal  of 
the  free  negroes  from  America. 

On  August  20,  1862,  Horace  Greeley  addressed  a  long  open 
letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln  through  the  Tribune,  complaining  "That  a 
large  proportion  of  our  regular  army  officers,  with  many  of  the 
volunteers,  evinced  far  more  solicitude  to  uphold  slavery  than  to 
put  down  the  rebellion."  He  accused  Lincoln  of  undue  tender- 
ness toward  southern  slaveholders,  and  demanded  from  him  a 
statement  of  his  own  policy  and  purpose.  Lincoln  answered  in 
a  memorable  letter  which  was  given  to  the  public : 

Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  August  22,  1862. 
Hon.  Horace  Greeley. 

Dear  Sir:  I  have  just  read  yours  of  the  19th  addressed  to 
myself  through  the  "New  York  Tribune."  If  there  be  in  it  any 
statements,  or  assumptions  of  fact,  which  I  may  know  to  be 
erroneous,  I  do  not,  now  and  here,  controvert  them.  If  there  be 
in  it  any  inferences  which  I  may  believe  to  be  falsely  drawn,  I 

*The  report  of  the  commissioner  of  emigration  in  the  Department  of 
the  Interior  for  1863  records  these  attempts  of  the  president  to  provide  for 
the  emigration  of  free  negroes.  The  report  of  the  conference  of  August  14, 
1862,  presumably  written  for  the  New  York  Times,  is  in  Raymond's  Life  of 
Lincoln,  pp.  505-508. 


EMANCIPATION  141 

do  not,  now  and  here,  argue  against  them.  If  there  be  percep- 
tible in  it  an  impatient  and  dictatorial  tone,  I  waive  it  in  defer- 
ence to  an  old  friend,  whose  heart  I  have  always  supposed  to  be 
right.  As  to  the  policy  I  "seem  to  be  pursuing,"  as  you  say,  I 
have  not  meant  to  leave  any  one  in  doubt.  I  would  save  the 
Union.  I  would  save  it  the  shortest  way  under  the  Constitution. 
The  sooner  the  national  authority  can  be  restored,  the  nearer 
the  Union  will  be — "the  Union  as  it  was."  If  there  be  those  who 
would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they  could  at  the  same  time 
destroy  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them.  My  paramount  ob- 
ject in  this  struggle  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  is  not  either  to 
save  or  to  destroy  slavery.  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without 
freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do  it ;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing 
all  the  slaves,  I  would  do  it;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing 
some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that.  What  I  do 
about  slavery,  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  because  I  believe  it 
helps  to  save  the  Union ;  and  what  I  forbear,  I  forbear  because  I 
do  not  believe  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union.  I  shall  do  less 
whenever  I  shall  believe  what  I  am  doing  hurts  the  cause,  and  I 
shall  do  more  whenever  I  shall  believe  doing  more  will  help  the 
cause.  I  shall  try  to  correct  errors  when  shown  to  be  errors, 
and  I  shall  adopt  new  views  so  fast  as  they  shall  appear  to  be 
true  views.  I  have  here  stated  my  purpose  according  to  my  view 
of  official  duty ;  and  I  intend  no  modification  of  my  oft-ex- 
pressed personal  wish  that  all  men  everywhere  could  be  free. 

Yours,  A.  Lincoln. 

If  any  present-day  reader  thinks  that  this  letter  to  Greeley 
satisfied  either  Greeley  or  those  for  whom  Greeley  spoke,  he  is 
mistaken.  On  the  contrary,  it  seemed  to  very  many  that  Lin- 
coln had  utterly  abandoned  his  own  principles  with  respect  to 
slavery.  He  had  entered  his  campaign  against  Douglas  with  the 
determination  to  force  the  slavery  issue  as  a  moral  question  on 
which  no  man  had  a  right  to  be  neutral.  He  had  mercilessly 
hammered  Douglas  for  his  incautious  declaration  that  if  the 
principle  of  popular  sovereignty  were  preserved  he  cared  not 
whether  slavery  was  voted  up  or  voted  down.  To  very  many  it 
seemed  that  in  this  letter  to  Horace  Greeley,  Lincoln  had  gone 
squarely  over  to  the  position  which  he  had  so  vigorously  con- 


142  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

clemned  in  Douglas.  What  did  Lincoln  mean  if  not  this,  that  if 
the  Union  was  preserved,  he  cared  not  whether  slavery  was  voted 
np  or  voted  down  ?  It  is  little  wonder  that  Greeley  was  not  sat- 
isfied with  Lincoln's  answer,  and  that  many  others  were  dis- 
quieted. 

On  September  thirteenth,  a  deputation  of  ministers  from  Chi- 
cago called  on  Lincoln  to  urge  on  him  the  duty  of  immediate 
emancipation.  Lincoln  did  not  inform  them  that  such  a  proc- 
lamation was  already  written  and  awaiting  a  suitable  opportunity 
to  promulgate  it.  He  set  forth  to  them  the  practical  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  an  immediate  movement  of  this  sort : 

What  good  would  a  proclamation  of  emancipation  from  me 
do,  especially  as  we  are  now  situated  ?  I  do  not  want  to  issue  a 
document  that  the  whole  world  will  see  must  necessarily  be  in- 
operative, like  the  Pope's  bull  against  the  comet.  Would  my 
word  free  the  slaves,  when  I  cannot  even  enforce  the  Constitu- 
tion in  the  rebel  States?  Is  there  a  single  court,  or  magistrate, 
or  individual  that  would  be  influenced  by  it  there?  And  what 
reason  is  there  to  think  it  would  have  any  greater  effect  upon 
the  slaves  than  the  late  law  of  Congress,  which  I  approved,  and 
which  offers  protection  and  freedom  to  the  slaves  of  rebel  mas- 
ters who  come  within  our  lines?  Yet  I  cannot  learn  that  the 
law  has  caused  a  single  slave  to  come  over  to  us.  And  suppose 
they  could  be  induced  by  a  single  proclamation  of  freedom  from 
me  to  throw  themselves  upon  us,  what  should  we  do  with  them? 
How  can  we  feed  and  care  for  such  a  multitude?  ...  If  we  were 
to  arm  them,  I  fear  that  in  a  few  weeks  the  arms  would  be  in 
the  hands  of  the  rebels;  and,  indeed,  thus  far  we  have  not  had 
arms  enough  to  equip  our  white  troops.  I  will  mention  another 
thing,  though  it  meets  only  your  scorn  and  contempt.  There 
are  fifty  thousand  bayonets  in  the  Union  armies  from  the  border 
slave  States.  It  would  be  a  serious  matter  if,  in  consequence  of 
a  proclamation  such  as  you  desire,  they  should  go  over  to  the 
rebels. 

Then  came  the  battle  of  Antietam,  which  was  fought  Septem- 
ber 17,  1862.  It  was  far  from  being  as  decisive  a  victory  as  Lin- 
coln had  hoped  for,  but  it  was  a  victory.     Lee  was  driven  out 


EMANCIPATION  143 

of  Maryland.  Lincoln  hesitated  no  longer.  Indeed,  Stanton  is 
authority  for  the  statement  that,  after  the  visit  of  the  Chicago 
ministers,  Lincoln  moved  with  a  stronger  assurance  of  certainty. 
He  summoned  the  Cabinet,  not  to  discuss  the  proclamation  on 
its  merits,  for  this  he  quietly  told  them,  was  a  matter  he  had  al- 
ready settled;  he  had  promised  his  God  that  if  General  Lee  was 
driven  out  of  Maryland  he  would  free  the  slaves. 

The  account  of  Secretary  Chase  was  recorded  in  his  diary  on 
the  night  of  September  22,  1862,  the  day  on  which  the  meeting 
had  been  told.     He  recorded  the  president  as  saying  in  substance : 

I  have,  as  you  are  aware,  thought  a  great  deal  about  the  rela- 
tion of  this  war  to  slavery;  and  you  all  remember  that,  several 
weeks  ago,  I  read  to  you  an  order  I  had  prepared  on  this  sub- 
ject, which,  on  account  of  objections  made  by  some  of  you, 
was  not  issued.  Ever  since  then  my  mind  has  been  much  occu- 
pied with  this  subject,  and  I  have  thought,  all  along,  that  the 
time  for  acting  on  it  might  probably  come.  I  think  the  time 
has  come  now.  I  wish  it  was  a  better  time.  I  wish  that  we  were 
in  a  better  condition.  The  action  of  the  army  against  the  rebels 
has  not  been  quite  what  I  should  have  best  liked.  But  they  have 
been  driven  out  of  Maryland,  and  Pennsylvania  is  no  longer  in 
danger  of  invasion.  When  the  rebel  army  was  at  Frederick,  I 
determined,  as  soon  as  it  should  be  driven  out  of  Maryland,  to 
issue  a  proclamation  of  emancipation,  such  as  I  thought  most 
likely  to  be  useful.  I  said  nothing  to  any  one,  but  I  made  the 
promise  to  myself  and  [hesitating  a  little]  to  my  Maker.  The 
rebel  army  is  now  driven  out,  and  I  am  going  to  fulfill  that 
promise.  I  have  got  you  together  to  hear  what  I  have  written 
down.  I  do  not  wish  your  advice  about  the  main  matter,  for 
that  I  have  determined  for  myself.  This,  I  say  without  intend- 
ing anything  but  respect  for  any  one  of  you.  But  I  already 
know  the  views  of  each  on  this  question.  They  have  been  here- 
tofore expressed,  and  I  have  considered  them  as  thoroughly 
and  carefully  as  I  can.  What  I  have  written  is  that  which  my 
reflections  have  determined  me  to  say.  If  there  is  anything  in 
the  expressions  I  use,  or  in  any  minor  matter,  which  any  of  you 
thinks  had  best  be  changed,  I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  the  sug- 
gestions.    One  other  observation  I  will  make.     I  know  very  well 


144  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  many  others  might,  in  this  matter  as  in  others,  do  better 
than  I  can ;  and  if  I  was  satisfied  that  the  public  confidence  was 
more  fully  possessed  by  any  one  of  them  than  by  me,  and  knew 
of  any  constitutional  way  in  which  he  could  be  put  in  my  place, 
he  should  have  it.  I  would  gladly  yield  it  to  him.  But,  though 
I  believe  that  I  have  not  so  much  of  the  confidence  of  the  people 
as  I  had  some  time  since,  I  do  not  know  that,  all  things  consid- 
ered, any  other  person  has  more ;  and,  however  this  may  be,  there 
is  no  way  in  which  I  can  have  any  other  man  put  where  I  am.  1 
am  here ;  I  must  do  the  best  I  can,  and  bear  the  responsibility  of 
taking  the  course  which  I  feel  I  ought  to  take. 

An  independent  account  was  preserved  in  the  diary  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Honorable  Gideon  Welles : 

September  22. 

A  special  Cabinet  meeting.  The  subject  was  the  proclama- 
tion for  emancipating  the  slaves,  after  a  certain  date,  in  States 
that  shall  then  be  in  rebellion.  For  several  weeks  the  subject 
has  been  suspended,  but  the  President  says  never  lost  sight  of. 
When  it  was  submitted,  and  now  in  taking  up  the  proclamation, 
the  President  stated  that  the  question  was  finally  decided, — the 
act  and  the  consequences  were  his, — but  that  he  felt  it  due  to  us 
to  make  us  acquainted  with  the  fact  and  to  invite  criticisms  on 
the  paper  which  he  had  prepared.  There  were,  he  had  found, 
not  unexpectedly,  some  differences  in  the  Cabinet;  but  he  had, 
after  ascertaining  in  his  own  way  the  views  of  each  and  all,  in- 
dividually and  collectively,  formed  his  own  conclusions  and 
made  his  own  decisions.  In  the  course  of  the  discussion  on  this 
paper,  which  was  long,  earnest,  and,  on  the  general  principle  in- 
volved, harmonious,  he  remarked  that  he  had  made  a  vow — a 
covenant — that  if  God  gave  us  the  victory  in  the  approaching 
battle  he  would  consider  it  an  indication  of  Divine  will,  and  that 
it  was  duty  to  move  forward  in  the  cause  of  emancipation.  It 
might  be  thought  strange,  he  said,  that  he  had  in  this  way  sub- 
mitted the  disposal  of  matters  when  the  way  was  not  clear  to  his 
mind  what  he  should  do.  God  had  decided  this  question  in 
favor  of  the  slaves.  He  was  satisfied  it  was  right — was  con- 
firmed and  strengthened  in  his  action  by  the  vow  and  results. 
His  mind  was  fixed,  his  decision  made,  but  he  wished  his  paper 


EMANCIPATION  145 

announcing  his  course  as  correct  in  terms  as  it  could  be  made 
without  any  change  in  his  determination. 

Mr.  Chase  also  summarized  the  discussion  which  followed  the 
presentation  of  the  document : 

The  President  then  proceeded  to  read  his  Emancipation  Proc- 
lamation, making  remarks  on  the  several  parts  as  he  went  on, 
and  showing  that  he  had  fully  considered  the  whole  subject,  in 
all  the  lights  under  which  it  had  been  presented  to  him.  After  he 
had  closed,  Governor  Seward  said :  "The  general  question  hav- 
ing been  decided,  nothing  can  be  said  farther  about  that.  Would 
it  not,  however,  make  the  proclamation  more  clear  and  decided 
to  leave  out  all  reference  to  the  act  being  sustained  during  the 
incumbency  of  the  present  President ;  and  not  merely  say  that 
the  Government  'recognizes,'  but  that  it  will  maintain,  the  free- 
dom it  proclaims?"  I  followed,  saying:  "What  you  have  said, 
Mr.  President,  fully  satisfies  me  that  you  have  given  to  every 
proposition  which  has  been  made  a  kind  and  candid  considera- 
tion. And  you  have  now  expressed  the  conclusion  to  which  you 
have  arrived  clearly  and  distinctly.  This  it  was  your  right,  and, 
under  your  oath  of  office,  your  duty,  to  do.  The  proclamation, 
does  not,  indeed,  mark  out  exactly  the  course  I  would  myself 
prefer.  But  I  am  ready  to  take  it  just  as  it  is  written,  and  to 
stand  by  it  with  all  my  heart.  I  think,  however,  the  suggestions 
of  Governor  Seward  very  judicious,  and  shall  be  glad  to  have 
them  adopted."  The  President  then  asked  us  severally  our  opin- 
ions as  to  the  modification  proposed,  saying  that  he  did  not  care 
much  about  the  phrases  he  had  used.  Every  one  favored  the 
modification,  and  it  was  adopted.  Governor  Seward  then  pro- 
posed that  in  the  passage  relating  to  colonization  some  language 
should  be  introduced  to  show  that  the  colonization  proposed  was 
to  be  only  with  the  consent  of  the  colonists  and  the  consent  of 
the  States  in  which  colonies  might  be  attempted.  This,  too,  was 
agreed  to,  and  no.  other  modification  was  proposed.  Mr.  Blair 
then  said  that,  the  question  having  been  decided,  he  would  make 
no  objection  to  issuing  the  proclamation;  but  he  would  ask  to 
have  his  paper,  presented  some  days  since,  against  the  policy, 
filed  with  the  proclamation.  The  President  consented  to  this 
readily.  And  then  Mr.  Blair  went  on  to  say  that  he  was  afraid 
of  the  influence  of  the  proclamation  on  the  border  States  and  on 


146  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  army,  and  stated,  at  some  length,  the  grounds  of  his  appre- 
hensions. He  disclaimed  most  expressly,  however,  all  objection 
to  emancipation  per  sc,  saying  he  had  always  been  personally  in 
favor  of  it — always  ready  for  immediate  emancipation  in  the 
midst  of  slave  States,  rather  than  submit  to  the  perpetuation  of 
the  system. 

The  statement  of  Mr.  Welles  which  relates  the  Cabinet  pro- 
ceedings is  as  follows : 

All  listened  with  profound  attention  to  the  reading,  and  it 
was,  I  believe,  assented  to  by  every  member.  Mr.  Bates  re- 
peated the  opinions  he  had  previously  expressed  in  regard  to  the 
deportation  of  the  colored  race.  Mr.  Seward  proposed  two 
slight  verbal  alterations,  which  were  adopted.  A  general  dis- 
cussion then  took  place,  covering  the  whole  ground — the  consti- 
tutional question,  the  war  power,  the  expediency  and  the  effect 
of  the  movement.  After  the  matter  had  been  very  fully  debated, 
Mr.  Stanton  made  a  very  emphatic  speech  sustaining  the  meas- 
ure, and  in  closing  said  the  act  was  so  important,  and  involved 
consequences  so  vast,  that  he  hoped  each  member  would  give  dis- 
tinctly and  unequivocally  his  own  individual  opinion,  whatever 
that  opinion  might  be.  Two  gentlemen,  he  thought,  had  not 
been  sufficiently  explicit,  although  they  had  discussed  the  ques- 
tion freely,  and  it  was  understood  that  they  concurred  in  the 
measure.  He  referred,  he  said,  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury and  (hesitating  a  moment)  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  It 
was  understood,  I  believe,  by  all  present  that  he  had  allusion  to 
another  member,  with  whom  he  was  not  in  full  accord.  Mr. 
Chase  admitted  that  the  subject  had  come  upon  him  unexpectedly 
and  with  some  surprise.  It  was  going  a  step  further  than  he 
had  ever  proposed,  but  he  was  prepared  to  accept  and  support  it. 
He  was  glad  the  President  had  made  this  advance,  which  he 
should  sustain  from  his  heart,  and  he  proceeded  to  make  an 
able  impromptu  argument  in  its  favor.  I  stated  that  the  Presi- 
dent did  not  misunderstand  my  position,  nor  any  other  member ; 
that  I  assented  most  unequivocally  to  the  measure  as  a  war  neces- 
sity, and  had  acted  upon  it.  Mr.  Blair  took  occasion  to  say  that 
he  was  an  emancipationist  from  principle ;  that  he  had  for  years, 
here  and  in  Missouri,  where  he  formerly  resided,  openly  advo- 
cated it;  but  he  had  doubts  of  the  expediency  of  this  executive 


EMANCIPATION  147 

action  at  this  particular  juncture.  We  ought  not,  he  thought,  to 
put  in  jeopardy  the  patriotic  element  in  the  border  States,  al- 
ready severely  tried.  This  proclamation  would,  as  soon  as  it 
reached  them,  be  likely  to  carry  over  those  States  to  the  seces- 
sionists. There  were  also  party  men  in  the  free  states  who  were 
striving  to  revive  old  party  lines  and  distinctions,  into  whose 
hand  we  were  putting  a  club  to  be  used  against  us.  The  meas- 
ure he  approved,  but  the  time  was  inopportune.  He  should  wish, 
therefore,  to  file  his  objections.  This,  the  President  said,  Mr. 
Blair  could  do.  He  had,  however,  considered  the  danger  to  be 
apprehended  from  the  first  objection  mentioned,  which  was  un- 
doubtedly serious,  but  the  difficulty  was  as  great  not  to  act  as  to 
act.  There  were  two  sides  to  that  question.  For  months  he 
had  labored  to  get  those  States  to  move  in  this  matter,  convinced 
in  his  own  mind  that  it  was  their  true  interest  to  do  so,  but  his 
labors  were  vain.  We  must  make  the  forward  movement.  They 
would  acquiesce,  if  not  immediately,  soon ;  for  they  must  be 
satisfied  that  slavery  had  received  its  death-blow  from  slave- 
owners— it  could  not  survive  the  rebellion.  As  regarded  the 
other  objection,  it  had  not  much  weight  with  him;  their  clubs 
would  be  used  against  us  take  what  course  we  might. 

When  Congress  convened  in  December,  1862,  Lincoln  com- 
municated the  proclamation  to  that  body  in  a  message  reaffirm- 
ing in  the  strongest  possible  terms,  his  faith  in  the  indivisibility 
of  the  Union,  and  of  the  righteousness  of  his  proclamation  as  a 
means  of  saving  the  Union.    He  said  : 

I  do  not  forget  the  gravity  which  should  characterize  a  paper 
addressed  to  the  Congress  of  the  nation  by  the  Chief  Magistrate 
of  the  nation.  Xor  do  I  forget  that  some  of  you  are  my  seniors, 
nor  that  many  of  you  have  more  experience  than  I  in  the  con- 
duct of  public  affairs.  Yet  I  trust  that  in  view  of  the  great  re- 
sponsibility resting  upon  me,  you  will  perceive  no  want  of 
respect  to  yourselves  in  any  undue  earnestness  I  may  seem  to  dis- 
play. .  .  .  The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are  inadequate  to  the 
stormy  present.  The  occasion  is  piled  high  with  difficulty,  and 
we  must  rise  with  the  occasion.  As  our  case  is  new,  so  we 
must  think  anew  and  act  anew.  We  must  disenthrall  ourselves, 
and  then  we  shall  save  our  country. 


148  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Fellow  citizens,  we  cannot  escape  history.  We,  of  this  Con- 
gress and  this  administration,  will  be  remembered  in  spite  of  our- 
selves. No  personal  significance,  or  insignificance,  can  spare 
one  or  another  of  us.  The  fiery  trial  through  which  we  pass 
will  light  us  down,  in  honor  or  dishonor,  to  the  latest  genera- 
tion. We  say  we  are  for  the  Union.  The  world  will  not  forget 
that  we  say  this.  We  know  how  to  save  the  Union.  The  world 
knows  we  do  know  how  to  save  it.  We — even  we  here — hold 
the  power  and  bear  the  responsibility.  In  giving  freedom  to  the 
slave  we  assure  freedom  to  the  free — honorable  alike  in  what  we 
give  and  what  we  preserve.  We  shall  nobly  save,  or  meanly 
lose,  the  last,  best  hope  of  earth.  Other  means  may  succeed, 
this  could  not  fail.  The  way  is  plain,  peaceful,  generous,  just — 
a  way  which,  if  followed,  the  world  will  forever  applaud,  and 
God  must  forever  bless. 


The  question  of  the  employment  of  negro  troops  gave  concern 
to  both  armies.  General  Lee  favored  enlisting  negroes  in  the 
Southern  Army,  and  so  did  Jefferson  Davis,  but  the  South  had 
reason  to  pause  before  putting  uniforms  on  the  backs  of  slaves 
and  giving  them  guns  with  which  to  fight  against  soldiers  of  the 
white  race.  Negroes  thus  fighting  in  the  Confederate  Army 
would,  of  course,  receive  their  freedom  as  a  reward,  and  they 
would  thereafter  live  in  the  South,  after  having  been  taught  to 
shoot  white  men.  In  the  North  there  was  much  disinclination  to 
employ  negroes  as  soldiers,  but  a  growing  conviction  that  there 
was  no  good  reason  why  white  men  should  die  to  make  black 
men  free  and  the  black  men  be  sheltered  from  the  perils  of  the 
war.  Soon  after  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  went  into  ef- 
fect, the  enlistment  of  negro  soldiers  began.  On  January  20, 
1863,  twenty  days  after  the  proclamation  became  effective,  Gov- 
ernor John  A.  Andrew,  of  Massachusetts,  was  authorized  to  enlist 
negro  soldiers,  to  be  formed  into  a  separate  corps.  How  well 
he  did  his  work,  and  how  well  he  was  aided  by  George  L.  Stearns 
and  others,  the  monument  to  Colonel  Robert  Gould  Shaw,  which 
stands  on  Boston  Common,  fronting  the  state-house,  attests. 
In  August  of  that  year,  Honorable  Joseph  Holt,  Judge  Advocate 


EMANCIPATION  149 

General,  sent  to  the  president  an  official  opinion  that  the  president 
was  authorized  to  enlist  slaves  as  soldiers,  remunerating  such 
masters  as  were  loyal  for  property  thus  taken  from  them  for  the 
uses  of  the  government  in  time  of  war. 

Lincoln's  desire  to  provide  if  possible  a  gradual  method  of 
emancipation  with  compensation  would  naturally  have  restrained 
him  even  longer  from  issuing  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation 
had  not  existing  conditions  made  any  such  provisions  impossible. 
But  Lincoln  had  to  deal  not  only  with  conservative  but  with 
very  radical  elements  in  his  own  party.  Through  all  the  months 
of  his  administration  he  had  been  careful  in  testing  out  the  sen- 
timents of  the  country,  to  determine  whether  it  would  bear  such 
a  proclamation.  The  time  had  come  when  in  some  respects  it 
was  safer  to  issue  the  proclamation  than  not  to  do  so.  There 
was  a  growing  conviction  that  Webster  was  right  in  his  declara- 
tion that  liberty  and  L'nion  were  one  and  inseparable.  The 
divided  house  had  not  stood.  Could  it  be  reunited  and  rebuilt 
upon  the  foundation  of  liberty?  This  was  the  stone  which  the 
builders  had  rejected :  Lincoln  made  it  the  headstone  of  the 
cornet. 


CHAPTER  XII 


"he  said  he  was  master" 


If  Lincoln  supposed  that  his  Emancipation  Proclamation 
would  be  a  popular  political  move,  he  was  doomed  to  cruel  dis- 
appointment. The  proclamation  succeeded  in  rousing  the  most 
bitter  hostility  of  the  pro-slavery  element  of  the  North,  and  by 
a  singular  inconsistency  it  seemed  to  give  some  of  the  extreme 
anti-slavery  advocates  a  new  ground  for  their  attacks  upon  Lin- 
coln. 

The  North  contained  a  very  strong  element  which  had  little 
or  no  sympathy  with  the  conduct  of  the  war.  The  so-called 
"Copperhead"  movement,  which  later  manifested  itself  in  de- 
liberate plans  for  the  overthrow  of  the  government,  was  in  1862 
a  strongly  entrenched  political  power  opposed  to  the  president. 
The  friends  of  McClellan  turned  against  Lincoln,  alleging  that 
he  had  first  failed  to  cooperate  with  this  brilliant  general,  and 
then  ruthlessly  removed  him  from  command  for  reasons  of  po- 
litical jealousy.  Haters  of  the  negro  professed  to  see  in  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  the  menace  of  negro  equality  and  of 
social  demoralization.  Extremes  met.  There  was  a  considerable 
element  in  the  North  composed  of  those  who  were  bitterly  op- 
posed to  slavery,  and  who  blamed  Lincoln  severely  for  not  free- 
ing the  slaves  earlier.  Indeed,  there  were  not  a  few  who  declared 
that  the  president,  with  what  they  called  his  customary  vacilla- 
tion, would  find  a  pretext  for  recalling  his  proclamation  before 
January  1,  1863.  These  people  found  common  ground  with  those 
who  blamed  him  for  freeing  the  slaves  at  all. 

The  Democratic  Party  declared  that  the  Emancipation  Proc- 

150 


"HE  SAID  HE  WAS  MASTER"  151 

lamation  had  now  made  abolition  the  actual  purpose  of  the  war. 
Xo  longer,  they  affirmed,  was  the  preservation  of  the  Union  the 
paramount  object;  the  real  purpose  for  which  white  men  were 
expected  to  lay  down  their  lives  was  to  give  freedom  and  social 
equality  to  the  black  man.  This  distinctly  was  not  what  they 
had  undertaken  to  do,  nor  did  they  propose  to  do  it. 

The  congressional  election  in  Maine  occurred  early  in  Septem- 
ber, 1862.  Then,  as  in  subsequent  elections,  the  results  of  that 
state  were  closely  watched.  "As  goes  Maine,  so  goes  the  Union," 
had  already  become  a  proverb.  Maine  usually  elected  a  Re- 
publican governor  by  a  majority  of  from  10,000  to  19,000.  In 
1862,  Maine  chose  a  Republican  governor  by  a  majority  of  only 
4,000,  and,  for  the  first  time  since  there  had  been  a  Republican 
Party,  Maine  sent  one  Democrat  to  Congress. 

Ohio  voted  in  October,  and  sent  to  the  National  House  of 
Representatives  fourteen  Democrats  and  only  five  Republicans. 
The  Democratic  vote  in  that  state  exceeded  the  Republican  by 
a  majority  of  7,000.  In  Pennsylvania,  where  two  years  before 
Lincoln  had  had  a  majority  of  60,000,  the  Democratic  vote  ex- 
ceeded the  Republican  by  about  4,000,  and  the  congressional 
delegation  was  divided.  Indiana  sent  to  Congress  only  three 
Republican  representatives  and  eight  Democrats.  New  York 
went  Democratic  by  a  majority  of  nearly  10,000,  electing  Hora- 
tio Seymour  as  governor.  New  Jersey,  which  had  voted  Re- 
publican in  i860,  went  Democratic  in  1862.  Michigan  re- 
mained Republican,  but  its  majority  was  reduced  from  20.000  to 
6,000.  Wisconsin  divided  its  delegation  evenly.  Illinois,  Lin- 
coln's own  state,  went  Democratic  by  a  majority  of  17,000,  and 
her  congressional  delegation  was  eleven  Democrats  to  three  Re- 
publicans. Xew  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indi- 
ana and  Illinois  all  failed  to  support  Lincoln  in  1862. 

To  their  everlasting  honor  the  New  England  States,  and 
Iowa,  Kansas,  Minnesota,  California  and  Oregon,  stood  better 
in  their  support  of  the  president.  But  when  the  returns  were 
all   in,   the   Democrats,   who   had   onlv   fortv-four  votes   in   the 


152  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

House  in  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress,  had  seventy-five  in  the 
Thirty-eighth. 

In  that  crisis  the  border  states  stood  by  the  president.  He  had 
not  underestimated  the  importance  of  holding  them  loyally  with- 
in the  Union,  and  true  in  their  support  of  the  administration. 
They  in  1862  furnished  a  sufficient  number  of  pro-administra- 
tion members  to  save  Congress  from  going  over  to  the  opposi- 
tion. 

But  among  the  Republicans  were  not  a  few  members  so  bitter- 
ly hostile  to  Lincoln  for  his  cautious  policy  that  it  could  hardly 
be  said  that  the  president  had  in  Congress  any  more  than  a  bare 
working  majority. 

The  elections  of  1862  were  "off-year"  elections.  Off-years 
are  often  fatal  years.  The  elections  of  1862  were  not  fatal  to 
Lincoln's  hopes,  but  they  weakened  his  support,  and  prepared 
the  way  for  a  bitter  and  painful  campaign  in  1864. 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  went  into  effect  on  January 
1,  1863.  There  was  a  great  celebration  in  Music  Hall  in  Boston, 
and  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  read  his  Boston  Hymn  on  that  occa- 
sion. In  many  other  places  there  were  enthusiastic  meetings 
and  warm  expressions  of  approval.  But  that  is  not  the  whole 
story.  There  was  much  emphatic  disapproval,  also.  On  the 
day  following  the  proclamation's  taking  effect,  Senator  O.  H. 
Browning  recorded: 

Friday,  Jany.  2,  1863.  At  Mr.  Seward's  for  dinner  at  6.  No 
one  else  there.  I  asked  him  why  the  Cabinet  did  so  useless  and 
so  mischievous  a  thing  as  to  issue  the  proclamation  which  had 
been  issued,  the  only  effect  of  which  was  to  unite  and  exasperate 
them  in  the  South  and  divide  and  distract  us  in  the  North.  He 
replied  by  telling  me  an  anecdote  of  a  man  who  after  the  termina- 
tion of  the  Revolutionary  War  could  not  rest  till  he  had  a  liberty 
pole  erected  in  his  village ;  when  asked  by  his  neighbors  what  he 
wanted  with  a  pole,  and  whether  he  was  not  as  free  without  it 
as  with  it,  he  would  always  answer,  "What  is  liberty  without  a 
pole?"  And  what  is  war  without  a  proclamation?  We  played 
whist  with  Mrs.  Seward  and  Miss  Fanny  till  9  o'clock,  and  then 


THE  LIXCOLX-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  365 

las  had  always  been  a  great  admirer  of  General  Jackson,   the 
president  said  : 

"You  are  an  ambitious  man,  Mr.  Douglas,  and  there  is  a  bril- 
liant future  for  you,  if  you  retain  the  confidence  of  the  Demo- 
crat Party;  if  you  oppose  it,  let  me  remind  you  of  the  fate  of 
those  who  in  former  times  rebelled  against  it.  Remember  the 
fate  of  Senators  Rives  and  Talmadge  who  opposed  General  Jack- 
son, when  he  removed  the  government  deposits  from  the  United 
States  Bank.     Beware  of  their  fate,  Mr.  Douglas." 

"Mr.  President,"  replied  Douglas,  "General  Jackson  is  dead. 
Good  morning,  sir!" 

Thus  Douglas,  by  an  attitude  wholly  consistent  with  his  past 
record,  and  much  to  his  credit,  incurred  the  disfavor  of  the  presi- 
dent and  the  unqualified  opposition  of  the  pro-slavery  leaders  of 
his  party.  But  what  he  lost  in  the  support  of  the  leaders  in  his 
own  party,  he  gained  in  whole  or  in  part  in  the  favor  writh  which 
his  courageous  stand  was  received  by  many  of  the  leaders  among 
the  old-time  Whigs.  Several  of  them  believed  that  the  duty  of 
the  Republicans  of  Illinois  was  not  to  nominate  a  candidate  of 
their  own  for  senator,  but  to  endorse  Douglas.  Horace  Gree- 
ley held  this  view ;  in  a  letter  to  Lincoln  he  plainly  implied  his 
belief  that  it  was  unwise  for  Lincoln  to  aspire  to  the  place.  He 
told  Lincoln  that  so  far  as  any  help  from  the  Tribune  was  con- 
cerned, he  must  "paddle  his  own  dug-out."  These  letters  pro- 
foundly depressed  Lincoln.* 

Greeley  wrote  to  Joseph  Medill,  of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  that 
the  Republicans  of  Illinois  by  supporting  Lincoln  were  repelling 
Douglas,  who  might  have  been  conciliated  and  attached  to  their 
side.f  He  apparently  saw  no  danger  to  the  cause  in  repelling 
and  repudiating  Lincoln! 

Thus  it  seemed  to  some  of  the  foremost  Republican  leaders 
in   the   East  that  the   wisest  policy   was   to   reelect   Stephen   A. 

*"Lincoln  was  gloorrn  and  restless  the  entire  day.     Greeley's  letters  were 
driving  the  enthusiasm  out  of  him."     Herndon,  ii,  p.  391. 

^Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  Xicolay  and  Hay,  ii,  p.  140. 


366  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Douglas  to  the  United  States  Senate  in  1858,  as  the  most  avail- 
able opponent  of  a  pro-slavery  administration,  and  perhaps  make 
him  the  Republican  candidate  for  president  in  i860.* 

Lincoln  was  compelled  to  face  Douglas,  therefore,  at  a  mo- 
ment when  Douglas  stood  not  only  as  a  notable  leader  of  his 
own  party,  but  as  one  who  had  so  far  incurred  the  animosity  of 
the  leaders  of  that  party  that  he  appeared  to  some  to  have  be- 
come almost  a  champion  of  the  principles  for  which  the  Re- 
publican Party  stood.  Lincoln  knew  that  for  himself  the  future 
lay  in  a  more  uncompromising  attitude  toward  slavery  than 
Douglas  could  ever  assume,  and  than  Lincoln  himself  had  previ- 
ously felt  justified  in  advocating  as  the  basis  of  a  national  politi- 
cal organization. 

It  is  declared  by  some  who  heard  Lincoln  in  his  "lost  speech" 
at  Bloomington  in  1856,  that  he  there  gave  expression  to  the 
dictum  that  the  government  could  not  permanently  endure  half 
slave  and  half  free.  It  is  said  that  he  eliminated  the  sentence 
from  his  subsequent  campaign  speeches  of  that  year,  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  emphatic  protest  of  Judge  T.  Lyle  Dickey  and  others, 
who  believed  that  its  delivery  would  solidify  not  only  the  aboli- 
tion sentiment  of  the  North  but  also  intensify  the  slavery  senti- 
ment of  the  South.  Judge  Dickey  himself  affirmed  this  in  a 
letter  written  in  1866. 

Lincoln  knew  that  he  would  be  nominated  as  the  Republican 
candidate  for  senator  by  the  Springfield  Convention  in  1858,  and 
he  worked  with  great  care  on  the  address  which  he  was  there  to 
deliver.  The  opening  paragraph  he  committed  to  memory,  and 
delivered  it  word  for  word  as  he  wrote  it.  It  contained  the 
kernel  of  the  issue  which  he  was  to  contest  in  the  succeeding 
months  with  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  This  paragraph  was  modeled 
upon  the  opening  paragraph  of  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne : 


*As  Douglas  came  so  near  to  being  forced  into  the  Republican  Party 
in  1856,  it  is  interesting  to  inquire  whether  he  himself  would  have  become  a 
Republican  if  he  had  lived  to  the  end  of  the  war.  The  answer,  of  course,  is 
a  matter  of  conjecture,  but  in  view  of  the  position  he  took  after  the  war 
broke  out  we  can  hardly  believe  that  he  would  have  supported  McClellan 
in  1864. 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS 
From  a  .contemporary  steel  engrayinj 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  367 

Mr.  President  and  gentlemen  of  the  convention :  If  we  could 
first  know  where  we  are,  and  whither  we  are  tending,  we  could 
better  judge  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it.  We  are  now  far  into 
the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the  avowed  object 
and  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation. 
Under  the  operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only 
not  ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented.  In  my  opinion,  it 
will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed. 
"A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  I  believe  this  gov- 
ernment cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I 
do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved;  I  do  not  expect  the 
house  to  fall ;  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will 
become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of 
slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where 
the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course 
of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till 
it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new, 
North  as  well  as  South. 

Lincoln  prepared  this  speech  by  writing  its  paragraphs  on 
stray  envelopes  and  scraps  of  paper  as  ideas  suggested  them- 
selves, and  dropping  them  into  that  miscellaneous  receptacle,  his 
hat.  As  the  convention  drew  near  he  copied  the  whole  on  con- 
nected sheets.  On  the  night  before  the  convention,  he  invited  a 
dozen  or  so  of  his  friends  into  the  library  of  the  state-house  and 
read  it  to  them.  All  but  one  condemned  it.  Herndon  rejoiced 
to  the  day  of  his  death  in  his  own  recollection  that  he  encour- 
aged Lincoln  to  deliver  the  speech  just  as  he  had  read  it.  He 
said  to  Lincoln,  as  he  afterward  recalled  it,  "Deliver  that  speech 
as  read,  and  it  will  make  you  president." 

Apparently  the  full  significance  of  this  paragraph  was  not 
grasped  by  all  who  were  present.  O.  H.  Browning  wrote  in  his 
Diary : 

Fine  warm  day — Attending  court — Republican  Convention  to 
meet  tomorrow  &  delegates  arriving — At  night  had  a  small  cau- 
cus for  consultation  at  the  Library,  and  directed  me  to  draft 
resolutions. 

14 


368  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

On  the  following  day,  Wednesday,  June  16,  1858,  Browning 
wrote : 

Lovely  day — Republican  convention  in  session.  Koerner 
president — Immense  gathering — over  a  thousand  delegates  in 
attendance,  and"  great  harmony  and  enthusiasm.  Nominated 
Miller  for  Treasurer,  &  Bateman  for  superintendent  of  public 
instruction.  I  drafted  the  platform  which  was  adopted  without 
dissent. 

Browning  forgot  to  record  the  two  really  significant  incidents 
of  the  convention,  the  nomination  of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  Re- 
publican candidate  for  senator,  and  the  delivery  of  Lincoln's 
"house-divided-against-itself"  speeech. 

Browning,  like  Lincoln,  was  a  Kentuckian,  and  his  wife  also 
was  from  Kentucky.  He  was  an  able  and  a  conscientious  man, 
and  one  who  deplored  the  evils  of  slavery,  but  was  far  from 
being  an  abolitionist.  Absorbed  as  he  was  in  his  own  work  for 
the  convention,  and  it  was  not  light  or  unimportant,  and  fully  ap- 
preciative of  his  own  share  of  what  was  said  and  done  there,  he 
still  was  amazingly  oblivious  of  the  most  significant  facts  which 
occurred  on  this  occasion  directly  under  his  observation.  For- 
tunately, he  usually  was  more  observant. 

Lincoln's  address  was  not  received  by  the  convention  in  1858 
with  the  united  enthusiasm  of  the  Bloomington  speech  of  two 
years  before,  but  it  represented  his  deliberate  and  unalterable 
conviction,  and  his  party  accepted  it.  On  that  issue  and  as  thus 
defined,  Abraham  Lincoln  entered  the  arena  against  Stephen  A. 
Douglas. 

Lincoln  delivered  his  "house-divided-against-itself"  speech 
four  months  before  William  H.  Seward  delivered  his  famous 
"irrepressible  conflict"  address.  The  famous  sentence  in 
Seward's  Rochester  speech  read  thus : 

It  is  an  irrepressible  conflict  between  opposing  and  enduring 
forces,  and  it  means  that  the  United  States  must  and  will,  sooner 
or  later,  become  either  entirely  a  slave  holding  nation,  or  entirely 
a  free  labor  nation. 


THE  LIXCOLX-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  369 

\Yhether  Seward  had  seen  Lincoln's  speech  or  not  we  do  not 
know.  In  his  debate  upon  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise in  March,  1854.  he  had  said: 

"Slavery  is  an  eternal  struggle  between  truth  and  error,  right 
and  wrong." 

This  was  a  significant  utterance,  but  it  did  not  include  the 
further  declaration  which  both  Lincoln  and  Seward  expressed  so 
uncompromisingly  in  1858  that  the  government  must  ultimately 
become  either  wholly  free  or  slavery  become  national. 

Lincoln  was  a  proverbially  cautious  man.  He  preferred  to 
fight  on  the  defensive.  He  moved  slowly  toward  any  new  posi- 
tion. His  "house-divided-against-itself"  speech  astonished  his 
opponents  and  dismayed  his  friends.  Under  existing  circum- 
stances it  might  have  seemed  wise  on  the  part  of  Lincoln  to  have 
let  his  moderation  be  known  by  all  men,  by  forcing  Douglas  to 
take  an  extreme  position.  Douglas  himself  had  some  right  to 
claim  that  he  had  been  a  mediator  and  the  author  of  successful 
and  peacemaking  compromise.  He  could  and  did  defend  the  Ne- 
braska Bill  as  a  thoroughgoing  expression  of  the  American  prin- 
ciple of  self-determination.  He  could  point  with  just  pride  to 
his  opposition  to  the  Lecompton  Constitution.  He  could  and  did 
declare  that  the  position  which  he  had  taken  in  Congress  had 
been  approved  by  resolution  of  the  Legislature  in  his  own  state. 

In  these  conditions  it  was  a  courageous  act  on  the  part  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  to  throw  to  the  winds  his  habitual  caution,  and 
against  the  advice  of  most  of  his  political  friends  and  supporters, 
go  forth  to  battle  upon  the  platform  of  his  declaration  that  the 
United  States  could  not  permanently  remain  half  free  and  half 
slave.  His  political  supporters  knewr  what  kind  of  answer  Doug- 
las would  make  to  that  speech,  and  they  had  reason  to  fear  that 
upon  that  platform  Lincoln  would  be  defeated.  Douglas  re- 
joiced when  he  read  Lincoln's  "house-divided-against-itself" 
speech.  It  gave  him  an  opportunity  which  he  fully  appreciated 
and  skilfully  used. 

When  Douglas  made  his  first  appearance  in  Chicago  after  his 


370  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

vote  in  favor  of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  church 
bells  tolled  in  Chicago  as  if  for  a  funeral;  and  flags  floated  at 
half-mast  on  vessels  in  the  harbor.  He  was  received  with  such 
manifestations  of  popular  disapproval  that  when  he  spoke  in  Chi- 
cago on  September  3,  1854,  it  was  with  no  little  difficulty  he  was 
permitted  to  deliver  his  address.  Very  different  was  his  recep- 
tion in  1858.  No  man  ever  received  a  more  brilliant  welcome 
to  the  city  of  Chicago.  The  streets  were  decorated,  and  thronged 
with  people.  He  was  met  at  the  train  by  an  enthusiastic  crowd, 
who  escorted  him  to  the  Tremont  House,  where,  amid  illumina- 
tions and  decorations  such  as  Chicago  had  never  witnessed,  he 
addressed  a  crowd  that  packed  Lake  Street  solidly  with  eager 
and  enthusiastic  citizens.  This  was  the  opening  speech  of  his 
campaign,  and  was  delivered  from  the  balcony  on  the  second 
floor  of  the  Tremont  House,  on  Friday  evening,  July  9,  1858. 

Douglas  had  just  reached  the  city,  and  had  been,  as  he  said, 
two  nights  without  having  gone  to  bed.  But  he  spoke  with 
^reat  vigor.  Lincoln  knew  that  this  address  was  coming,  and 
being  in  Chicago  in  attendance  upon  the  United  States  Court,  he 
went  to  hear  it. 

Lincoln  was  received  courteously,  and  he  occupied  a  seat  upon 
the  platform.  Douglas  referred  to  him  more  than  once,  and  cour- 
teously, in  his  address.  Douglas  bad  committed  to  memory  the 
opening  paragraph  of  Lincoln's  "house-divided-against-itself" 
speech,  and  quoted  it  that  night,  and  in  all  his  speeches  through- 
out the  campaign. 

Speaking  in  front  of  the  Tremont  House  and  with  Lincoln 
on  the  platform  behind  him,  Douglas  thus  ably  defended  his 
own  position  and  accepted  the  challenge  of  Lincoln's  Springfield 
speech : 

A  few  days  ago  the  Republican  Party  of  the  state  of  Illinois 
assembled  in  convention  at  Springfield,  and  not  only  laid  down 
their  platform,  but  nominated  a  candidate  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  as  my  successor.  I  take  great  pleasure  in  saying  that  1 
have  known,  personally  and  intimately,  for  about  a  quarter  of  a 


THE  LIXCOLX-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  371 

century,  the  worthy  gentleman  who  has  been  nominated  for  my 
place,  and  I  will  say  that  1  regard  him  as  a  kind,  amiable  and  in- 
telligent gentleman,  a  good  citizen  and  an  honorable  opponent; 
and  whatever  issue  I  may  have  with  him  will  be  of  principle,  and 
not  involving  personalities.  Mr.  Lincoln  made  a  speech  before 
that  Republican  Convention  which  unanimously  nominated  him 
for  the  Senate, — a  speech  evidently  well  prepared  and  carefully 
written, — in  which  he  states  the  basis  upon  which  he  proposes 
to  carry  on  the  campaign  during  this  summer.  In  it  he  lays  down 
two  distinct  propositions  which  I  shall  notice,  and  upon  which  I 
shall  take  a  direct  and  bold  issue  with  him. 

His  first  and  main  proposition  I  will  give  in  his  own  language, 
scripture  quotations  and  all  [laughter]  ;  I  give  his  exact  lan- 
guage :  "A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe 
this  government  cannot  endure,  permanently,  half  slave  and  hali 
free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved;  I  do  not  ex- 
pect the  house  to  fall;  but  I  do  expect  it  to  cease  to  be  divided 
It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other." 

In  other  words,  Mr.  Lincoln  asserts,  as  a  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  this  government,  that  there  must  be  uniformity  in  the 
local  laws  and  domestic  institutions  of  each  and  all  the  States  oi 
the  Union ;  and  he  therefore  invites  all  the  non-slaveholding 
States  to  band  together,  organize  as  one  body,  and  make  war 
upon  slavery  in  Kentucky,  upon  slavery  in  Virginia,  upon  the 
Carolinas,  upon  slavery  in  all  of  the  slaveholding  States  in  this 
L'nion,  and  to  persevere  in  that  war  until  it  shall  be  exter- 
minated. He  then  notifies  the  slaveholding  States  to  stand  to- 
gether as  a  unit  and  make  an  aggressive  war  upon  the  free  states 
of  this  Union  with  a  view  of  establishing  slavery  in  them  all ;  of 
forcing  it  upon  Illinois,  of  forcing  it  upon  New  York,  upon 
New  England,  and  upon  every  other  free  state,  and  that  they 
shall  keep  up  the  warfare  until  it  has  been  formally  established 
in  them  all.  In  other  words,  Mr.  Lincoln  advocates  boldly  and 
clearly  a  war  of  sections,  a  war  of  the  North  against  the  South, 
of  the  free  states  against  the  slave  states, — a  war  of  extermina- 
tion,— to  be  continued  relentlessly  until  the  one  or  the  other  shall 
be  subdued,  and  all  the  States  shall  become  either  free  or  become 
slave. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  must  say  to  you  frankly  that  I  take  bold, 
unqualified  issue  with  him  upon  that  principle.  I  assert  that  it 
is  neither  desirable  nor  possible  that  there  should  be  uniformity 


372  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

in  the  local  institutions  and  domestic  regulations  of  the  different 
States  of  this  Union.  The  framers  of  our  government  never 
contemplated  uniformity  in  its  internal  concerns.  The  fathers  of 
the  Revolution  and  the  sages  who  made  the  Constitution  well 
understood  that  the  laws  and  domestic  institutions  which  would 
suit  the  granite  hills  of  New  Hampshire  would  be  totally  unfit 
for  the  rice  plantations  of  South  Carolina ;  they  well  understood 
that  the  laws  which  would  suit  the  agricultural  districts  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  New  York  would  be  totally  unfit  for  the  large 
mining  regions  of  the  Pacific,  or  the  lumber  regions  of  Maine. 

Douglas  shrewdly  reminded  his  constituents  that  Maine  had 
adopted  a  law  prohibiting  the  sale  of  liquor,  a  law  which  Maine 
had  a  right  to  adopt  if  she  chose,  but  no  right  to  impose  upon 
Chicago.  Our  system  of  government  was  intentionally  elastic 
so  as  to  permit  such  diversity  of  legislation.  Maine  had  a  right 
to  take  such  steps  as  she  chose  to  control  the  liquor-traffic  within 
her  own  borders,  and  Illinois  had  the  same  right  and  might 
choose  a  very  different  method.  Could  not  the  house  of  the 
Federal  Union  stand,  though  thus  divided? 

From  this  view  of  the  case,  my  friends,  I  am  driven  irresist- 
ibly to  the  conclusion  that  diversity,  dissimilarity,  variety,  in  all 
our  local  and  domestic  institutions,  is  the  great  safeguard  of  our 
liberties,  and  that  the  framers  of  our  institutions  were  wise,  sa- 
gacious, and  patriotic,  when  they  made  this  government  a  con- 
federation of  sovereign  states,  with  a  Legislature  for  each,  arid 
conferred  upon  each  Legislature  the  power  to  make  all  local  and 
domestic  institutions  to  suit  the  people  it  represented,  without 
interference  from  any  other  State  or  from  the  general  Congress 
of  the  Union.  If  we  expect  to  maintain  our  liberties,  we  must 
preserve  the  rights  and  sovereignty  of  the  states ;  we  must  main- 
tain and  carry  out  that  great  principle  of  self-government  incor- 
porated in  the  Compromise  measures  of  1850,  indorsed  by  the 
Illinois  Legislature  in  1851,  emphatically  embodied  and  carried 
out  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  and  vindicated  this  year  by  the 
refusal  to  bring  Kansas  into  the  Union  with  a  Constitution  dis- 
tasteful to  her  people. 

Douglas  took  pains  to  disclaim  any  leanings  toward  abolition 
as  the  ground  of  his  opposition  to  the  Lecompton  Constitution. 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  373 

He  opposed  that  constitution,  as  he  declared,  solely  because  it  was 
imposed  upon  the  people  of  Kansas  in  violation  of  the  principle 
of  self-government.  If  the  people  of  Kansas  had  themselves 
framed  and  adopted  that  constitution,  he  would  have  made  no 
objection  to  it: 

I  will  be  entirely  frank  with  you.  My  object  was  to  secure 
the  right  of  the  people  of  each  state  and  of  each  territory,  North 
or  South,  to  decide  the  question  for  themselves,  to  have  slavery 
or  not,  just  as  they  chose ;  and  my  opposition  to  the  Lecompton 
Constitution  was  not  predicated  upon  the  ground  that  it  was  a 
pro-slavery  Constitution,  nor  would  my  action  have  been  differ- 
ent had  it  been  a  Free-soil  Constitution.  My  speech  against  the 
Lecompton  fraud  was  made  on  the  ninth  of  December,  wdiile  the 
vote  on  the  slavery  clause  in  that  Constitution  was  not  taken  until 
the  twenty-first  of  the  same  month,  nearly  two  weeks  after.  I 
made  my  speech  against  the  Lecompton  monstrosity  solely  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  a  violation  of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
free  government ;  on  the  ground  that  it  was  not  the  act  and  deed 
of  the  people  of  Kansas ;  that  it  did  not  embody  their  will ;  that 
they  were  averse  to  it ;  and  hence  I  denied  the  right  of  Congress 
to  force  it  upon  them,  either  as  a  free  state  or  a  slave  state.  I 
deny  the  right  of  Congress  to  force  a  slaveholding  State  upon 
an  unwilling  people.  I  deny  their  right  to  force  a  free  state  upon 
an  unwilling  people.  I  deny  their  right  to  force  a  good  thing 
upon  a  people  who  are  unwilling  to  receive  it.  The  great  prin- 
ciple is  the  right  of  every  community  to  judge  and  decide  for  it- 
self whether  a  thing  is  right  or  wrong,  whether  it  would  be 
good  or  evil  for  them  to  adopt  it ;  and  the  right  of  free  action, 
the  right  of  free  thought,  the  right  of  free  judgment  upon  the 
question  is  dearer  to  every  true  American  than  any  other  under  a 
free  government.  My  objection  to  the  Lecompton  contrivance 
was,  that  it  undertook  to  put  a  Constitution  on  the  people  of 
Kansas  against  their  will,  in  opposition  to  their  wishes,  and  thus 
violated  the  great  principle  upon  which  all  our  institutions  rest. 
It  is  no  answer  to  this  argument  to  say  that  slavery  is  an  evil, 
and  hence  should  not  be  tolerated.  You  must  allow  the  people 
to  decide  for  themselves  whether  it  is  a  good  or  an  evil. 

The  next  night,  Lincoln  replied  to  Douglas,  speaking  from  the 
same  balcony  of  the  Tremont  Houe.     The  crowd  was  smaller 


374  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

than  that  which  had  greeted  Douglas,  but  still  was  large.  Doug- 
las did  not  attend  Lincoln's  meeting.  He  went  to  the  theater 
with  a  group  of  political  friends.  Lincoln  was  probably  disap- 
pointed that  Douglas  did  not  pay  him  the  compliment,  if  it  would 
have  been  a  compliment,  of  hearing  him.  Whitney  expressed 
the  opinion  that  Lincoln  felt  ill  at  ease  "in  having  intruded  upon 
what  was  properly  Douglas's  occasion,  and  felt  that  it  was  not 
quite  the  proper  thing  to  be  right  at  his  heels  at  the  first  moment 
of  his  constituents'  welcome."*  He  also  thought  Lincoln's 
speech  a  poor  and  inadequate  reply  to  Douglas.  But  not  every 
one  shared  that  opinion. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  say  that  Lincoln  delivered  a  more  able 
address  than  Douglas,  or  as  able  an  address  as  the  one  which  Lin- 
coln had  delivered  in  Springfield.  But  he  met  squarely  the  charge 
of  Senator  Douglas,  or  "Judge  Douglas"  as  he  habitually  called 
him,  that  Lincoln  favored  a  policy  that  was  sure  to  result  in 
civil  war.  He  defended  frankly  and  with  marked  ability  the 
position  he  had  chosen  in  the  Springfield  speech.  He  gave 
Douglas  credit  for  opposing  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  but 
said  that  he  himself  and  other  Republicans  had  opposed  it  be- 
fore Douglas  did,  and  that  Douglas  could  not  claim  any  virtue 
above  or  beyond  theirs  for  taking  that  position,  meritorious 
though  it  was. 

The  Tremont  House  speech  of  Lincoln  is  notable  because  in 
it  Lincoln  uncompromisingly  stood  by  his  position  with  respect 
to  the  country's  ultimately  either  becoming  wholly  slave  or  whol- 
ly free,  and  because  he  declared  perhaps  more  emphatically  than 
he  ever  had  before,  his  own  personal  hatred  of  slavery. 

Lincoln  said  in  part: 

I  am  not,  in  the  first  place,  unaware  that  this  government  has 
endured  eighty-two  years,  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  know  that. 
I  am  tolerably  well  acquainted  with  the  history  of.  the  country, 
and  I  know  that  it  has  endured  eighty-two  years,  half  slave  and 
half  free.   I  believe — and  that  is  what  I  meant  to  allude  to  there— 


*Life  on  the  Circuit  with  Lincoln,  p.  462. 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  375 

I  believe  it  has  endured,  because  during-  all  that  time,  until  the  in- 
troduction of  the  Nebraska  bill,  the  public  mind  did  rest  all  the 
time  in  the  belief  that  slavery  was  in  course  of  ultimate  extinc- 
tion. That  was  what  gave  us  the  rest  that  we  had  through  that 
period  of  eighty-two  years, — at  least,  so  I  believe.  I  have  always 
hated  slavery,  I  think,  as  much  as  any  Abolitionist — I  have  been 
an  Old  Line  Whig — I  have  always  hated  it,  but  I  have  always 
been  quiet  about  it  until  this  new  era  of  the  introduction  of  the 
Nebraska  bill  began.  I  always  believed  that  everybody  was 
against  it,  and  that  it  was  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction. 
[Pointing  to  Mr.  Browning,  who  stood  near  by.]  Browning 
thought  so ;  the  great  mass  of  the  nation  have  rested  in  the  be- 
lief that  slavery  was  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  They  had 
reason  so  to  believe. 

The  adoption  of  the  Constitution  and  its  attendant  history  led 
the  people  to  believe  so ;  and  that  such  was  the  belief  of  the  fram- 
ers  of  the  Constitution  itself,  why  did  those  old  men,  about  the 
time  of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  decree  that  slavery 
should  not  go  into  the  new  territory,  where  it  had  not  already 
gone?  Why  declare  that  within  twenty  years  the  African  Slave 
Trade,  by  which  slaves  are  supplied,  might  be  cut  off  by  Con- 
gress? Why  were  all  these  acts?  I  might  enumerate  more  of 
these  acts ;  but  enough.  What  were  they  but  a  clear  indication 
that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  intended  and  expected  the 
ultimate  extinction  of  that  institution?  And  now,  when  I  say, 
as  I  said  in  my  speech  that  Judge  Douglas  has  quoted  from, 
when  I  say  that  I  think  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  resist  the 
farther  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest 
with  the  belief  that  it  is  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  I 
only  mean  to  say  that  they  will  place  it  where  the  founders  of 
this  government  originally  placed  it. 

Douglas  had  excited  a  laugh  by  his  reference  to  Lincoln's  use 
of  the  Scripture  in  his  "house-divided-against-itself '  speech. 
Lincoln  in  his  peroration  referred  to>  Douglas's  reference  to  Lin- 
coln's use  of  the  Bible.  Lincoln's  answer  to  Douglas  at  this 
point  is  a  fine  expression  of  his  own  practical  statesmanship  and 
his  ethical  idealism.  If  perfect  conformity  to  the  ideal  was  im- 
possible, Lincoln  would  accept  the  best  that  was  available,  but  he 
would  not  forget  nor  hold  in  scorn  the  ultimate  ideal,  however 
presently  unattainable : 


376  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

My  friend  has  said  to  me  that  I  am  a  poor  hand  to  quote 
Scripture.  I  will  try  it  again,  however.  It  is  said  in  one  of  the 
admonitions  of  our  Lord,  "As  your  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect, 
be  ye  also  perfect."  The  Saviour,  I  suppose,  did  not  expect  that 
any  human  creature  could  be  perfect  as  the  Father  in  Heaven; 
but  He  said,  "As  your  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect,  be  ye  also 
perfect."  He  set  that  up  as  a  standard;  and  he  who  did  most 
toward  reaching  that  standard,  attained  the  highest  degree  of 
moral  perfection.  So  I  say  in  relation  to  the  principle  that  all 
men  are  created  equal,  let  it  be  as  nearly  reached  as  we  can.  If 
we  can  not  give  freedom  to  every  creature,  let  us  do  nothing  that 
will  impose  slavery  upon  any  other  creature.  Let  us  then  turn 
this  government  back  into  the  channel  in  which  the  framers  of 
the  Constitution  originally  placed  it.  Let  us  stand  firmly  by  each 
other.  If  we  do  not  do  so  we  are  turning  in  the  contrary  direc- 
tion, that  our  friend  Judge  Douglas  proposes — not  intentionally 
, — as  working  in  the  traces  tend  to  make  this  one  universal  slave 
nation.  He  is  one  that  runs  in  that  direction,  and  as  such  I 
resist  him. 

In  this  address  Lincoln  met  the  scornful  declaration  of  Doug- 
las that  the  freedom  of  the  slaves  would  result  in  social  equality 
and  in  intermarriage  of  the  races.  This  was  the  most  clever  of 
all  of  Lincoln's  rejoinders: 

We  were  often — more  than  once  at  least — in  the  course  of 
judge  Douglas's  speech  last  night,  reminded  that  this  govern- 
ment was  made  for  white  men ;  that  he  believed  it  was  made  for 
white  men.  Well,  that  is  putting  it  into  a  shape  in  which  no  one 
wants  to  deny  it;  but  the  Judge  then  goes  into  his  passion  for 
drawing"  inferences  that  are  not  warranted.  I  protest,  now  and 
for  ever,  against  that  counterfeit  logic  which  presumes  that  be- 
cause I  did  not  want  a  negro  woman  for  a  slave,  I  do  necessarily 
want  her  for  a  wife.  My  understanding  is  that  I  need  not  have 
her  for  either,  but,  as  God  made  us  separate,  we  can  leave  one 
another  alone,  and  do  one  another  much  good  thereby.  There 
are  white  men  enough  to  marry  all  the  white  women,  and  enough 
black  men  to  marry  all  the  black  women;  and  in  God's  name  let 
them  be  so  married.  The  judge  regales  us  with  the  terrible 
enormities  that  take  place  by  the  mixture  of  races;  that  the  in- 
ferior race  bears  the  superior  down.  Why,  Judge,  if  we  do  not 
let  them  get  together  in  the  territories  they  won't  mix  there. 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  377 

Lincoln  did  not  stand  wholly  on  the  defensive  in  this  Chicago 
speech.  Without  claiming  to  be  more  altruistic  than  a  politician 
might  reasonably  claim  to  be,  he  advanced  to  a  position  where  he 
could  demand  that  this  slavery  issue  be  met,  not  as  something 
morally  indifferent,  but  as  a  question  profoundly  ethical.  He 
said: 

I  do  not  claim,  gentlemen,  to  be  unselfish;  I  do  not  pretend 
that  I  would  not  like  to  go  to  the  United  States  Senate, — I  make 
no  such  hypocritical  pretense ;  but  I  do  say  to  you  that  in  this 
mighty  issue,  it  is  nothing  to  you — nothing  to  the  mass  of  the 
people  of  the  nation,  whether  or  not  Judge  Douglas  or  myself 
shall  ever  be  heard  of  after  this  night;  it  may  be  a  trifle  to  either 
of  us,  but  in  connection  with  this  mighty  question,  upon  which 
hang  the  destinies  of  the  nation,  perhaps,  it  is  absolutely  noth- 
ing; but  where  will  you  be  placed  if  you  re-indorse  Judge  Doug- 
las? Don't  you  know  how  apt  he  is,  how  exceedingly  anxious 
lie  is  at  all  times,  to  seize  upon  anything  and  everything  to  per- 
suade you  that  something  he  has  done  you  did  yourselves  ?  Why, 
he  tried  to  persuade  you  last  night  that  our  Illinois  Legislature 
instructed  him  to  introduce  the  Nebraska  bill.  There  was  no- 
body in  that  Legislature  ever  thought  of  such  a  thing;  and  when 
he  first  introduced  the  bill,  he  never  thought  of  it ;  but  still  he 
fights  furiously  for  the  proposition,  and  that  he  did  it  because 
there  was  a  standing  instruction  to  our  Senators  to  be  always 
introducing  Nebraska  bills.  He  tells  you  he  is  for  the  Cincinnati 
platform,  he  tells  you  he  is  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  He 
tells  you,  not  in  his  speech  last  night,  but  substantially  in  a 
former  speech,  that  he  cares  not  if  slavery  is  voted  up  or  down — 
he  tells  you  the  struggle  on  Lecompton  is  past — it  may  come  up 
again  or  not,  and  if  it  does  he  stands  where  he  stood  when  in 
spite  of  him  and  his  opposition,  you  built  up  the  Republican 
party.  If  you  endorse  him,  you  tell  him  you  do  not  care  whether 
slavery  be  voted  up  or  down. 

Lincoln's  address  was  received  with  an  enthusiasm  almost 
equal  to  that  which  had  greeted  Douglas.  The  campaign  of 
1858  was  fairly  opened. 

Then  Douglas  began  his  triumphal  tour  of  Illinois,  making 
between  July  ninth  and  November  seventh  almost  if  not  quite  a 


378  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

hundred  political  addresses  in  various  parts  of  the  state.  He 
waited  just  a  week  in  Chicago  and  then  set  forth  on  a  special 
train  with  much  waving  of  banners  and  with  many  cheers. 

On  the  following  Friday,  July  sixteenth,  Douglas  spoke  at 
Bloomington.  Lincoln  went  over  from  Springfield  to  hear  him. 
Again  Douglas  quoted  Lincoln's  Springfield  speech.  With  great 
ability  Douglas  set  forth  the  inevitable  disaster  which  would 
follow  the  acceptance  of  Lincoln's  announced  position.  The  na- 
tion always  had  been  half  slave  and  half  free.  The  government 
at  the  outset  had  recognized  that  situation.  It  was  a  condition 
which  could  not  be  changed  without  violence  on  the  part  of  one 
section  against  the  other,  and  the  ultimate  disruption  of  the 
Union  itself: 

The  Republican  Convention,  when  it  assembled  at  Springfield, 
did  me  and  the  country  the  honor  of  indicating  the  man  who  was 
to  be  their  standard-bearer,  and  the  embodiment  of  their  prin- 
ciples, in  this  state.  I  owe  them  my  gratitude  for  thus  making 
up  a  direct  issue  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself.  I  shall  have 
no  controversies  of  a  personal  character  with  Mr.  Lincoln.  I 
have  known  him  well  for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  I  have  known 
him,  as  you  all  know  him,  a  kind-hearted,  amiable  gentleman,  a 
right  good  fellow,  a  worthy  citizen,  of  eminent  ability  as  a  law- 
yer, and  I  have  no  doubt,  sufficient  ability  to  make  a  good  Sena- 
tor. The  question,  then,  for  you  to  decide  is,  whether  his 
principles  are  more  in  accordance  with  the  genius  of  our  free 
institutions,  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Republic,  than  those 
which  I  advocate.  He  tells  you,  in  his  speech  made  at  Spring- 
field, before  the  Convention  which  gave  him  his  unanimous  nom- 
ination, that 

"A  house  divided  against  itself  can  not  stand." 
"I  believe  this  Government  can  not  endure  permanently,  half 
slave  and  half  free." 

"I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved — I  don't  expect  the 

house  to  fall — but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided." 

"It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other." 

That  is  the  fundamental  principle  upon  which  he  sets  out  in 

this  campaign.     Well,   I   do  not  suppose   you  will  believe   one 

word  of  it  when  you  come  to  examine  it  carefully,  and  see  its 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  379 

consequences.  Although  the  Republic  has  existed  from  1789  to 
this  day,  divided  into  free  states  and  slave  states,  yet  we  are  told 
that  in  the  future  it  can  not  endure  unless  they  shall  become  all 
free  or  all  slave.  For  that  reason  he  says,  as  the  gentleman  in 
the  crowd  says,  that  they  must  be  all  free.  He  wishes  to  go  to  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  in  order  to  carry  out  that  line  of  pub- 
lic policy  which  will  compel  all  the  States  in  the  South  to  become 
free.  How  is  he  going  to  do  it  ?  Has  Congress  any  power  over 
the  subject  of  slavery  in  Kentucky,  or  Virginia,  or  any  other 
state  of  this  Union?  How,  then,  is  Mr.  Lincoln  going  to  carry 
out  that  principle  which  he  says  is  essential  to  the  existence  of 
this  Union,  to-wit :  That  slavery  must  be  abolished  in  all  the 
states  of  the  Union,  or  must  be  established  in  them  all?  You 
convince  the  South  that  they  must  either  establish  slavery  in  Il- 
linois, and  in  every  other  free  state,  or  submit  to  its  abolition  in 
every  southern  state,  and  you  invite  them  to  make  a  warfare  upon 
the  northern  states  in  order  to  establish  slavery,  for  the  sake  of 
perpetuating  it  at  home. 

Douglas  demanded  to  know  how  Lincoln  proposed  to  accom- 
plish the  result  which  he  desired,  the  making  of  a  nation  wholly 
free,  and  declared  that  Lincoln  as  a  lawryer  knew  there  was  only 
one  way  by  which  he  could  do  it,  which  would  be  by  constitu- 
tional amendment,  and  that  way  would  lead  to  violence.  But  he 
maintained  that  the  only  way  in  which  slavery  had  been  elimin- 
ated from  any  portion  of  the  United  States,  had  been  by  the 
recognition  of  the  principle  of  popular  sovereignty : 

How  is  he  to  accomplish  what  he  professes  must  be  done  in 
order  to  save  the  Union?  Mr.  Lincoln  is  a  lawyer,  sagacious 
and  able  enough  to  tell  you  how  he  proposes  to  do  it.  I  ask  Mr. 
Lincoln  how  it  is  that  he  proposes  ultimately  to  bring  about  this 
uniformity  in  each  and  all  of  the  states  of  the  Union.  There  is 
but  one'  possible  mode  which  I  can  see,  and  perhaps  Mr.  Lincoln 
intends  to  pursue  it;  that  is,  to  introduce 'a  proposition  into  the 
Senate  to  change  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in  order 
that  all  the  State  Legislatures  may  be  abolished,  state  sovereignty 
blotted  out,  and  the  power  conferred  upon  Congress  to  make 
local  laws  and  establish  the  domestic  institutions  and  police  regu- 


380  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

lations  uniformly  throughout  the  United  States.     Are  you  pre- 
pared for  such  a  change  in  the  institutions  of  your  country? 

There  is  but  one  possible  way  in  which  slavery  can  be  abol- 
ished, and  that  is  by  leaving  a  state,  according  to  the  principle  of 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate 
its  institutions  in  its  own  way.  That  was  the  principle  upon 
which  this  Republic  was  founded,  and  it  is  under  the  operation 
of  that  principle  that  we  have  been  able  to  preserve  the  Union 
thus  far.  Under  its  operations,  slavery  disappeared  from  New 
Hampshire,  from  Rhode  Island,  from  Connecticut,  from  New 
York,  from  New  Jersey,  from  Pennsylvania,  from  six  of  the 
twelve  original  slaveholding  states;  and  this  gradual  system  of 
emancipation  went  on  quietly,  peacefully  and  steadily,  so  long 
as  we  in  the  free  states  minded  our  own  business,  and  left  our 
neighbors  alone.  But  the  moment  the  abolition  societies  were 
organized  throughout  the  North,  preaching  a  violent  crusade 
against  slavery  in  the  southern  states,  this  combination  neces- 
sarily caused  a  counter-combination  in  the  South,  and  a  sec- 
tional line  was  drawn  which  was  a  barrier  to  any  further  eman- 
cipation. 

On  the  following  day  Saturday,  July  17,  1858,  Senator  Doug- 
las spoke  in  Springfield.  He  was  warmly  received,  but  he  knew 
that  he  had  strong  enemies  as  well  as  warm  friends  in  his  audi- 
ence. Lincoln  was  not  present,  but  many  of  his  friends  were 
there,  and  they  heard  Douglas  tear  to  tatters  the  speech  to  which 
they  had  listened  with  such  trepidation  when  Lincoln  delivered 
it.  Douglas  repeated  the  opening  paragraph  of  Lincoln's  "house- 
divided-against-itself"  speech,  and  told  the  Springfield  voters 
what  would  follow  if  that  principle  were  accepted : 

Now,  Mr.  Lincoln  says  that  he  will  not  enter  into  Kentucky 
to  abolish  slavery  there,  but  that  all  he  will  do  is  to  fight  slavery 
in  Kentucky  from  Illinois.  He  will  not  go  over  there  to  set 
fire  to  the  match.  I  do  not  think  he  would.  Mr.  Lincoln  is  a 
very  prudent  man.  He  would  not  deem  it  wise  to  go  over  into 
Kentucky  to  stir  up  this  strife,  but  he  would  do  it  from  this  side 
of  the  river.  Permit  me  to  inquire  whether  the  wrong,  the  out- 
rage of  interference  by  one  state  with  the  local  concerns  of  an- 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  381 

other,  is  worse  when  you  actually  invade  them  than  it  would  be  it 
you  carried  on  the  warfare  from  another  state?  ....  But  yet,  he 
says  he  is  going-  to  persevere  in  this  system  of  sectional  warfare, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  he  is  sincere  in  what  he  says.  He  says  that 
the  existence  of  the  Union  depends  upon  his  success  in  firing  into 
these  slave  States  until  he  exterminates  them.  He  says  that  un- 
less he  shall  play  his  batteries  successfully,  so  as  to  abolish  slavery 
in  every  one  of  the  States,  that  the  Union  shall  be  dissolved ;  and 
he  says  that  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  would  be  a  terrible  calam- 
ity. Of  course  it  would.  We  are  all  friends  of  the  Union.  We 
all  believe — I  do — that  our  lives,  our  liberties,  our  hopes  in  the 
future  depend  upon  the  preservation  and  perpetuity  of  this  glori- 
ous Union.  I  believe  that  the  hopes  of  the  friends  of  liberty 
throughout  the  world  depend  upon  the  perpetuity  of  the  Ameri- 
can Union.  But  while  I  believe  that  my  mode  of  preserving  the 
Union  is  a  very  different  one  from  that  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  believe 
that  the  Union  can  only  be  preserved  by  maintaining  inviolate 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  as  our  fathers  have  made  it. 
That  Constitution  guarantees  to  the  people  of  every  state  the  right 
to  have  slavery  or  not  have  it ;  to  have  negroes  or  not  have  them ; 
to  have  Maine  liquor  laws  or  not  have  them ;  to  have  just  such 
institutions  as  they  choose,  each  state  being  left  free  to  decide 
for  itself.  The  framers  of  that  Constitution  never  conceived  the 
idea  that  uniformity  in  the  domestic  institutions  of  the  different 
States  was  either  desirable  or  possible. 

An  important  part  of  the  campaign  issue  gathered  about  the 
Dred  Scott  decision.  A  slave  by  that  name  had  been  taken  by 
his  master  from  a  slave  state  into  a  state  where  slavery  was  pro- 
hibited. Action  was  brought  in  the  Federal  Court  on  the  ground 
that  Scott,  not  being  an  escaped  fugitive,  but  having  been  volun- 
tarily taken  by  his  master  into  territory  where  slavery  was  pro- 
hibited, had  by  that  act  of  the  master  become  free.  The  case  was 
argued  before  the  Supreme  Court  in  May,  1854.  The  decision 
was  postponed  until  after  the  presidential  election  of  1856.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  had  the  decision  been  announced  before  the 
election,  the  result  of  the  election  would  have  been  changed.  The 
decision  was  handed  down  by  Chief  Justice  Roger  B.  Taney. 
The  court  held  that  Dred  Scott,  being  descended  from  an  African 


382  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

slave,  was  not  and  could  not  be  a  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
and  could  not  come  into  court.  This  decision  disposed  of  the 
case  itself,  and  became  the  basis  for  the  declaration  that  the  Su- 
preme Court  had  held  that  "the  negro  had  no  rights  which  the 
white  man  is  bound  to  respect."  But  as  the  point  had  been 
made  in  the  argument  that  by  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise, Scott  was  free  because  he  had  been  taken  into  a  free 
territory,  the  court  proceeded  to  say  in  an  obiter  dictum  that 
Congress  had  no  power  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories, 
since  by  the  Constitution  slavery  was  legal  in  all  the  territories. 

This  decision  virtually  nationalized  slavery.  Furthermore,  as 
both  Congress  and  the  president  were  already  committed  to  the 
slavery  program,  this  decision  seemed  to  the  friends  of  freedom 
to  deliver  the  third  and  last  department  of  the  Federal  govern- 
ment to  the  slave  holding  interests.  The  whole  government, 
executive,  legislative,  judicial  had  become  the  instrument  of 
slavery. 

Douglas  did  not  avoid  a  discussion  of  the  Dred  Scott  case.  He 
did  not  himself  defend  in  its  entirety  the  utterance  of  Judge 
Taney  in  handing  down  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  but  he  did 
maintain  that  the  constitutionality  of  the  fugitive  slave  law  had 
been  tested  in  the  legal  and  proper  way,  namely,  by  the  orderly 
and  lawful  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 
He  might  have  his  own  opinion,  and  so  might  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  to 
some  of  the  things  involved  in  that  decision,  but  the  decision  it- 
self had  been  reached  in  constitutional  fashion.  Incidentally,  he 
ventured  to  forecast  the  results  of  a  Republican  victory  if  one 
should  occur  two  years  later,  and  he  thought  of  Mr.  Seward  as  a 
possible  president,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  judge  on  the  Su- 
preme bench,  wrestling  with  the  problem  of  reversing  the  Dred 
Scott  decision: 

The  Constitution  says  that  the  judicial  power  of  the  United 
States  shall  be  vested  in  the  Supreme  Court,  and  such  inferior 
courts  as  Congress  shall,  from  time  to  time,  ordain  and  establish. 
Hence  it  is  the  province  and  duty  of  the  Supreme  Court  to  pro- 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  383 

nounce  judgment  on  the  validity  and  constitutionality  of  an  Act 
of  Congress.  In  this  case  they  have  done  so,  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
\vill  not  submit  to  it.  and  he  is  going  to  reverse  it  by  another  Act 
of  Congress  of  the  same  tenor.  My  opinion  is  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
ought  to  be  on  the  Supreme  Bench  himself,  when  the  Republi- 
cans get  into  power,  if  that  kind  of  law  knowledge  qualifies  a 
man  for  the  bench.  But  Mr.  Lincoln  intimates  that  there  is  an- 
other mode  by  which  he  can  reverse  the  Dred  Scott  decision. 
How  is  that  ?  Why,  he  is  going  to  appeal  to  the  people  to  elect 
a  president  who  will  appoint  judges  who  will  reverse  the  Dred 
Scott  decision.  Well,  let  us  see  how  that  is  going  to  be  done. 
First,  he  has  to  carry  on  his  sectional  organization,  a  party  con- 
fined to  the  free  states,  making  war  upon  the  slaveholding  states 
until  he  gets  a  Republican  president  elected.  ["He  never  will. 
sir.""  I  do  not  believe  he  ever  will.  But  suppose  he  should; 
when  that  Republican  president  shall  have  taken  his  seat  (Mr. 
Seward,  for  instance),  will  he  then  proceed  to  appoint  judges? 
Xo!  he  will  have  to  wrait  until  the  present  judges  die  before  he 
can  do  that,  and  perhaps  his  four  years  would  be  out  before  a 
majority  of  these  judges  found  it  agreeable  to  die;  and  it  is  very 
possible,  too,  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  senatorial  term  would  expire 
before  these  judges  would  be  accommodating  enough  to  die.  If 
it  should  so  happen  I  do  not  see  a  very  great  prospect  for  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  reverse  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  But  suppose  they 
should  die.  then  how  are  the  new  judges  to  be  appointed?  Why, 
the  Republican  president  is  to  call  upon  the  candidates  and  cate- 
chise them,  and  ask  them,  "How  will  you  decide  this  case  if  I 
appoint  you  judge?"  Suppose,  for  instance,  Mr.  Lincoln  to  be  a 
candidate  for  a  vacancy  on  the  Supreme  Bench  to  fill  Chief  Jus- 
tice Taney's  place  and  when  he  applied  to  Seward,  the  latter 
would  say,  "Mr.  Lincoln.  I  can  not  appoint  you  until  I  know 
how  you  will  decide  the  Dred  Scott  case?"  Mr.  Lincoln  tells 
him,  and  Seward  then  asks  him  how  he  will  decide  Tom  Jones's 
case,  and  Bill  Wilson's  case,  and  thus  catechises  the  judge  as  to 
how  he  will  decide  any  case  which  may  arise  before  him.  Sup- 
pose you  get  a  Supreme  Court  composed  of  such  judges,  who 
have  been  appointed  by  a  partisan  President  upon  their  giving 
pledges  how  they  would  decide  a  case  before  it  arose, — what 
confidence  would  you  have  in  such  a  court? 

Would  not  your  court  be  prostituted  beneath  the  contempt  of 
all  mankind  ?    What  man  would  feel  that  his  liberties  were  safe, 


384  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

his  right  of  person  or  property  was  secure,  if  the  Supreme  Bench, 
that  august  tribunal,  the  highest  on  earth,  was  brought  down  to 
that  low,  dirty  pool  wherein  the  judges  are  to  give  pledges  in 
advance  how  they  will  decide  all  the  questions  which  may  be 
brought  before  them  ?  It  is  a  proposition  to  make  that  court  the 
corrupt,  unscrupulous  tool  of  a  political  party.  But  Mr.  Lin- 
coln can  not  conscientiously  submit,  he  thinks,  to  the  decision 
of  a  court  composed  of  a  majority  of  Democrats.  If  he  cannot, 
how  can  he  expect  us  to  have  confidence  in  a  court  composed  of 
a  majority  of  Republicans,  selected  for  the  purpose  of  deciding 
against  the  Democracy,  and  in  favor  of  the  Republicans?  The 
very  proposition  carries  with  it  the  demoralization  and  degrada- 
tion destructive  of  the  judicial  department  of  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment. 

I  say  to  you,  fellow-citizens,  that  I  have  no  warfare  to  make 
upon  the  Supreme  Court  because  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  I 
have  no  complaints  to  make  against  that  court,  because  of  that 
decision.  My  private  opinions  on  some  points  of  the  case  may 
have  been  one  way  and  on  other  points  of  the  case  another;  in 
some  things  concurring  with  the  court  and  in  others  dissenting; 
but  what  have  my  private  opinions  in  a  question  of  law  to  do 
with  the  decision  after  it  has  been  pronounced  by  the  highest 
judicial  tribunal  known  to  the  Constitution? 

Douglas  did  not  fail  to  employ  his  best  popular  argument  by 
reminding  the  people  of  the  direful  consequences  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's alleged  position  that  the  negro  was  the  white  man's  equal. 
If  Mr.  Lincoln  wanted  to  claim  kinship  with  the  negro,  Sena- 
tor Douglas  had  no  objection,  but  Douglas  refused  to  accept  the 
negro  as  a  relative  of  his  own.    He  said : 

In  his  Chicago  speech  he  says,  in  so  many  words,  that  it  in- 
cludes the  negroes,  that  they  were  endowed  by  the  Almighty 
with  the  right  of  equality  with  the  white  man,  and  therefore  that 
that  right  is  divine — a  right  under  the  higher  law;  that  the  law 
of  God  makes  them  equal  to  the  white  man,  and  therefore  that 
the  law  of  the  white  man  cannot  deprive  them  of  that  right.  This 
is  Mr.  Lincoln's  argument.  He  is  conscientious  in  his  belief.  I 
do  not  question  his  sincerity ;  I  do  not  doubt  that  he,  in  his  con- 
science, believes  that  the  Almighty  made  the  negro  equal  to  the 


THE  L1XCOLX-DOUGLAS  DEBATES      385 

white  man.  He  thinks  that  the  negro  is  his  brother.  I  do  not 
think  that  the  negro  is  any  kin  of  mine  at  all.  And  here  is  the 
difference  between  us.  I  believe  that  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, in  the  words  "all  men  are  created  equal,"  was  intended  to 
allude  only  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  to  men  of  Euro- 
pean birth  or  descent,  being  white  men.  .  .  .  The  Declaration  of 
Independence  only  included  the  white  people  of  the  United 
States.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  framed  by 
the  white  people,  it  ought  to  be  administered  by  them,  leaving 
each  State  to  make  such  regulations  concerning  the  negro  as  it 
chooses. 

On  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  Mr,  Lincoln  replied  to  Senator 
Douglas.  He  spoke  of  his  own  humble  station  and  of  the  high 
position  of  Senator  Douglas.     He  said : 

Senator  Douglas  is  of  world-wide  renown.  All  the  anxious 
politicians  of  his  party,  or  who  have  been  of  his  party  for  years 
past,  have  been  looking  upon  him  as  certainly,  at  no  distant  day, 
to  be  the  president  of  the  United  States.  They  have  seen  in  his 
round,  jolly,  fruitful  face,  post-offices,  land-offices,  marshalships 
and  cabinet  appointments,  chargeships  and  foreign  missions, 
bursting  and  sprouting  out  in  wonderful  exuberance,  ready  to 
be  laid  hold  of  by  their  greedy  hands.  And  as  they  have  been 
gazing  upon  this  attractive  picture  so  long,  they  can  not,  in  the 
little  distraction  that  has  taken  place  in  the  party,  bring  them- 
selves to  give  up  the  charming  hope :  but  with  greedier  anxiety 
they  rush  about  him.  sustain  him,  and  give  him  marches,  trium- 
phal entries,  and  receptions  beyond  what  even  in  the  days  of  his 
highest  prosperity  they  could  have  brought  about  in  his  favor. 
On  the  contrary,  nobody  has  ever  expected  me  to  be  president. 
In  my  poor,  lean,  lank  face,  nobody  has  ever  seen  that  any  cab- 
bages were  sprouting  out.  These  are  disadvantages,  all  taken 
together,  that  the  Republicans  labor  under.  We  have  to  fight 
this  battle  upon  principle,  and  upon  principle  alone.  I  am.  in  a 
certain  sense,  made  the  standard-bearer  in  behalf  of  the  Repub- 
licans. I  was  made  so  merely  because  there  had  to  be  some  one 
so  placed, — I  being  in  no  wise  preferable  to  any  other  one  of 
the  twenty-five,  perhaps  a  hundred,  we  have  in  the  Republican 
ranks.    Then  I  say  I  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  understood  and  borne 


386  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

in  mind,  that  we  have  to  fight  this  battle  without  many — per- 
haps without  any — of  the  external  aids  which  are  brought  to  bear 
against  us.  So  I  hope  those  with  whom  I  am  surrounded  have 
principle  enough  to  nerve  themselves  for  the  task,  and  leave  noth- 
ing undone  that  can  be  fairly  done  to  bring  about  the  right  result. 

Lincoln's  position,  chosen  by  himself,  had  now  been  challenged. 
He  was  now  compelled  to  defend  his  "house-divided-against-it- 
self"  speech  in  the  place  where  he  had  made  it,  and  he  accepted 
that  challenge.  He  repeated  the  declaration  of  that  belief,  which 
he  carefully  differentiated  from  any  desire  on  his  part  of  pro- 
voking a  civil  war.  He  reaffirmed  that  the  government  of  the 
United  States  could  not  permanently  endure  if  part  of  the  states 
were  to  accept  slavery  as  a  permanent  institution,  and  the  others 
were  to  stand  in  permanent  antagonism  to  it.     He  said : 

When  he  [Douglas]  was  preparing  his  plan  of  campaign, 
Napoleon-like,  in  New  York,  as  appears  by  two  speeches  I  have 
heard  him  deliver  since  his  arrival  in  Illinois,  he  gave  special  at- 
tention to  a  speech  of  mine,  delivered  here  on  the  16th  of  June 
last.  He  says  that  he  carefully  read  that  speech.  He  told  us  that 
at  Chicago  a  week  ago  last  night,  and  he  repeated  it  at  Blooming- 
ton  last  night.  Doubtless,  he  repeated  it  again  to-day,  though 
1  did  not  hear  him.  In  the  two  first  places — Chicago  and  Bloom- 
ington — I  heard  him ;  to-day  I  did  not.  He  said  he  had  careful- 
ly examined  that  speech, — when,  he  did  not  say ;  but  there  is  no 
reasonable  doubt  it  was  when  he  was  in  New  York  preparing  his 
plan  of  campaign.  I  am  glad  he  did  read  it  carefully.  He  says 
it  was  evidently  prepared  with  great  care.  I  freely  admit  it  was 
prepared  with  care.  I  claim  not  to  be  more  free  from  errors  than 
others, — perhaps  scarcely  so  much;  but  I  was  very  careful  not  to 
put  anything  in  that  speech  as  a  matter  of  fact,  or  make  any  in- 
ferences which  did  not  appear  to  me  to  be  true  and  fully  war- 
rantable. If  I  made  any  mistake  I  was  willing  to  be  corrected ; 
if  I  had  drawn  any  inference  in  regard  to  Judge  Douglas,  or  any 
one  else,  which  was  not  warranted,  I  was  fully  prepared  to  modi- 
fy it  as  soon  as  discovered.  I  planted  myself  upon  the  truth  and 
the  truth  only,  so  far  as  I  knew  it,  or  could  be  brought  to  know  it. 

Although  I  have  ever  been  opposed  to  slavery,  so  far  I  rested 
in  the  hope  and  belief  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  387 

extinction.  For  that  reason,  it  had  been  a  minor  question  with 
me.  I  might  have  been  mistaken;  but  I  had  believed,  and  now 
believe,  that  the  whole  public  mind,  that  is,  the  mind  of  the  great 
majority,  had  rested  in  that  belief  up  to  the  repeal  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise.  But  upon  that  event,  I  became  convinced 
that  either  I  had  been  resting"  in  a  delusion,  or  the  institution  was 
being  placed  on  a  new  basis, — a  basis  for  making  it  perpetual, 
national  and  universal.  Subsequent  events  have  greatly  con- 
firmed me  in  that  belief.  I  believe  that  bill  to  be  the  beginning 
of  a  conspiracy  for  that  purpose.  So  believing,  I  have  since  then 
considered  that  question  a  paramount  one.  So  believing,  I 
thought  the  public  mind  will  never  rest  till  the  power  of  Con- 
gress to  restrict  the  spread  of  it  shall  again  be  acknowledged 
and  exercised  on  the  one  hand,  or,  on  the  other,  all  resistance 
be  entirely  crushed  out.  I  have  expressed  that  opinion,  and  I 
entertain  it  to-night. 

Both  in  Chicago  and  in  Springfield  Lincoln  followed  Douglas, 
and  answered  him  on  the  same  or  the  following  day.  For  this 
program  Lincoln  was  much  criticized.  He  was  declared  to  be 
taking  advantage  of  the  reputation  of  Senator  Douglas  to  secure 
crowds  which  his  own  reputation  would  not  have  sufficed  to  as- 
semble ;  and,  of  course,  in  each  such  case,  Lincoln  had  the  advan- 
tage, highly  prized  by  lawyers,  of  the  closing  argument.  Again, 
after  an  interval  of  two  weeks,  the  two  men  were  in  Chicago,  and 
both  at  the  Tremont  House.  Although  they  met  personally,  and 
on  friendly  terms,  the  formalities  of  their  arrangement  were  con- 
ducted through  seconds.  Lincoln  sent  to  Douglas,  under  date  of 
July  twenty-fourth,  a  formal  challenge  to  stump  the  state  to- 
gether in  a  joint  debate.  Douglas  replied  that  his  dates  were 
already  fixed,  and  that  Democratic  candidates,  congressional  and 
local,  were  expecting  to  be  present  and  speak  at  his  several  ap- 
pointments, thus  occupying  all  the  time.  But  he  accepted  the 
challenge  to  the  extent  of  seven  joint  debates,  one  in  each  con- 
gressional district  except  the  two  containing  the  cities  of  Chicago 
and  Springfield,  in  which  they  had  already  spoken.  Lincoln 
thereafter  absented  himself  from  Douglas's  exclusive  meet- 
ings, and  informed  Douglas  of  his  purpose  so  to  do.    The  corre- 


388  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

spondence  involved  some  sparring,  and  concluded  with  the  se- 
lection by  Douglas,  as  the  challenged  party,  of  the  dates  and 
places  indicated  in  the  final  letters  of  this  correspondence : 

Mr.  Douglas  to  Mr.  Lincoln 

Bement,  Piatt  Co.,  111.,- July  30,  1858. 

Dear  Sir  : — Your  letter  dated  yesterday,  accepting  my  proposi- 
tion for  a  joint  discussion  at  one  prominent  point  in  each  Con- 
gressional District,  as  stated  by  my  previous  letter,  was  received 
this  morning. 

The  times  and  places  designated  are  as  follows : — 

Ottawa,   La   Salle   County August  21st,  1858. 

Freeport,   Stephenson   County .  .       "  27th,  " 

Jonesboro,  Union  County     .  ■  .  .September  15th,  " 

Charleston,  Coles  County   "  18th,  " 

Galesburg,    Knox   County    ....  October  7th,  " 

Quincy,  Adams  County   "  13th,  " 

Alton,  Madison  County    "  15th,  " 

I  agree  to  your  suggestion  that  we  shall  alternately  open  and 
close  the  discussion.  I  will  speak  at  Ottawa  one  hour,  you  can 
reply,  occupying  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  I  will  follow  for  half 
an  hour.  At  Freeport,  you  shall  open  the  discussion  and  speak 
one  hour,  I  will  follow  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  you  can  then 
reply  for  half  an  hour.  We  will  alternate  in  like  manner  in  each 
successive  place. 

Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

S.  A.  Douglas. 
Hon.  A.  Lincoln,  Springfield,  111. 

Mr.  Lincoln  to  Mr.  Douglas 

Springfield,  July  31,  1858. 
Hon.  S.  A.  Douglas :  Dear  Sir, — Yours  of  yesterday,  naming 
places,  times  and  terms,  for  joint  discussion  between  us,  was  re- 
ceived this  morning.  Although,  by  the  terms,  as  you  propose, 
you  take  four  openings  and  closes,  to  my  three,  I  accede,  and 
thus  close  the  arrangement.     I  direct  this  to  you  at  Hillsboro, 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  389 

and  shall  try  to  have  both  your  letter  and   this  appear  in  the 
Journal  and  Register  of  Monday  morning. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  Lincoln. 

The  political  newspapers  of  Chicago  made  elaborate  prepara- 
tions for  the  reporting  and  printing  of  the  speeches.  The  Press 
and  Tribune,  now  the  Tribune,  employed  Horace  White  and 
Robert  R.  Hitt  as  its  reporters,  and  the  Times  employed  Henry 
Binmore  and  James  B.  Sheridan.  These  were  four  competent 
reporters.  There  was  a  considerable  variation  in  the  reports. 
The  outdoor  surroundings,  the  variable  winds,  the  jostling 
crowds,  the  noise  and  inadequate  facilities  in  the  way  of  tables, 
made  accurate  reports  difficult;  and  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  each  side  reported  its  own  candidate  more  carefully  than  the 
other.  The  charges  of  misquoting  lessened  as  the  campaign 
proceeded.  The  speeches  were  not  telegraphed  to  Chicago.  The 
reporters  transcribed  their  notes,  taking  them  personally  from 
the  nearer  places,  and  mailing  them  or  sending  them  by  mes- 
sengers from  the  more  distant  cities.  In  the  printed  volumes, 
Lincoln's  speeches  are  quoted  from  the  Press  and  Tribune,  and 
those  of  Douglas  from  the  Times. 

The  first  joint  debate  was  held  in  Ottawa,  Saturday,  August 
21,  1858.  Douglas  had  the  opening  hour  and  closing  half-hour, 
and  Lincoln  spoke  one  and  one-half  hours  between.  In  this  de- 
bate there  was  free  interchange  of  personalities,  courteous  ac- 
cording to  the  standards  of  the  time,  but  with  a  free  and  rough 
humor  much  appreciated  by  the  audience.  Each  speaker  told 
how  successful  the  other  man  had  been,  and  how  unsuccessful  he 
himself  was,  and  neither  deceived  any  one  by  his  mock  humility. 

Douglas  led  off  in  this  play  to  the  galleries: 

In  the  remarks  I  have  made  on  this  platform,  and  the  position 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  upon  it,  I  mean  nothing  personally  disrespectful 
or  unkind  to  that  gentleman.  I  have  known  him  for  nearly 
twenty-five  years.  There  were  many  points  of  sympathy  be- 
tween us  when  we  first  got  acquainted.     We  were  both  com- 


39Q  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

paratively  boys,  and  both  struggling  with  poverty  in  a  strange 
land.  I  was  a  school-teacher  in  the  town  of  Winchester, 
and  he  a  flourishing  grocery-keeper  in  the  town  of  Salem.  He 
was  more  successful  in  his  occupation  than  I  was  in  mine,  and 
hence  more  fortunate  in  this  world's  goods.  Lincoln  is  one  of 
those  peculiar  men  who  perforin  with  admirable  skill  everything 
which  they  undertake.  I  made  as  good  a  school-teacher  as  I 
could,  and  when  a  cabinet  maker  I  made  a  good  bedstead  and 
tables,  although  my  old  boss  said  I  succeeded  better  with  bureaus 
and  secretaries  than  with  anything  else ;  but  I  believe  that  Lin- 
coln was  always  more  successful  in  business  than  I,  for  his  busi- 
ness enabled  him  to  get  into  the  Legislature.  I  met  him  there, 
however,  and  had  a  sympathy  with  him,  because  of  the  up-hill 
struggle  we  both  had  in  life.  He  was  then  just  as  good  at  telling 
an  anecdote  as  now.  He  could  beat  any  of  the  boys  wrestling, 
or  running  a  foot-race,  in  pitching  quoits  or  tossing  a  copper; 
could  ruin  more  liquor  than  all  of  the  boys  of  the  town  together ; 
and  the  dignity  and  impartiality  with  which  he  presided  at  a 
horse-race  or  fist-fight  excited  the  admiration  and  won  the 
praise  of  everybody  that  was  present  and  participated.  I  sym- 
pathized with  him  because  he  was  struggling  with  difficulties, 
and  so  was  I.  Mr.  Lincoln  served  with  me  in  the  Legislature  in 
1836,  when  we  both  retired,  and  he  subsided,  or  became  sub- 
merged, and  he  was  lost  sight  of  as  a  public  man  for  some  years. 
In  1846,  when  Wilmot  introduced  his  celebrated  proviso,  and  the 
Abolition  tornado  swept  over  the  country,  Lincoln  again  turned 
up  as  a  member  of  Congress  from  the  Sangamon  district.  I  was 
then  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  was  glad  to  wel- 
come my  old  friend  and  companion.  Whilst  in  Congress,  he  dis- 
tinguished himself  by  his  opposition  to  the  Mexican  War,  taking 
the  side  of  the  common  enemy  against  his  own  country ;  and 
when  he  returned  home  he  found  that  the  indignation  of  the 
people  followed  him  everywhere,  and  he  was  again  submerged  or 
obliged  to  retire  into  private  life,  forgotten  by  his  former  friends. 
He  came  up  again  in  1854,  just  in  time  to  make  this  abolition  or 
Black  Republican  platform,  in  company  with  Giddings,  Lovejoy, 
Chase,  and  Fred  Douglass,  for  the  Republican  party  to  stand 
upon. 

Lincoln  had,  indeed,  kept  a  country  store;  but  a  "grocery"  as 
then  understood,  was  a  place  principally  for  the  sale  of  liquor. 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  391 

Lincoln  took  pains  to  have  it  understood  that  he  had  never  kept 
that  kind  of  establishment,  and  he  also  took  pains  to  refute  the 
charge  that  he  had  shown  lack  of  loyalty  to  his  country  or  her 
soldiers,  in  his  opposition  to  the  Mexican  War: 

Now  I  pass  on  to  consider  one  or  two  more  of  these  little 
follies.  The  judge  is  woefully  at  fault  about  his  early  friend 
Lincoln  being  a  "grocery-keeper."  I  don't  know  as  it  would  be 
a  great  sin,  if  I  had  been;  but  he  is  mistaken.  Lincoln  never 
kept  a  grocery  anywhere  in  the  world.  It  is  true  that  Lincoln 
did  work  the  latter  part  of  one  winter  in  a  little  still-house,  up  at 
the  head  of  a  hollow.  And  so  I  think  my  friend  the  Judge  is 
equally  at  fault  when  he  charges  me  at  the  time  when  I  was  in 
Congress  of  having  opposed  our  soldiers  who  were  fighting  in 
the  Mexican  War.  The  judge  did  not  make  his  charge  very 
distinctly,  but  I  can  tell  you  what  he  can  prove,  by  referring  to 
the  record.  You  remember  I  was  an  old  WThig,  and  whenever  the 
Democratic  party  tried  to  get  me  to  vote  that  the  war  had  been 
righteously  begun  by  the  president,  I  would  not  do  it.  But  when- 
ever they  asked  for  any  money,  or  land-warrants,  or  anything 
to  pay  the  soldiers  there,  during  all  that  time,  I  gave  the  same 
vote  that  Judge  Douglas  did.  You  can  think  as  you  please  as 
to  whether  that  was  consistent.  Such  is  the  truth;  and  the 
Judge  has  the  right  to  make  all  he  can  out  of  it.  But  when  he, 
by  a  general  charge,  conveys  the  idea  that  I  withheld  supplies 
from  the  soldiers  who  were  fighting  in  the  Mexican  War,  or  did 
anything  else  to  hinder  the  soldiers,  he  is,  to  say  the  least,  gross- 
ly and  altogether  mistaken,  as  a  consultation  of  the  records  will 
prove  to  him. 

As  I  have  not  used  up  so  much  of  my  time  as  I  had  supposed, 
I  will  dwell  a  little  longer  upon  one  or  two  of  these  minor  topics 
upon  which  the  Judge  has  spoken.  He  has  read  from  my  speech 
in  Springfield,  in  which  I  say  that  "a  house  divided  against  it- 
self cannot  stand."  Does  the  judge  say  it  can  stand?  I  don't 
know  whether  he  does  or  not.  The  judge  does  not  seem  to  be 
attending  to  me  just  now,  but  I  would  like  to  know,  if  it  is  his 
opinion  that  a  house  divided  against  itself  can  stand.  If  he  does, 
then  there  is  a  question  of  veracity,  not  between  him  and  me, 
but  between  the  judge  and  an  authority  of  a  somewhat  higher 
character. 


392  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  second  of  the  joint  debates  occurred  at  Freeport,  Friday, 
August  twenty-seventh.  This  was  the  northernmost  point  in 
which  a  debate  occurred,  and  Lincoln  took  advantage  of  this 
fact  to  propound  to  Douglas  a  series  of  interrogatories  whose 
answers  by  Douglas  are  known  as  the  "Freeport  heresy."  The 
crucial  question  which  he  propounded  to  Douglas  was,  "Can  the 
people  of  a  United  States  territory  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the 
wish  of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from 
its  limits  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  state  constitution?" 

This  was  no  new  question  to  Douglas,  for  Lyman  Trumbull 
had  propounded  it  to  him  more  than  two  years  earlier  on  June 
9,  1856.  At  that  time,  however,  the  Dred  Scott  decision  had  not 
been  rendered,  and  Douglas  was  able  to  say  that  this  was  a 
judicial  question  and  that  a  good  Democrat  would  stand  by  the 
decision  of  the  court.  Now  that  decision  had  been  rendered,  and 
Douglas  made  the  best  of  a  painful  necessity,  and  declared  that 
the  people  of  a  state  could  attain  that  result  by  virtue  of  the  police 
power  which  they  might  exercise  through  unfriendly  legislation. 
Lincoln  knew  that  this  answer  would  gain  Douglas  some  imme- 
diate support,  but  ultimately  would  lose  him  many  votes  in  the 
South,  and  very  possibly  would  defeat  his  hopes  for  the  presi- 
dency.   This  is  the  answer  of  Douglas: 

The  next  question  propounded  to  me  by  Mr.  Lincoln  is,  Can 
the  people  of  a  Territory  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the  wishes  of 
any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits 
prior  to  the  formation  of  a  state  constitution  ?  I  answer  emphati- 
cally, as  Mr.  Lincoln  has  heard  me  answer  a  hundred  times  from 
every  stump  in  Illinois,  that  in  my  opinion  the  people  of  a  terri- 
tory can,  by  lawful  means,  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits  prior 
to  the  formation  of  a  state  constitution.  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  that 
I  had  answered  that  question  over  and  over  again.  He  heard 
me  argue  the  Nebraska  bill  on  that  principle  all  over  the  state 
in  1854,  in  1855,  and  in  1856,  and  he  has  no  excuse  for  pretend- 
ing to  be  in  doubt  as  to  my  position  on  that  question.  It  matters 
not  what  way  the  Supreme  Court  may  hereafter  decide  as  to  the 
abstract  question  whether  slavery  may  or  may  not  go  into  a  ter- 


THE  LIXCOLX-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  393 

ritorv  under  the  Constitution,  the  people  have  the  lawful  means 
to  introduce  it  or  exclude  it  as  they  please,  for  the  reason  that 
slavery  cannot  exist  a  day  or  an  hour  anywhere,  unless  it  is 
supported  by  local  police  regulations.  Those  police  regulations 
can  only  be  established  by  the  local  legislature;  and  if  the  peo- 
ple are  opposed  to  slavery,  they  will  elect  representatives  to  that 
body  who  will  by  unfriendly  legislation  effectually  prevent  the 
introduction  of  it  into  their  midst.  If,  on  the  contrary,  they  are 
for  it,  their  legislation  will  favor  its  extension.  Hence,  no  mat- 
ter what  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  may  be  on  that  ab- 
stract question,  still  the  right  of  the  people  to  make  a  slave 
territory  or  a  free  territory  is  perfect  and  complete  under  the 
X'ebraska  bill.  I  hope  Mr.  Lincoln  deems  my  answer  satisfactory 
on  that  point. 

Lincoln  can  not  have  been  very  well  satisfied  with  the  imme- 
diate effect  of  this  answer;  and  some  of  his  friends  regretted  his 
having  asked  it.  Lincoln  knew,  however,  that  whatever  Douglas 
gained  in  the  Xorth  by  this  declaration,  he  would  lose  in  the 
South.  It  is  claimed  that  by  this  question  Lincoln  deliberately 
gave  Douglas  the  senatorship,  that  later  he  might  defeat  Douglas 
for  the  presidency;  but  this  is  too  much  to  claim  in  the  way  of 
political  sagacity  and  foresight.  Few  if  any  politicians,  with  a 
high  office  within  their  grasp,  deliberately  sacrifice  it  for  the  sake 
of  a  larger  possibility  two  years  remote.  The  contingencies  of 
political  life  are  too  many  and  too  uncertain  for  such  a  gamble 
against  the  fates.  Lincoln  knew  what  Douglas  would  answer, 
and  knew  that  Douglas  would  lose  quite  as  much  as  he  would 
gain  by  it. 

The  discussions  at  Jonesboro  and  Charleston  followed  on  Wed- 
nesday and  Saturday,  September  fifteenth  and  eighteenth  re- 
spectively, and  then  occurred  the  memorable  debate  at  Galesburg, 
Thursday,  October  seventh.  Knox  College,  on  whose  campus 
this  discussion  occurred,  believed  in  Lincoln,  and  when  he  was 
elected  president,  conferred  on  him  the  degree  Doctor  of  Laws.* 


*The   motion    to    confer    this    degree   on    Lincoln    was   made   by    O.    H. 
Browning,  a  member  of  the  Knox  College  Board  of  Trustees. 


394  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  was  among  his  friends  at  Galesburg.  Above  the  stand 
where  he  and  Douglas  spoke  was  a  great  banner  bearing  the 
legend,  "Knox  College  for  Lincoln."  There  Lincoln  set  forth 
more  strongly  than  he  had  done  elsewhere,  not  simply  his  own 
conviction  that  the  nation  must  become  either  wholly  slave  or 
wholly  free,  but  his  belief  that  the  position  taken  by  Douglas 
with  reference  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  preparing  inevi- 
tably to  make  slavery  national.  If  property  in  slaves  was  the 
same  morally  as  property  in  horses  or  other  chattels,  then  Doug- 
las was  right,  and  his  position  was  entirely  logical  in  profession 
not  to  care  whether  slavery  was  voted  up  or  down.  But  Lincoln 
contended  that  between  slavery  and  all  other  forms  of  property 
was  a  high  moral  distinction  which  Douglas  with  his  great  skill 
and  ability  was  steadfastly  endeavoring  to  obliterate.  Comment- 
ing on  Douglas's  statement  that  he  did  not  care  whether  slavery 
was  voted  up  or  down,  he  said : 

This  is  perfectly  logical,  if  you  do  not  admit  that  slavery  is 
wrong.  If  you  do  admit  that  it  is  wrong,  Judge  Douglas  cannot 
logically  say  he  don't  care  whether  a  wrong  is  voted  up  or  voted 
down.  Judge  Douglas  declares  that  if  any  community  wants 
slavery  they  have  a  right  to  have  it.  He  can  say  that  logically, 
if  he  says  that  there  is  no  wrong  in  slavery ;  but  if  you  admit 
that  there  is  a  wrong  in  it,  he  cannot  logically  say  that  anybody 
has  a  right  to  do  wrong.  He  insists  that,  upon  the  score  of 
equality,  the  owners  of  slaves  and  owners  of  property — of 
horses  and  every  other  sort  of  property — should  be  alike,  and 
hold  them  alike  in  a  new  Territory.  That  is  perfectly  logical  if 
the  two  species  of  property  are  alike  and  are  equally  founded  in 
right.  But  if  you  admit  that  one  of  them  is  wrong,  you  can  not 
institute  any  equality  between  right  and  wrong.  And  from  this 
difference  of  sentiment, — the  belief  on  the  part  of  one  that  the 
institution  is  wrong,  and  a  policy  springing  from  that  belief  which 
looks  to  the  arrest  of  the  enlargement  of  that  wrong;  and  this 
other  sentiment,  that  it  is  no  wrong,  and  a  policy  sprung  from 
that  sentiment,  which  will  tolerate  no  idea  of  preventing  the 
wrong  from  growing  larger,  and  looks  to  there  never  being  an 
end  to  it  through  all  the  existence  of  things, — arises  the  real  dif- 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  395 

ference  between  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  Republicans  on  the  other.  Now,  I  confess  myself  as  be- 
longing to  that  class  in  the  country  who  contemplate  slavery  as 
a  moral,  social,  and  political  evil,  having  due  regard  for  its  actual 
existence  amongst  us  and  the  difficulties  of  getting  rid  of  it  in 
any  satisfactory  way,  and  to  all  the  constitutional  obligations 
which  have  been  thrown  about  it ;  but,  nevertheless,  desire  a 
policy  that  looks  to  the  prevention  of  it  as  a  wrong,  and  looks 
hopefully  to  the  time  when  as  a  wrong  it  may  come  to  an  end. 

Webster,  Calhoun  and  Clay  were  dead.  Douglas  was  probably 
the  ablest  man  in  the  United  States  Senate  in  the  year  1858.  His 
success  as  a  compromiser  had  caused  him  frequently  to  be  alluded 
to  as  a  successor  of  Henry  Clay.  One  of  the  ablest  paragraphs 
in  Lincoln's  address  at  Galesburg  was  that  in  which  he  quoted 
Clay  himself  on  the  slavery  question,  contrasting  his  position 
with  that  of  Douglas,  and  planted  himself  irrevocably  on  the 
moral  aspects  of  the  issue.  The  Republican  Party  had  been 
charged  by  Douglas  with  being  a  sectional  and  divisive  party. 
Lincoln  declared  that  it  was  the  friends  of  slavery  who  were  sec- 
tional and  divisive.  Freedom  was  national;  slavery  was  sec- 
tional, and  the  issue  between  those  who  favored  freedom  and 
those  who  favored  slavery  was  incontestably  a  moral  issue. 
Here  Lincoln  made  a  frank  avowal  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Lib- 
erty Party  of  1840  and  1844.  But  Lincoln  cited  as  his  authority, 
not  that  party  but  Henry  Clay.  This  is  the  fine  paragraph  in 
which  Lincoln  quoted  Clay  against  Douglas  and  reaffirmed  the 
unalterable  quality  of  the  slavery  issue : 

I  have  said  once  before,  and  I  will  repeat  it  now,  that  Mr. 
Clay,  when  he  was  once  answering  an  objection  to  the  Coloniza- 
tion Society,  that  it  had  a  tendency  to  the  ultimate  emancipation 
of  the  slaves,  said  that  "those  who  would  repress  all  tendencies 
to  liberty  and  ultimate  emancipation  must  do  more  than  put 
down  the  benevolent  efforts  of  the  Colonization  Society — they 
must  go  back  to  the  era  of  our  liberty  and  independence,  and 
muzzle  the  cannon  that  thunders  its  annual  joyous  return;  they 
must  blot  out  the  moral  lights  around  us;  they  must  penetrate 


396  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM-  LINCOLN 

the  human  soul,  and  eradicate  the  light  of  reason  and  the  love  of 
liberty!"  And  I  do  think — I  repeat,  though  I  said  it  on  a  former 
occasion — that  Judge  Douglas  and  whoever,  like  him,  teaches 
that  the  negro  has  no  share,  humble  though  it  may  be,  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  is  going  back  to  the  era  of  our 
liberty  and  independence,  and,  so  far  as  in  him  lies,  muzzling  the 
cannon  that  thunders  its  annual  joyous  return;  that  he  is  blow- 
ing out  the  moral  lights  around  us,  when  he  contends  that  who- 
ever wants  slaves  has  a  right  to  hold  them;  that  he  is  penetrat- 
ing, so  far  as  lies  in  his  power,  the  human  soul,  and  eradicating 
the  light  of  reason  and  the  love  of  liberty,  when  he  is  in  every 
possible  way  preparing  the  public  mind,  by  his  vast  influence, 
for  making  the  institution  of  slavery  perpetual  and  national. 

The  Galesburg  meeting  was  the  high-water  mark  of  the  de- 
bates. Both  men  had  thoroughly  learned  each  other's  method 
and  material,  and  each  was  certain  of  his  own  resources.  The 
two  discussions  at  Ouincy  and  Alton,  on  Wednesday  and  Fri- 
day, October  thirteenth  and  fifteenth,  closed  what  proved  to  be 
an  epoch-making  campaign  such  as  America  never  has  witnessed 
before  or  since. 

At  every  one  of  the  places  appointed,  excepting  only  Jones- 
boro  and  Alton,  the  two  southernmost  points  on  the  circuit,  the 
crowds  were  vast.  The  largest,  according  to  Horace  White 
who  reported  the  addresses,  was  at  Galesburg.  When  Douglas 
began  this  campaign,  his  rich  smooth  voice  was  clear.  In  the 
closing  addresses  he  was  so  hoarse  that  it  was  difficult  for  him 
to  be  heard.  His  flow  of  words  was  so  continuous  and  unhesi- 
tating, his  method  of  approach  was  so  direct,  and  his  person- 
ality was  so  pleasing,  he  was  listened  to  with  great  satisfaction. 
Lincoln  had  a  thin  tenor  voice  that  was  almost  a  falsetto.  It  had 
good  carrying  power,  and  better  wearing  qualities  than  the  rich 
baritone  of  Douglas,  but  it  was  not  so  pleasing  or  impressive. 
Audiences  were  uniformly  impressed  with  the  fact  that  the  little 
man  had  the  big  voice,  and  the  big  man  had  the  little  voice.  The 
grace  and  self-confidence  of  Douglas  made  all  the  more  appar- 
ent the  awkwardness  of  Lincoln,  and   the   difficulty  which  he 


THE  LIXCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES      397 

sometimes  encountered  of  getting  his  address  under  way.  But 
when  he  had  fairly  got  into  his  subject,  Lincoln  was  no  longer 
constrained  or  awkward.  Xot  only  was  his  great  stature  im- 
pressive, but  there  was  a  certain  fine  dignity  in  his  vast  propor- 
tions and  a  convincing  quality  in  his  method  of  argument. 

In  this  campaign,  the  apathy,  if  not  hostility,  of  Horace 
Greeley  was  a  continued  sorrow  to  Lincoln.  His  sorrow  was  in- 
creased as  election  approached,  by  tidings  which  reached  Lincoln 
to  the  effect  that  John  J.  Crittenden,  the  venerable  Kentucky 
Whig  senator,  was  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  Douglas.  Lin- 
coln could  hardly  credit  this  information.  He  wrote  to  Senator 
Crittenden  and  his  worst  fears  were  confirmed.  Crittenden  be- 
lieved that  Douglas  had  manifested  in  the  Senate  such  an  atti- 
tude of  heroism  in  the  matter  of  the  Lecompton  Constitution, 
that  he  ought  to  be  reelected  regardless  of  the  effect  of  his  elec- 
tion on  the  new  Republican  Party  of  Illinois.  This  was  bad 
enough,  but  as  yet  it  had  not  been  made  public.  About  a  week 
before  the  election,  T.  Lyle  Dickey,  one  of  Lincoln's  long-time 
friends,  who,  however,  sympathized  with  the  view  of  Greeley 
regarding  Douglas,  published  a  letter  from  Crittenden  which  he 
had  been  keeping  for  some  time  as  an  eleventh-hour  document. 
This  letter,  frankly  supporting  Douglas,  amazed  Lincoln'? 
friends.  The  Journal  tried  to  explain  it  away,  but  some  one 
telegraphed  to  Crittenden  and  he  repudiated  the  Journal's  ex- 
planation. He  was  frankly  opposed  to  Lincoln.  This  was  a  last 
straw,  and  more  than  a  straw.  Lincoln  believed  that  it  was  the 
determining  factor  in  his  defeat.* 

Besides  his  several  discussions  with  Douglas,  Lincoln  filled 
thirty-one  appointments  made  for  him  by  the  State  Committee; 
and  he  spoke  at  several  other  places  not  arranged  for  by  the 
party  managers.  A  few  days  before  the  end  of  the  campaign. 
he  returned  to  Springfield  and  was  at  home  over  the  last  week- 


*Lincoln's  letters  to  Crittenden  are  to  be  found  in  the  various  editions 
of  Lincoln's  writings  :  and  those  of  Crittenden  to  Lincoln  are  in  the  Life  of 
John  ].  Crittenden,  by  Mrs.  Coleman,  his  daughter. 


398  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

end.     On  the  last  Saturday  before  the  election,  Herndon  wrote 
to  Theodore  Parker : 

Springfield,  111.,  October  30,  1858. 

Friend : — To-day  is  Saturday  and  in  a  little  while  Mr.  Lincoln 
opens  on  our  square,  close  to  the  state-house,  on  the  great,  vital, 
and  dominant  issues  of  the  day  and  age.  We  feel,  as  usual,  full 
of  enthusiasm  and  of  hope,  and  there  is  nothing  which  can  well 
defeat  us  but  the  elements,  and  the  wandering,  roving,  robbing 
Irish,  who  have  flooded  over  the  State.  This  charge  is  no  hum- 
bug cry:  it  is  a  real  and  solid  and  terrible  reality,  looking  us 
right  in  the  face,  with  its  thumb  on  its  nose.  We,  throughout 
the  States  have  this  question  before  us:  "What  shall  we  do? 
Shall  we  tamely  submit  to  the  Irish,  or  shall  we  rise  and  cut 
their  throats?"  If  blood  is  shed  in  Illinois  to  maintain  the  pur- 
ity of  the  ballot-box,  and  the  rights  of  the  popular  will,  do  not  be 
at  all  surprised.  We  are  roused  and  fired  to  fury.  My  feelings 
are  ideas  to  some  extent  and  therefore  cool — I  try  to  persuade 
both  parties  to  keep  calm  and  cool,  if  possible ;  but  let  me  say  to 
you,  that  there  is  great  and  imminent  danger  of  a  general  and 
terrible  row,  and  if  it  commences  woe  be  to  the  Irish — poor 
fellows ! 

You  know  my  position  now,  and  let  me  state  to  you  that  I 
am  amidst  the  knowing  ones,  clubs,  county  committees,  State 
committees,  leaders,  sagacious  men,  etc.,  and  from  all  places 
and  persons  comes  up  this  intelligence,  ''All  is  well."  I,  myself, 
fear  and  am  scolded  because  I  cannot  feel  as  I  should — as  others 
do.  My  intuition — brute  forecast,  if  you  will — my  bones,  tell 
me  that  all  is  not  safe ;  yet  I  hope  for  the  best.  How  are  you — 
are  you  up  and  walking  about?  Quit  reading  and  writing,  if  you 
can,  and  go  off  on  a  spree. 

Your  friend, 

W.  H.  Herndon. 

Lincoln  was  one  of  several  speakers  at  this  Saturday  meeting, 
He  had  been  accustomed  to  speak  without  notes,  or  with  very 
few  notes,  in  the  seven  great  joint  meetings,  but  on  this  occasion 
he  wrote  carefully  his  brief  address.*    He  must  have  known  that 


*It  is  probable  that  he  spoke  in  part  extemporaneously,  but  he  wrote  the 
portion  that  he  considered  of  supreme  importance. 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  399 

in  all  probability  the  following  Tuesday  would  see  the  election 
of  representatives  and  state  senators  who  would  make  certain 
the  choice  of  Douglas  as  senator  to  succeed  himself.  Reviewing 
the  campaign  from  the  experience  available  at  its  close,  Lincoln 
reaffirmed  in  the  strongest  possible  terms  his  unalterable  op- 
position to  the  extension  of  slavery.  He  said  that  he  had  prayed 
earnestly  to  God,  and  had  chosen  his  position  in  a  clear  convic- 
tion of  duty.  He  said  that  he  had  not  intended  in  that  cam- 
paign to  speak  harshly  of  any  one,  and  if  he  had  done  so  inad- 
vertently or  without  being  conscious  of  doing  so,  he  was  truly 
sorry.  He  said  that  he  had  been  charged  with  being  ambitious, 
and  he  did  not  deny  the  charge.  But  he  affirmed  that  if  he 
could  be  assured  that  the  Missouri  restriction  would  be  re-en- 
acted, and  slavery  put  back  into  its  historic  position  as  an 
acknowledged  evil,  to  be  presently  tolerated  within  its  then  pres- 
ent limits  as  a  necessity,  but  to  be  opposed  in  confident  hope  of 
its  ultimate  extinction,  he  would  gladly,  in  consideration,  agree 
never  to  be  a  candidate  for  any  office,  nor  to  oppose  the  candi- 
dacy of  Judge  Douglas  for  any  office,  so  long  as  either  of  them 
should  live. 

This  last  speech  of  Lincoln  was  never  printed.  It  is  in  reali- 
ty his  'iost  speech."  Delivered  on  Saturday,  it  found  no  place 
in  the  Journal  of  Monday,  for  that  paper  was  already  well  set 
with  the  last  campaign  material  that  could  be  printed  before 
election. 

In  considering  the  wrords  which  Lincoln  spoke  on  that  occa- 
sion, we  are  to  remember  how  bitter  had  been  some  of  the 
charges  against  him,  and  how  cruelly  he  believed  himself  to  have 
been  wounded  in  the  house  of  his  friends.  T.  Lyle  Dickey,  who 
procured  the  Crittenden  letter  and  held  it  until  just  before 
election,  was  a  personal  and  political  friend.  As  for  Senator  Crit- 
tenden, Lincoln,  speaking  a  year  later  in  Cincinnati,  told  of 
Crittenden's  letters  written  in  the  interest  of  Douglas,  and  which 
Lincoln  believed  defeated  him,  called  him  "a  senator  from  Ken- 
tucky whom  I  have  always  loved  with  an  affection  as  tender  and 

15 


400  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

enduring  as  I  have  ever  loved  any  man."  Under  these  conditions, 
Lincoln's  short  address  reveals  a  noble  and  lofty  spirit.  It  is  our 
privilege  after  sixty-five  years  to  read  the  words  which  Lincoln 
spoke  on  that  memorable  day:* 

My  friends,  to-day  closes  the  discussions  of  this  canvass.  The 
planting  and  the  culture  are  over ;  and  there  remains  but  the  prep- 
aration, and  the  harvest. 

I  stand  here  surrounded  by  friends — some  political,  all  personal 
friends,  I  trust.  May  I  be  indulged,  in  this  closing  scene,  to  say 
a  few  words  of  myself.  I  have  borne  a  laborious,  and,  in  some 
respects  to  myself,  a  painful  part  in  the  contest.  Through  all,  I 
have  neither  assailed,  nor  wrestled  with  any  part  of  the  constitu- 
tion. The  legal  right  of  the  Southern  people  to  reclaim  their 
fugitives  I  have  constantly  admitted.  The  legal  right  of  Congress 
to  interfere  with  their  institutions  in  the  States,  I  have  constantly 
denied.  In  resisting  the  spread  of  slavery  to  new  territory,  and 
with  that,  what  appears  to  me  to  be  a  tendency  to  subvert  the 
first  principle  of  free  government  itself  my  whole  effort  has 
consisted.  To  the  best  of  my  judgment  I  have  labored  for,  and 
not  against,  the  Union.  As  I  have  not  felt,  so  I  have  not  ex- 
pressed any  harsh  sentiment  towards  our  Southern  brethren.  I 
have  constantly  declared,  as  I  have  really  believed,  the  only  dif- 
ference between  them  and  us,  is  the  difference  of  circumstances. 

I  have  meant  to  assail  the  motives  of  no  party,  or  individual ; 
and  if  I  have,  in  any  instance  (of  which  I  am  not  conscious) 
departed  from  my  purpose,  I  regret  it. 

I  have  said  that  in  some  respects  the  contest  has  been  painful 
to  me.  Myself,  and  those  with  whom  I  act,  have  been  constantly 
accused  of  a  purpose  to  destroy  the  Union ;  and  bespattered  with 
every  imaginable  odious  epithet ;  and  some  who  were  friends,  as 
it  were  but  yesterday  have  made  themselves  most  active  in  this. 
I  have  cultivated  patience,  and  made  no  attempt  at  a  retort. 

Ambition  has  been  ascribed  to  me.  God  knows  how  sincerely 
I  prayed  from  the  first  that  this  field  of  ambition  might  not  be 
opened.  I  claim  no  insensibility  to  political  honors;  but  to-day 
could  the  Missouri  restriction  be  restored,  and  the  whole  slavery 


*For  the  courtesy  of  using  this  hitherto  unknown  but  highly  important 
address,  I  am  indebted  to  the  owner  of  the  manuscript,  my  friend,  Mr.  Oliver 
R.  Barrett,  whose  collection  of  Lincoln  manuscripts,  the  most  valuable  in 
any  private  ownership,  has  been  placed  at  my  service. 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES      401 

question  replaced  on  the  old  ground  of  "toleration''  by  necessity 
where  it  exists,  with  unyielding  hostility  to  the  spread  of  it,  on 
principle,  I  would,  in  consideration,  gladly  agree,  that  Judge 
Douglas  should  never  be  out,  and  I  never  in,  an  office,  so  long 
as  we  both,  or  either,  live. 

These  are  not  the  words  of  a  politician  whose  ethics  are  those 
of  opportunism.  They  are  the  words  of  a  noble  statesman  and 
an  honest  man.  They  are  words  that  deserve  to  become  as  well 
known  and  as  immortal  as  the  best  known  and  most  cherished  of 
the  utterances  of  Lincoln. 

Lincoln  was  defeated,  but  not  badly  so.  The  Legislature 
elected  on  Tuesday,  November  2,  1858,  gave  Douglas  fifty-four 
votes,  to  Lincoln's  forty-six.  A  change  of  five  legislative  votes 
would  have  elected  Lincoln.  Indeed,  he  had  a  popular  majority 
of  over  four  thousand,  and  but  for  the  bad  apportionment  law 
which  then  existed,  would  have  defeated  Douglas. 

As  Herndon  had  written  to  Theodore  Parker  just  before  the 
election,  so  he  wrote  again  a  few  days  after  that  event.  The  let- 
ter gives  an  analysis  of  the  political  situation  as  it  then  appeared 
to  this  hot-headed  abolitionist  friend  of  Lincoln  : 

Springfield,  111.,  Nov.  8,   1858. 
Friend  Parker. 

Dear  Sir: — We  are  beaten  in  Illinois,  as  you  are  aware;  but 
you  may  want  to  know  the  causes  of  our  defeat.  Firstly,  then, 
I  have  more  than  once  said  our  State  presents  three  distinct 
phases  of  human  development :  the  extreme  north,  the  middle, 
and  the  extreme  south.  The  first  is  intelligence,  the  second 
timidity,  and  the  third  ignorance  on  the  special  issue,  but  good- 
ness and  bravery.  If  a  man  spoke  to  suit  the  north — for  free- 
dom, justice — this  killed  him  in  the  center  and  in  the  south.  So 
in  the  center,  it  killed  him  north  and  south.  So  in  the  south,  it 
surely  killed  him  north.  Lincoln  tried  to  stand  high  and  ele- 
^^ated,  so  he  fell  deep. 

Secondly,  Greeley  never  gave  us  one  single,  solitary,  manly 
lift.  On  the  contrary,  his  silence  was  his  opposition.  This  out- 
people  felt.  We  never  got  a  smile  or  a  word  of  encouragement 
outside  of  Illinois  from  any  quarter  during  all  this  great  canvass. 


402  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  East  was  for  Douglas  by  silence.  This  silence  was  terrible 
to  us.  Seward  was  against  us  too.  Thirdly,  Crittenden  wrote 
letters  to  Illinois  urging  the  Americans  and  Old  Line  Whigs  to 
go  for  Douglas,  and  so  they  went  "helter-skelter."  Thousands 
of  Whigs  dropped  us  just  on  the  eve  of  the  election,  through 
the  influence  of  Crittenden. 

Fourthly,  all  the  pro-slavery  men,  north  as  well  as  south,  went 
to  a  man  for  Douglas.  They  threw  into  this  State  money  and 
men,  and  speakers.  These  forces  and  powers  we  were  wholly 
denied  by  our  Northern  and  Eastern  friends.  This  cowed  us 
somewhat,  but  let  it  go.  Do  you  know  what  Byron  says  about 
revenge?  He  goes  off  in  this  wise:  "There  never  was  yet 
human  power,"  etc.  I  shall  make  no  hasty  pledges,  notwith- 
standing. I  am  bent  on  acting  practically,  so  that  I  can  help 
choke  down  slavery,  and  so  I  shall  say  nothing — not  a  word. 

Fifthly,  thousands  of  roving,  robbing,  bloated,  pock-marked 
Catholic  Irish  were  imported  upon  us  from  Philadelphia,  New 
York,  St.  Louis,  and  other  cities.  I  myself  know  of  such,  by 
their  own  confession.  Some  have  been  arrested,  and  are  now 
in  jail  awaiting  trial. 

I  want  distinctly  to  say  to  you  that  no  one  of  all  of  these 
■causes  defeated  Lincoln;  but  I  do  want  to  say  that  it  was  the 
combination,  with  the  power  and  influence  of  each,  that  "cleaned 
us  out."  Do  you  not  now  see  that  there  is  a  conspiracy  afloat 
which  threatens  the  disorganization  of  the  Republican  party? 
Do  you  not  see  that  Seward,  Greeley,  and  Crittenden,  etc.,  are  at 
this  moment  in  a  joint  common  understanding  to  lower  our  plat- 
form ? 

In  such  conclusion  let  me  say  that  as  Douglas  has  got  all 
classes  to  "boil  his  pot,"  with  antagonistic  materials  and  forces, 
that  there  is  bound,  by  the  laws  of  nature,  to  be  an  explosion — 
namely,  somebody  will  be  fooled.  Look  out!  Greeley  is  a 
natural  fool,  I  think,  in  this  matter — his  hearty  Douglas  position. 
So  with  Seward,  Crittenden,  with  South  and  North.  Douglas 
cannot  hold  all  these  places  and  men.  Mark  that!  I  am  busy  at 
Court  and  have  no  time  to  cut  down  or  amplify — hope  you  can 
understand.  Your  friend, 

W.  H.  Herndon. 

Lincoln  was  not  greatly  surprised  when  Douglas  was  elected. 
He  had  foreseen  the  result,  but  he  had  a  kind  of  abiding  faitli 


THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES  403 

that  his  own  defeat  brought  ultimate  success  nearer,  and  he  was 
right.  The  debates  were  printed  in  full,  and  eagerly  read 
throughout  the  country.  They  served  as  the  best  popular  inter- 
pretation of  the  issue  between  the  two  parties.  They  made  it 
more  certain  than  the  wisest  man  could  have  understood  in 
1858.  that  Douglas  and  his  party  could  not  forever  stand  on  the 
platform  which  he  had  laid  down  in  that  campaign.  Lincoln 
wrote  a  few  days  after  his  defeat : 

Douglas  had  the  ingenuity  to  be  supported  in  the  late  contest 
both  as  the  best  means  to  break  down  and  uphold  the  slave  in- 
terest. Xo  ingenuity  can  keep  these  antagonistic  elements  in 
harmony  long.     Another  explosion  will  soon  occur. 

Election  day  was  dark  and  rainy.  That  night  Lincoln  re- 
mained in  the  telegraph  office  with  a  group  of  friends  until  the 
returns  came  in  that  indicated  his  defeat.  Then  he  walked  home 
alone  in  the  dark  and  rain.  November  7,  1864,  was  another 
such  a  day ;  and  in  the  evening  a  small  group  gathered  in  the 
White  House  and  listened  to  the  returns  that  told  of  Lincoln's 
triumphant  reelection  to  the  presidency.  The  company  was 
small,  for  Washington  had  been  depopulated  by  those  who  had 
gone  home  to  vote.  Recalling  that  former  election  night  in  1858, 
with  the  weather  similar  but  other  conditions  quite  different, 
Lincoln  told  his  friends  his  recollections  of  that  evening,  and 
John  Hay  recorded  it  in  his  diary  : 

'Tor  such  an  awkward  fellow,"  said  Lincoln,  "I  am  pretty 
sure-footed.  It  used  to  take  a  pretty  dexterous  man  to  throw 
me.  I  remember  the  evening  of  the  day  in  1858  that  decided  the 
contest  for  the  Senate  between  Mr.  Douglas  and  myself,  was 
something  like  this,  dark,  rainy  and  gloomy.  I  had  been  reading 
the  returns,  and  had  ascertained  that  we  had  lost  the  Legisla- 
ture, and  I  started  to  go  home.  The  path  had  been  worn  pig- 
backed  and  was  slippery.  My  foot  slipped  from  under  me, 
knocking  the  other  out  of  the  way;  but  I  recovered  and  said  to 
myself,  'It's  a  slip  and  not  a  fall!'  " 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

LINCOLN    THE    RAILSPLITTER 
i860 

Little  did  Abraham  Lincoln  realize  when  he  was  splitting 
rails  to  fence  his  father's  first  farm  in  Illinois,  or  to  pay  for  a 
pair  of  homespun  trousers,  or  to  earn  a  few  dollars  from  Major 
Warnick  with  the  possible  added  advantage  of  seeing  the  major's 
daughter  Polly,  that  he  would  see  those  same  rails  or  any  of 
them  thirty  years  afterward,  borne  in  triumphal  procession  as 
evidence  of  his  fitness  for  the  presidency  of  the  United  States. 

Lincoln  returned  to  Springfield  after  his  defeat  at  the  hands 
of  Douglas,  disappointed  but  not  completely  discouraged.  If 
anything  could  have  disheartened  him,  it  would  not  have  been 
the  defeat,  but  the  fact  that  the  campaign  had  been  a  severe 
strain  upon  him  financially.  At  that  time  he  owned  a  house  and 
lot,  a  small  and  unremunerative  tract  of  land  in  Iowa  acquired 
by  him  from  the  government  in  recognition  of  his  military  serv- 
ice in  the  Black  Hawk  War,  and  a  law  practise  from  which  his 
annual  income  did  not  exceed  three  thousand  dollars.  For  six 
months  he  had  earned  practically  nothing  while  he  was  giving 
his  time  to  the  campaign  against  Douglas.  The  total  value  of 
his  property  as  estimated  by  Mr.  Arnold  may  have  been  ten  or 
twelve  thousand  dollars.  When  he  returned  to  Springfield  he 
received  a  request  from  the  Republican  State  Committee  that  he 
make  a  personal  contribution  toward  the  expense  of  the  cam- 
paign.   Lincoln  wrote  to  his  friend  Norman  B.  Judd : 

I  have  been  on  expenses  so  long,  without  earning  anything, 
that  I  am  absolutely  without  money  now  even  for  household  ex- 
penses.    Still,  if  you  can  put  in  $250  for  me  towards  discharg- 

404 


LINCOLN  THE  RAILSPLITTER  405 

ing  the  debt  of  the  committee,  I  will  allow  it  when  you  and  I 
settle  the  private  matter  between  us.  This,  with  what  I  have 
already  paid,  with  an  outstanding  note  of  mine,  will  exceed  my 
subscription  of  $500.  This,  too,  exclusive  of  my  ordinary  ex- 
penses during  the  campaign,  all  of  which,  being  added  to  my 
loss  of  time  and  business,  bears  pretty  heavily  upon  one  no  better 
off  in  this  world's  goods  than  I.  But  as  I  had  the  post  of  honor, 
it  is  not  for  me  to  be  over  nice. 

Lincoln  paid  his  share  of  the  campaign  expense,  and  went  back 
to  his  law  practise;  but  he  was  now  a  national  figure,  and  one 
certain  to  play  an  important  part  in  the  political  life  of  the  coun- 
try. 

Lincoln  then  had  some  thought  of  entering  the  lecture  field. 
He  prepared  a  lecture  on  "Discoveries  and  Inventions,"  and  de- 
livered it  in  a  few  towns  in  Illinois,  but  it  Avon  him  no  great  re- 
nown, and  he  soon  gave  up  the  lecture  field.  During  the  autumn 
of  1859,  Douglas  was  delivering  political  addresses  in  Ohio,  and 
Lincoln  accepted  an  invitation  to  speak  in  Cincinnati  and  Colum- 
bus, in  each  place  following  Douglas.  This  short  tour  added 
to  his  fame.  It  also  brought  to  him  a  gratifying  offer  from  a 
Columbus  firm  to  print  his  speeches  with  those  of  Douglas,  de- 
livered in  the  memorable  debate.  This  was  the  more  gratifying 
to  Lincoln  because  he  himself  had  made  some  effort  to  g"et  those 
speeches  published  in  Springfield,  and  had  not  been  able  to  se- 
cure a  publisher. 

On  Sunday  night,  October  16,  1859,  John  Brown,  who  had 
stood  resolutely  for  freedom  in  Kansas,  endeavored  to  brine  in 
the  kingdom  of  Heaven  by  violence.  With  a  small  body  of 
armed  men  he  seized  the  United  States  arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
on  the  Potomac  River,  in  Virginia.  He  believed  that  if  the 
slaves  were  given  a  leader  and  an  opportunity  of  freedom,  they 
would  rise  and  throw  off  the  yoke  of  oppression.  The  slaves  ex- 
hibited no  favorable  response  to  John  Brown's  attempt  to  free 
them.  Brown's  insurrection  was  speedily  put  down  by  United 
States  troops.     Several  of  his  followers,   including  two  of  his 


406  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sons,  were  killed.  Brown  himself  was  severely  wounded  and 
captured.  He  was  tried  by  the  Virginia  courts,  condemned  and 
on  December  2,  1859,  was  hanged.  The  slave-holding  South 
was  terribly  agitated  by  his  insurrection,  believing  that  virtu- 
ally the  whole  North  was  endeavoring  to  incite  the  slaves  to 
bloody  insurrection.  In  the  North,  Brown's  futile  effort  was 
regarded  for  the  most  part  with  disapproval  for  its  unwisdom 
and  its  violation  of  law;  but  it  stirred  the  admiration  of  many 
thousands  who  honored  the  heroism  of  a  deed  they  could  not 
wholly  approve;  and  it  quite  certainly  brought  nearer  the  day 
when  the  whole  country  would  have  to  face  the  irrepressible  con- 
flict between  slavery  and  freedom. 

In  the  winter  of  1859  Lincoln  visited  Kansas.  There  he  was 
received  with  marked  evidence  of  popular  favor.  The  free  state 
of  Kansas  realized  that  it  owed  to  Lincoln  not  a  little  for  its  free- 
dom. He  spoke  at  Atchison,  Troy,  Leavenworth  and  other 
towns.  His  speeches  were  essentially  a  repetition  of  the  argu- 
ments which  he  had  used  in  his  debate  with  Douglas,  and  tie 
could  not  have  found  better  material  for  his  speeches  in  Kansas, 
nor  audiences  more  in  sympathy. 

Lincoln  was  careful  not  to  take  the  side  of  John  Brown  in  his 
armed  attack  upon  the  government ;  but  he  warned  the  men  upon 
the  other  side,  who  had  hanged  Brown,  that  if  they  made  violent 
attack  upon  the  nation,  as  a  protest  against  the  election  of  a 
candidate  whom  they  did  not  like,  they  might  expect  a  like  result. 

What  Lincoln  thought  about  Brown  was  carefully  written 
and  stated  in  his  Cooper-Union  address  a  few  weeks  later : 

John  Brown's  effort  was  peculiar.  It  was  not  a  slave  insur- 
rection. It  was  an  attempt  by  white  men  to  get  up  a  revolt 
among  slaves,  in  which  the  slaves  refused  to  participate.  In  fact, 
it  was  so  absurd  that  the  slaves,  with  all  their  ignorance,  saw 
plainly  enough  it  could  not  succeed.  That  affair,  in  its  philoso- 
phy, corresponds  with  the  many  attempts  related  in  history,  at 
the  assassination  of  kings  and  emperors.  An  enthusiast  broods 
over  the  oppression  of  the  people  till  he  fancies  himself  com- 


LINCOLN   THE   RAILSPLITTER  40; 

missioned  by  Heaven  to  liberate  them.  He  ventures  the  attempt, 
which  ends  in  little  else  than  his  own  execution.  Orsini's  attempt 
on  Louis  Napoleon  and  John  Brown's  attempt  at  Harper's  Ferry 
were,  in  their  philosophy,  precisely  the  same.  The  eagerness  to 
cast  blame  on  old  England  in  the  one  case,  and  on  Xew  England 
in  the  other,  does  not  disprove  the  sameness  of  the  two  thing.-. 

Just  after  the  John  Brown  raid  another  event  occurred  which 
had  wide  influence,  the  publication  of  The  Impending  Crisis,  by 
Hinton  Rowan  Helper,  of  North  Carolina.  Helper  was  a  south- 
ern man  in  his  birth  and  sympathy,  but  he  was  opposed  to  slav- 
ery. His  book  was  a  forceful  declaration  that  slavery  was  a  bad 
thing  for  the  white  man.  Especially  did  he  make  his  argument 
on  the  basis  of  the  welfare  of  the  non-slaveholding  whites  in  the 
South,  whose  labor  was  degraded  by  competition  with  slave 
labor.  This  was  a  thrust  between  the  joints  of  the  armor.  The 
slaveholders  had  no  answer  to  it.  They  could  hang  John  Brown, 
and  exclude  Garrison's  Liberator  from  the  mails,  and  denounce 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  but  there  was  no  like  way  of  disposing  of 
the  Impending  Crisis.  It  was  easy  to  raise  the  cry  of  "social 
equality"  and  to  pour  contempt  upon  the  northern  abolitionist 
"who  thought  that  the  chief  end  of  man  was  nigger,"'  but  when 
a  southern  man  advanced  the  argument  that  slavery  degraded 
the  white  man,  no  such  reply  was  possible.  Attempts  were  made 
to  prevent  the  sale  of  the  book  in  the  South,  but  there  was  no 
very  good  ground  on  which  this  could  be  done.  Xo  one  could 
claim  that  it  incited  the  slaves  to  insurrection ;  it  did  not  profess 
greatly  to  care  for  the  slaves.  Xo  one  could  pretend  that  it  was  a 
morbid  attempt  to  make  the  black  man  the  white  man's  equal : 
it  was  simply  an  endeavor  to  remove  an  artificial  and  corrupt- 
ing inequality  between  white  men.  The  book  was  denounced, 
but  it  was  read,  and  next  to  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  it  helped  to  bring 
an  end  to  slavery  in  the  L'nited  States. 

In  the  latter  part  of  1859  the  name  of  Lincoln  came  to  be 
prominently  mentioned  as  that  of  an  available  candidate  for  the 
presidency  of  the  Linked  States.     Lincoln  met  the  first  sugges- 


408  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tions  of  this  character  with  deprecation.  He  said  that  he  did  not 
think  he  was  fit  for  the  presidency,  or  that  there  was  any  possi- 
bility of  his  being  nominated.  Still  the  idea  was  pleasing  to  him. 
When  in  December,  1859,  Mr.  Jesse  W.  Fell,  Secretary  of  the 
Republican  Central  Committee,  asked  Lincoln  for  a  brief  bio- 
graphical sketch  which  might  be  used  to  further  his  interests, 
Lincoln  demurred,  but  furnished  the  sketch  written  on  three 
pages  of  paper.  Quietly  but  steadily  his  reputation  grew,  and  as 
the  year  i860  brought  the  presidential  election  nearer,  there  was 
more  frequent  mention  of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  candidate. 

Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  conducted  a  lecture  course.  In 
the  autumn  of  1859  Lincoln  was  invited  to  deliver  a  lecture 
there.  He  had  tried  out  his  Discoveries  and  Inventions  on  Illi- 
nois audiences,  and  was  not  satisfied  with  it.  He  replied  accept- 
ing the  invitation,  provided  he  might  be  at  liberty  to  deliver  a 
political  address,  if  he  could  not  find  time  to  prepare  another. 
This  condition  was  accepted ;  but  in  negotiations  between  the 
Plymouth  Church  lecture  committee  and  The  Young  Men's  Cen- 
tral Republican  L^nion  of  New  York  City,  the  place  and  man- 
agement were  changed.  Lincoln  did  not  clearly  understand  the 
change,  but  went  east  still  expecting  to  speak  in  Plymouth 
Church.  A  larger  opportunity  even  than  that  which  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  could  have  given  him  in  Brooklyn,  awaited  tlie 
arrival  of  Lincoln  in  New  York.  He  attended  Plymouth  Church 
on  Sunday,  heard  Beecher  preach,  and  learned  the  details  of  the 
modified  plan. 

On  Monday  evening,  February  27,  i860,  Mr.  Lincoln  deliv- 
ered what  was  in  some  respects  the  greatest  of  his  political  ora- 
tions. He  spoke  at  Cooper  Institute,  in  the  City  of  New  York. 
Horace  Greeley,  who  in  1858  had  advised  the  Illinois  Republi- 
cans not  to  oppose  Douglas  in  his  canvass  for  reelection  to  the 
Senate,  heard  Lincoln's  address,  and  said,  "No  man  has  been 
welcomed  by  such  an  audience  of  the  intellect  and  mental  culture 
of  our  city  since  the  days  of  Clay  and  Webster." 

William  Cullen  Bryant  presided.     With  him  on  the  platform 


LINCOLN  THE  RAILSPLITTER  40$ 

were  some  of  the  foremost  men  of  New  York.  Lincoln  delivered 
an  address  devoid  of  all  the  characteristics  of  stump  oratory.  It 
was  a  carefully  reasoned,  thoughtful  discourse,  addressed  to  the 
intelligence  and  conscience  of  his  hearers.  He  surprised  his  audi- 
ence by  his  knowledge  of  American  political  history  and  the 
principles  underlying  our  national  legislation.  Lincoln  obtained 
most  of  the  facts  of  his  Cooper  Institute  speech  from  Elliot's 
Debates  on  the  Federal  Constitution.  It  is  said  that  when  the 
speech  was  edited  in  New  York  for  publication,  those  who  pre- 
pared the  address  for  printing  spent  three  weeks  in  verifying  its 
historical  statements,  and  that  they  found  no  important  errors. 
This  may  be  an  exaggeration  as  to  the  length  of  time  expended, 
but  it  clearly  indicates  that  Lincoln  had  prepared  his  addresr 
with  great  deliberation  and  care.  He  never  had  given  to  any 
other  discourse  so  much  of  thoughtful  preparation  as  he  gave  to 
this  one. 

The  Cooper  Institute  address  was  printed  in  the  papers  the 
next  day,*  and  afterward  issued  in  pamphlet  form  and  read 
throughout  the  country.  It  had  much  to  do  with  Lincoln's  nom- 
ination for  the  presidency. 

Robert  T.  Lincoln  is  a  very  reticent  man,  and  for  the  most 
part  declines  to  speak  for  publication  concerning  his  father :  but 
one  thing  he  modestly  affirms,  which  is  that  he  made  his  father 
president.  In  the  autumn  of  1859,  Robert  went  to  Cambridge 
expecting  to  enter  Harvard.  He  was  required  to  submit  to  an  en- 
trance examination  covering  sixteen  subjects,  and  he  failed  in 
fifteen  of  them.  The  Lincoln  family  wrote  him  not  to  return 
home,  but  to  enter  Phillips  Academy  at  Exeter,  New  Hampshire, 
and  complete  his  preparation.  This  he  did,  and  at  the  end  of  a 
year  was  able  to  enter  Harvard  and  complete  a  regular  course. 
But  Mr.  Lincoln  was  somewhat  anxious  about  Robert's  studies, 
and  one  of  his  reasons  for  being  ready  to  visit  New  York  and 


*It  was  not  telegraphed  to  Chicago,  but  was  reprinted  in  the  Chicago 
papers  three  days  later  as  set  from  the  copy  furnished  by  the  columns  of  the 
Xew  York  papers. 


4io  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

speak  at  Cooper  Institute  was  to  visit  Robert  and  see  how  he 
was  getting  on  at  Exeter.  Robert  T.  Lincoln  believes  that  if 
he  had  failed  in  less  than  fifteen  studies  his  father  might  have 
been  less  solicitous,  and  might  not  have  delivered  the  Cooper 
Union  speech,  or  having  delivered  it,  might  have  returned  from 
New  York  direct  to  Springfield.  As  it  wras,  he  determined  to 
visit  Robert  and  make  a  few  speeches  in  New  England. 

Only  once,  and  then  a  dozen  years  before,  had  Lincoln  visited 
New  England.  Then  he  was  speaking  for  Zachary  Taylor,  and 
exhorting  Whig  voters  to  stand  by  the  old  party.  Now  he  was 
an  earnest  advocate  of  the  new  party. 

Lincoln's  address  at  Cooper  Union  was  delivered  on  Monday 
evening,  February  27,  i860.  On  Tuesday  evening,  February 
twenty-eighth,  he  spoke  before  a  large  audience  in  Railroad  Hall, 
Providence,  Rhode  Island.  On  the  following  day,  Wednesday, 
February  twenty-ninth,  he  was  on  his  way  to  New  Hampshire, 
and  did  not  speak.  On  Thursday,  March  first,  he  spoke  at  Con- 
cord, New  Hampshire,  in  the  afternoon,  and  at  Manchester  in 
the  evening.  At  Concord  he  was  introduced  by  Governor  Fred- 
erick Smith,  who  referred  to  him  as  "the  next  president  of  the 
United  States."  Such  an  introduction  was  exceptional.  At 
Norwich,  Connecticut,  where  he  spoke  later,  Honorable  Daniel 
P.  Tyler,  who  spoke  before  Lincoln,  wrent  the  full  length  of  the 
general  imagination  and  suggested  that  Lincoln  might  be  the 
next  vice-president;  beyond  doubt,  he  had  Seward  in  mind  as 
the  head  of  the  ticket.  On  Friday,  March  second,  Lincoln  spoke 
at  Dover,  New  Hampshire.  On  Saturday  he  spoke  at  Exeter, 
and  spent  Sunday  with  Robert. 

Biographers  of  Lincoln  have  not  considered  adequately  the  ef- 
fect of  these  New  England  speeches.  Several  of  these  authors, 
beginning  with  Lamon,  state  that  Robert  was  in  Harvard  at  that 
time;  he  did  not  enter  Harvard  until  seven  months  later,  and  if 
he  had  been  safe  in  Harvard,  the  tour  might  not  have  been  made. 

On  Monday,  March  fifth,  Lincoln  spoke  at  Hartford,  Con- 
necticut ;  on  Tuesday  he  spoke  in  New  Haven,  on  Wednesday  at 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  IN  i860 
Photograph  by  Brady  at  the  time  of  the  Cooper  Union  Address 


LINCOLN  THE  RAILSPLITTER  411 

Meriden,  Connecticut :  on  Thursday  at  Woonsocket,  Rhode- 
Island  ;  on  Friday  at  Norwich,  Connecticut ;  on  Saturday  at 
Bridgeport,  Connecticut.  In  all,  he  delivered  eleven  speeches. 
He  had  large  audiences  everywhere.  The  spring  elections  were 
just  at  hand,  and  it  is  certain  that  his  addresses  had  value,  espe- 
cially in  Connecticut,  where  Governor  Buckingham,  the  Republi- 
can candidate  and  a  firm  friend  of  Lincoln,  was  elected  by  a 
plurality  of  only  451.  If  Lincoln's  addresses  changed  as  many 
as  220  votes,  his  work  was  not  in  vain. 

It  was  on  this  trip  that  he  was  interviewed  by  Reverend  J.  P. 
Gulliver,  to  whom  Lincoln  told  of  his  learning  to  "demonstrate" 
his  propositions.  It  was  at  Hartford,  that  Lincoln  first  met  the 
"Wide-Awake"  organization,  with  torchlights  and  oilcloth  capes. 
The  name  originated  in  that  city,  though  it  is  popularly  believed 
to  have  been  of  western  origin.  In  months  that  followed,  Lin- 
coln was  to  hear  processions  singing,  to  an  old  camp-meeting 
air  that  the  Confederates  later  confiscated  to  celebrate  the  joys  of 
those  who  "jine  the  cavalry"  : 

"Old  Abe  Lincoln  came  out  of  the  wilderness, 
Out  of  the  wilderness,  out  of  the  wilderness, 
Old  Abe  Lincoln  came  out  of  the  wilderness, 
Down  in  Illinois." 

"Ain't  I  glad  I  jined  the  Wide- A  wakes, 
Jined  the  Wide- A  wakes,  jined  the  Wide-Awakes, 
Ain't  I  glad  I  jined  the  Wide-Awakes, 
Down  in  Illinois  !"* 

These  New  England  addresses  did  much  for  Lincoln.  They 
helped  to  give  voice  to  a  more  conservative  type  of  Republican 


*A  few  months  before  America  entered  the  World  War,  there  was  a 
Preparedness  Parade  in  Chicago,  with  a  large  reviewing  stand  on  Michigan 
Boulevard  in  front  of  the  Art  Institute.  As  I  was  on  my  way  to  the  review- 
ing stand,  I  encountered  an  old  man  with  an  oilcloth  cap  and  cape  "the  same 
that  I  wore  in  i860,  sir,  when  I  marched  for  Abe  Lincoln !"  In  an  interval 
between  the  noise  of  passing  brass  bands,  he  lifted  his  cracked  old  voice, 
and  sang,  "Ain't  I  glad  I  jined  the  Wide-Awakes?"  Perhaps  this  was  the 
last  appearance  of  a  representative  of  that  body  on  any  important  occasion 
in  anv  American  city. 


4i2  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

doctrine  than  that  associated  with  the  thought  of  John  Brown 
and  Helper  of  the  Impending  Crisis  while  standing  squarely  for 
a  nation  that  was  not  to  be  permanently  divided  by  slavery. 

When  Lincoln  returned  to  Springfield  after  the  Cooper  Insti- 
tute speech  and  the  New  England  town  he  knew  that  there  was  a 
possibility  of  his  nomination  as  president.  Seward  was  the  most 
likely  nominee ;  Chase  was  next ;  but  strange  things  happen  in 
politics,  and  Lincoln  knew  that  Seward  and  Chase  and  the  other 
leading  candidates  might  kill  each  other  off  and  leave  him  as  the 
most  available  candidate.     Herndon  wrote  : 

It  was  apparent  now  to  Lincoln  that  the  presidential  nom- 
ination Avas  within  his  reach.  He  began  gradually  to  lose 
his  interest  in  the  law  and  to  trim  his  political  sails  at  the 
same  time.  His  recent  success  had  stimulated  his  self-confi- 
dence to  unwonted  proportions.  He  wrote  to  influential  party 
workers  everywhere.  I  know  the  idea  prevails  that  Lincoln  sat 
still  in  his  chair  in  Springfield,  and  that  one  of  those  unlooked- 
for  tides  in  human  affairs  came  along  and  cast  the  nomination 
into  his  lap;  but  any  man  who  has  had  experience  in  such  things 
knows  that  great  political  prizes  are  not  obtained  in  that  way. 
The  truth  is,  Lincoln  was  as  vigilant  as  he  was  ambitious,  and 
there  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  he  understood  the  situation  per- 
fectly from  the  start.  In  the  management  of  his  own  interests 
he  was  obliged  to  rely  almost  entirely  on  his  own  resources.  He 
had  no  money  with  which  to  maintain  a  political  bureau  and  he 
lacked  any  kind  of  personal  organization  whatever.  Seward 
had  all  these  things,  and,  behind  them  all,  a  brilliant  record  in 
the  United  States  Senate  with  which  to  dazzle  his  followers.  But 
with  all  his  prestige  and  experience  the  latter  was  no  more  adroit 
and  no  more  untiring  in  pursuit  of  his  ambition  than  the  man 
who  had  just  delivered  the  Cooper  Institute  speech. 

The  Republican  State  Convention  was  held  at  Decatur  May 
9  and  10,  i860.  Lincoln  as  a  Whig  politician  had  been  very  re- 
luctant to  accept  the  method  of  a  nominating  convention.  He 
preferred  the  popular  scramble.  But  he  learned,  what  the  Whig 
Party  learned  too  late,  that  if  they  were  to  succeed  against  the 


LINCOLN  THE  RAILSPLITTER  413 

Democrats  they  must  iron  out  their  differences  in  conventions 
of  their  own,  and  not  go  to  the  polls  with  a  divided  vote.  Long 
before  i860  Lincoln  was  thoroughly  committed  to  the  principle 
of  the  party  convention,  and  he  looked  forward  to  his  own  state 
convention  with  no  little  solicitude  and  hope.  He  wrote  to 
Xorman  B.  Judd : 

I  am  not  in  a  position  where  it  would  hurt  much  for  me  to  not 
be  nominated  on  the  national  ticket,  but  I  am  where  it  would 
hurt  some  for  me  to  not  get  the  Illinois  delegates.  Can  you 
help  me  a  little  in  your  end  of  the  vineyard? 

It  was  in  Judd's  end  of  the  vineyard  that  Lincoln  needed  help, 
for  the  northern  end  of  Illinois  was  the  old  Whig  end  of  the 
state,  and  was  strong  for  Seward.  But  Judd  did  something  very 
much  more  important  than  that  of  swinging  a  few  delegates  in 
northern  Illinois  from  Seward  to  Lincoln.  He  so  managed,  as 
a  member  of  the  Republican  National  Committee,  as  to  secure  the 
Republican  Convention  for  the  City  of  Chicago. 

When,  therefore,  the  State  Convention  was  held  in  Decatur  on 
May  ninth  and  tenth,  it  was  with  the  knowledge  that  the  Na- 
tional Convention  would  be  held  in  the  same  state  less  than  a 
week  later. 

Lincoln  was  not  without  influential  friends  in  the  northern 
end  of  Illinois.  On  February  6,  i860,  the  Chicago  Tribune  came 
out  editorially  for  Lincoln.  A  number  of  other  Illinois  papers 
beginning  with  one  in  Rock  Island,  and  largely  representative  of 
the  northern  end  of  Illinois,  had  already  endorsed  Lincoln,  or 
soon  did  so.  The  campaign  of  publicity  was  well  planned  and 
actively  pursued. 

Lincoln  attended  the  Republican  Convention  at  Decatur. 
Some  of  his  friends  questioned  the  wisdom  of  his  going  there. 
Lincoln  himself  said  that  he  felt  that  he  was  "too  much  of  a  can- 
didate to  go  and  not  quite  enough  of  a  candidate  to  stay  away." 

Lincoln's  friends  were  confident  of  securing  his  nomination 
in  Illinois.     But  thev  wanted  to  do  more  than  this.     Thev  de- 


414  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sired  to  stage  for  him  a  great  demonstration.  Lincoln's  friend, 
Richard  J.  Oglesby,  afterward  governor  of  the  state,  was  a  resi- 
dent of  Decatur.  A  brilliant  idea  occurred  to  him.  He  had 
heard  that  only  a  little  distance  from  Decatur  Abraham  Lincoln 
had  split  fence  rails  in  the  early  days  of  his  residence  in  Illinois. 
Old  John  Hanks,  who  had  worked  with  Lincoln,  still  lived  in  that 
vicinity.  Oglesby  himself  interviewed  John  and  later  told  the 
story,  and  it  is  the  best  account  we  have  of  the  introduction  into 
the  Decatur  convention  and  into  national  politics  of  the  rails 
that  Abraham  Lincoln  split. 

Oglesby  took  John  Hanks  in  his  buggy  ten  miles  west  of  De- 
catur to  the  site  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  first  Illinois  farm.  They 
found  what  appeared  to  be  the  old  fence  still  in  service  after 
thirty  years.  John  said  that  the  rails  were  principally  locust 
and  black  walnut  and  testing  some  of  them  with  his  pocket-knife, 
he  assured  Oglesby  and  himself  of  their  genuineness.  Two  of 
these  rails  they  carried  away  with  them,  fastening  them  to  the 
axles  of  the  buggy  and  carrying  them  back  to  Decatur  where  for 
several  days  they  were  hidden  in  Oglesby's  barn. 

At  an  important  moment  in  the  convention,  Oglesby  rose  and 
announced  that  an  old  Democrat  desired  to  make  a  contribution 
to  the  convention.  The  proceedings  stopped,  and  in  came  John 
Hanks,  who,  with  such  assistance  as  was  required,  brought  in 
two  rails  from  the  lot  which  he  and  Lincoln  split  together  in 
1830.     They  bore  a  legend: 


Abraham  Lincoln 
The  Rail  Candidate 
For   President   in    i860. 


The  convention  went  wild.  No  delegate  could  doubt  after  that 
exhibition  that  Lincoln  was  the  best  man  in  the  United  States 
for  president.     The  Illinois  State  Republican  Convention  went 


LINCOLN  THE  RAILSPLITTER  415 

on  record  for  Abraham  Lincoln.     Seward  no  longer  had  standing 
with  the  state  delegates  of  Illinois. 

The  effect  upon  the  country  was  hardly  less  picturesque  than 
that  upon  the  Decatur  Convention.  The  name  and  fame  of  Ab- 
raham Lincoln  were  borne  aloft  on  the  rails  which  he  had  split 
while  a  laborer  in  the  Prairie  State.  John  Hanks  became  no- 
table in  Illinois  political  gatherings.  He  accompanied  Oglesby 
on  various  expeditions.  The  bringing  in  of  the  rail  was  a  fea- 
ture in  several  ratification  meetings;  John  C.  Fremont  rode  a  con- 
siderable distance  toward  the  White  House  on  his  sobriquet  of 
"Pathfinder."  Abraham  Lincoln  was  destined  to  go  down  to 
fame  as  "Railsplitter." 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

LINCOLN    AS   A    NEWSPAPER   OWNER 

Lincoln's  intimate  association  with  Simeon  Francis  had  given 
him  constant  reminder  of  the  power  of  the  press.  Lincoln  wrote 
many  of  the  editorials  on  political  subjects.  Lincoln  knew  that 
the  organization  of  the  Republican  Party  in  Illinois  was  virtu- 
ally the  work  of  twenty-five  editors.  As  Lincoln  grew  in  politi- 
cal power  his  appreciation  of  the  press  increased.  Herndon  as- 
sures us  that  Lincoln  never  overlooked  a  newspaper  man  who 
could  say  a  good  or  bad  word  about  him.  He  was  very  eager  to 
see  his  speeches  in  print,  and  he  read  newspapers  with  sedulous 
attention  to  their  value  for  his  uses.* 

As  the  campaign  of  i860  approached,  Lincoln  became  very 
desirous  of  holding  to  the  Republican  Party  every  considerable 
block  of  votes  which  might  be  held  or  attracted  to  it.  He  was 
especially  solicitous  concerning  the  foreign  vote. 

In  the  later  'forties  and  early  'fifties  there  was  a  large  increase 
in  immigration.  Political  revolutions  on  the  Continent,  eco- 
nomic distress  in  Ireland,  and  other  untoward  conditions  abroad 
constituted  a  strong  push,  and  the  discovery  of  gold  in  Cali- 
fornia, together  with  unprecedented  activity  on  the  part  of  emi- 
grant agents  in  Europe  resulted  in  the  coming  of  vast  numbers 
of  Europeans,  especially  Germans  and  Irish.  The  immigration 
from  185 1  to  1854  more  than  trebled  the  numbers  who  had 
come  to  this  country  in  the  entire  preceding  decade. 

These  immigrants  caused  congestion  in  the  cities,  where  they 
greatly  complicated  the  labor  problem,  and  roused  much  resent- 


*Herndon's  Lincoln,  ii,  pp.  309,  363,  367. 

416 


LINCOLN  AS  A  NEWSPAPER  OWNER  417 

ment.  Some  firms  were  constrained  to  hang  out  the  sign,  "No 
Irish  need  apply.''  There  were  unfriendly  demonstrations  to- 
ward "the  Dutch''  in  the  industrial  world. 

In  politics  they  occasioned  another  problem.  The  laws  of 
many  of  the  states  were  framed  so  as  to  permit  voting  by  immi- 
grants at  a  very  early  period  of  residence  and  before  naturaliza- 
tion. These  immigrants  were  to  be  reckoned  with  in  politics 
almost  as  soon  as  they  arrived.  They  voted  "early  and  often." 
They  voted  in  solid  blocks.  Both  parties  bid  for  their  vote,  but 
the  Democratic  Party  went  farther  after  this  vote  than  the  Whig, 
and  got  more  of  it. 

The  era  was  one  of  religious  unrest,  and  there  was  strong 
belief  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  aspired  to  gain  political 
control  in  the  United  States. 

In  1850  Illinois  contained  about  30,000  Germans.  Of  these 
Governor  Reynolds  estimated  that  fully  18,000  had  settled  in 
St.  Clair  County.  At  the  outset,  most  of  the  Germans  were 
Democrats ;  but  on  the  organization  of  the  Republican  Party, 
many  of  them  united  with  that  party  on  account  of  its  opposition 
to  slavery.  Gustav  Koerner  and  other  Democrats  of  German 
birth  but  anti-slavery  principles  came  over  in  large  numbers  to 
the  Republican  Party.* 

Gustav  Koerner  had  appeared  with  Lyman  Trumbull  in  1843 
before  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois  in  an  argument  in  the  case 
of  a  negro  woman,  Sarah  Borders  and  her  three  children,  held 
under  the  indenture  act,  and  had  claimed  that  slaverv  in  Illinois 


*Gustav  Koerner  was  born  in  Germany  in  1809,  and  received  a  university 
education.  He  emigrated  to  Illinois  in  1833,  and  settled  at  Belleville,  where 
he  became  an  intimate  friend  of  Lyman  Trumbull.  He  became  a  prominent 
Democratic  politician.  He  was  elected  to  the  General  Assembly  in  1842, 
and  three  years  later,  in  1845,  was  appointed  to  the  Illinois  Supreme  Bench. 
In  1852  he  was  elected  lieutenant  governor  on  the  Democratic  ticket  with 
Governor  Matteson.  At  the  close  of  his  term  he  became  a  Republican.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  convention  that  nominated  Lincoln,  and  became  a 
cclonel  in  the  Civil  War.  In  1862,  President  Lincoln  appointed  him  minister 
to  Spain,  a  post  which  he  resigned  in  1865.  He  held  various  offices,  and 
wrote  several  works.     He  died  at  Belleville,  April  9,  1896. 


418  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

was  illegal  under  the  Ordinance  of  1787.*  The  court  ruled 
against  them.  Trumbull,  later,  in  the  case  of  Jarrot  vs.  Jar- 
rot,  appeared  before  the  Supreme  Court  with  the  same  plea, 
and  his  success  virtually  ended  negro  slavery  in  Illinois. 

In  1854,  when  party  cohesion  had  been  weakened  by  the  slav- 
ery agitation,  and  the  Whig  Party  was  disintegrating,  there 
rose  to  national  proportions  a  political  party  whose  name  was 
"the  American  Party,"  but  which  was  organized  in  a  group  of 
lodges,    and    was    known    popularly    as    the    "Know-Nothing 

Party"t 

Many  of  Lincoln's  Whig  friends  joined  this  party,  among 
them  his  former  partner,  Judge  Stephen  T.  Logan,  and  his 
friend,  Doctor  William  Jayne.J  Many  reputable  men  who  did 
not  join  its  lodges  believed  in  its  principle  of  "America  for 
the  Americans."  In  1854  it  became  a  power  in  politics,  and  in 
1856  it  held  a  national  convention  in  Philadelphia,  Washington's 
birthday,  February  twenty-second,  and  nominated  Millard  Fill- 
more and  Andrew  Jackson  Donelson  as  its  candidates. ft  The 
remnants  of  the  Whig  Party,  meeting  in  national  convention  in 
Baltimore,  September  12,   1856,  endorsed  the  nomination. 

But  the  Northern  Whigs,  for  the  most  part,  in  1856  joined 
the  new  Republican  Party  and  voted  for  John  C.  Fremont;  and 
Fillmore  did  not  return  to  the  White  House.  $  J  The  Whig  Party 
went  down  and  completely  disappeared.  Of  it  and  the  American 
Party  which  for  a  time  appeared  as  its  successor,  Grif fis  says : 


*Harris,  Negro  Servitude  in  Illinois,  p.  108;  White,  Life  of  Lyman 
Trumbull,  pp.  28-29. 

fSee    The  Know-Nothing   Movement   in  Illinois,     by    John   P.    Henning. 
Journal  of  the  Illinois  Historical  Society,  April,  1914. 

$In  the  courthouse  at  Dixon  is  a  life-sized  oil  painting  of  "Father"  John 
Dixon.  He  stands  in  the  portrait  with  his  right  hand  partly  within  his 
coat ;  the  index  and  little  fingers  on  the  outside  of  the  flap,  the  two  middle 
fingers  inside.  This  is  explained  as  being  the  hailing  sign  of  the  Know- 
Nothings,  with   which  body  Father  Dixon  was  affiliated. 

tfSee  Life  of  Millard  Fillmore,  by  William  Elliot  Griffis,  Andrus  and 
Church,  Ithaca,  N.  Y.,   1915. 

t$Fillmore  received  874,534  votes,  or  21.57%  J  Fremont,  1,342,264,  or 
33.09%;  and  Buchanan  1,838,169  votes  or  45.34%. 


LINCOLN  AS  A  NEWSPAPER  OWNER  419 

The  Whig  Party,  now  dead  for  ever,  had  done  its  work.  It 
had  had  its  own  office  to  perform.  In  its  members,  rather  than 
in  its  leaders,  was  preserved  most  of  the  nationalizing  spirit  of 
the  United  States.  In  a  word,  while  the  people  of  the  various 
states  were  not  yet  ready  for  true  nationality,  the  preparatory 
work  in  behalf  of  the  final  consummation  was  crudely  but  ef- 
fectively done  for  the  making  of  the  United  States  of  our  day. 
.  .  .  Know-nothingism,  as  described  by  its  critics  and  oppo- 
nents, with  its  "riotous  career,"  was  a  sudden  tornado  of  opin- 
ion, blowing  from  an  independent  quarter  across  the  field  of  the 
regular  parties  and  for  a  little  while  confusing  their  lines.  When 
civil  war  was  impending  in  i860,  it  was  as  the  flicker  of  a  dy- 
ing flame,  that  under  the  name  of  the  Constitutional  Union 
Party,  some  ex-members  of  the  old  Whig  Party,  in  the  border 
states,  nominated  John  Bell  and  Edward  Everett  for  president 
and  vice-president.* 

In  Massachusetts  a  constitutional  amendment  was  proposed, 
requiring  of  foreign-born  citizens  a  residence  of  seven  years  in 
the  United  States  before  they  were  permitted  to  vote.  They 
might  be  naturalized  at  the  end  of  five  years,  but  were  not  to 
be  permitted  to  vote  for  two  years  after  naturalization.  This 
amendment  was  submitted  to  popular  referendum  May  9,  1859. 
The  vote  was  light,  21,119  for  and  15,398  against  the  amend- 
ment. The  total  vote  was  only  about  one-fourth  that  cast  in  the 
presidential  election  of  1856,  but  the  majority  wTas  decisive. 
The  Republicans  of  Massachusetts  in  general  supported  the 
amendment.  Among  those  who  opposed  it  was  S.  G.  Bowles, 
of  the  Springfield  Republican,  of  which  paper  Doctor  J.  G.  Hol- 
land was  at  that  time  an  associate  editor.  Among  all  of  Lin- 
coln's biographers  he  is  the  only  one  who  appears  to  have  appre- 
ciated the  difficulty  which  this  action  involved  for  Mr.  Lincoln. 
He  says : 

It  is  to  be  remembered  in  this  connection  that  Massachusetts 
was  a  representative  Republican  state,  and  regarding  the  ignor- 
ant foreign  population,  particularly  of  the  eastern  states  as  hold- 

*Life  of  Millard  Fillmore,  p.  137. 


42o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ing  the  balance  of  power  between  the  Democratic  and  Republi- 
can parties,  which  it  never  failed  to  exercise  in  the  interest  of 
the  former  and  in  support  of  African  slavery,  had  instituted 
measures  which  rendered  naturalization  a  more  difficult  pro- 
cess. This  embarrassed  the  Republicans  of  the  west,  who  were 
associated  with  a  large  and  generally  intelligent  German  popu- 
lation with  leanings  toward  the  Republican  Party  rather  than 
to  the  Democratic* 

The  Germans  of  Iowa  and  Illinois  were  loud  in  their  denun- 
ciation of  the  "Two-Year  Amendment"  and  promptly  demanded 
of  all  prominent  Republicans  whether  this  represented  their 
sentiments.  It  threw  the  Republican  candidates  in  states  having 
foreign  populations  into  something  approaching  a  panic.f 

Prominent  Republican  leaders  in  Illinois  were  quick  to  make 
it  known  that  they  did  not  share  the  views  of  the  Republicans  of 
Massachusetts.  In  open  letters  addressed  to  different  leading 
Germans,  Elihu  B.  Washburne,  Lyman  Trumbull,  Norman  B. 
Tudd  and  other  Republican  leaders  promptly  sent  in  their  letters 
of  disavowal.  Abraham  Lincoln  furnished  his  letter  to  Doctor 
Theodore  Canisius,  of  Springfield,  and  it  was  published  at  once 
in    the    Illinois   State   Journal,    a    paper    devoted    to    Lincoln's 

interests.^ 

Lincoln's  letter  was  carefully  written.  It  refrained  from  any 
criticism  of  the  Republicans  of  Massachusetts.  It  said  that  Mas- 
sachusetts was  a  sovereign  state,  and  he  did  not  regard  it  as  his 
privilege  to  scold  her,  but  he  did  feel  free  to  state  how  he  stood 
with  reference  to  such  action  as  that  of  Massachusetts  in  any 
state  where  he  had  the  right  to  vote : 

As  I  understand  the  Massachusetts  provision,  I  am  against 
its  adoption  in  Illinois,  or  in  any  other  place  where  I  have  the 

*Life  of  Lincoln,  p.   197. 

fSee  a  very  interesting  monograph  on  The  Premises  and  Significance  of 
Abraham  Lincoln's  Letter  to  Theodore  Canisius,  by  Professor  F.  I.  Herriott 
of  Drake  University.  Reprinted  from  Deuisch-Amerikanische  Geschitsblat- 
ter  Jahrbuch  der  Deutsch-Amerikanische  Historischen  Gesellschaft  von  III- 
inois-Jahrcjang,  1915    (Vol.   XV). 

$The  original  manuscript  of  Lincoln's  letter  is  in  the  library  of  the 
Chicago  Historical   Society. 


LINCOLN  AS  A  NEWSPAPER  OWNER  421 

right  to  oppose  it.  Understanding  the  spirit  of  our  institutions 
to  aim  at  the  elevation  of  men,  I  am  opposed  to  whatever  tends 
to  degrade  them.  I  have  some  little  notoriety  for  commiser- 
ating the  oppressed  condition  of  the  negro ;  and  I  should  be 
strangely  inconsistent  if  I  should  favor  any  project  for  curtail- 
ing the  existing  rights  of  white  men,  even  though  born  in  dif- 
ferent lands  and  speaking  different  languages  from  myself.* 

This  letter  was  dated  May  17,  1859,  and  on  the  same  date  was 
furnished  by  Canisius  for  publication  in  the  Journal  with  a  letter 
which  stated  that: 

This  letter  of  one  of  the  gallant  champions  of  our  state  is  in 
accordance  with  the  views  of  the  whole  German  population,  sup- 
porting the  Republican  Party,  and  also  with  the  views  of  the 
entire  German-Republican  press. 

The  Journal  published  these  on  the  following  day,  incorpor- 
ating them  in  a  leading  editorial,  declaring  that  Mr.  Lincoln's 
views  were  the  views  of  the  Republican  Party. 

So  far  as  the  general  public  knew,  or  has  since  been  informed, 
that  was  all  that  there  was  of  the  story  of  Lincoln's  attitude 
toward  the  German  vote.  It  was  not  unknown,  however,  that 
Doctor  Theodore  Canisius  became  a  very  ardent  supporter  of 
the  Republican  Party  and  later  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Canisius 
was   editor  of  a   then   recently  established   paper,    The   Illinois 


^Honorable  Joseph  Gillespie  is  authority  for  the  statement  that  Lincoln 
was   surprisingly  popular  among  the  Germans : 

"In  1858  Mr.  Lincoln  delivered  a  political  address  in  Edwardsville.  In 
the  afternoon  he  said  to  me  quite  excitedly  that  he  was  to  speak  next  day 
in  Greenville  and  had  forgotten  to  mention  it  sooner.  I  told  him  I  would 
take  him  over  to  Greenville,  but  that  he  could  go  only  as  far  as  Highland 
that  night.  He  seemed  delighted  with  the  idea  of  stopping  in  Highland,  as 
he  understood  the  place  was  a  little  Germany.  We  stopped  there  and  had 
a  good  time.  It  was  soon  noised  around  that  Lincoln  was  in  the  place  and 
the  house  where  we  were  stopping  was  crowded  and  jammed.  The  people 
were  perfectly  enraptured;  the  bare  sight  of  the  man  threw  them  into  ecsta- 
sies. I  here  got  the  first  inkling  of  the  amazing  popularity  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
among  the  Germans.  I  could  see  that  there  was  some  magnetic  influence  at 
work  that  was  perfectly  inexplicable,  which  brought  him  and  the  masses  into 
a  mysterious  correspondence  with  each  other.  This  relation  increased  and 
was  intensified  to  such  an  extent  that  afterward  at  Springfield  I  witnessed 
a  manifestation  of  regard  for  Mr.  Lincoln  such  as  I  did  not  believe  possible  " 
Transactions  of  Illinois  State  Historical  Society  for  19^-,  p.   108. 


422  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Staats-Anzeiger.  That  paper  began  immediately  a  vigorous 
campaign  for  the  support  of  the  Republican  Party,  and  in  due 
season  came  out  strongly  for  Lincoln  as  the  Republican  nominee. 

The  following  facts,  however,  the  public  did  not  know  and 
they  are  of  interest  and  importance.  Doctor  Canisius  was  in 
financial  straits.  He  owed  his  landlord,  John  Burkhardt  for 
rent  and  perhaps  also  for  money  advanced.  Burkhardt  had 
acquired,  under  chattel  mortgage  or  otherwise,  a  title  to  the 
property  of  the  newspaper.  Lincoln  through  Canisius  purchased 
Burkhardt's  title  and  became  the  owner  of  the  Staats-Anzeiger. 
The  transaction  occurred  immediately  after  the  incident  of  Lin- 
coln's letter  to  Canisius,  which  letter  was  evoked  by  an  inquiry 
from  a  Committee  of  German  citizens  in  Springfield. 

Lincoln  had  learned  the  value  of  the  press.  He  was  a  con- 
stant contributor  to  the  columns  of  the  Journal,  many  of  his 
contributions  appearing  as  editorials.  The  plan  for  the  propa- 
gation of  his  nomination  was  in  a  large  sense  a  plan  to  use  the 
newspapers  of  Illinois.  Lincoln  knew  that  while  the  Chicago 
Tribune  and  many  of  the  down-state  papers  were  committed  to 
him,  the  chief  German  paper  in  Illinois,  the  Chicago  Staats- 
Zeitung,  was  for  Seward.  He  knew  that  it  would  advance  his 
interests  if  a  well-edited  German  newspaper  could  be  depended 
upon  to  stand  for  the  Republican  Party  first,  and  in  due  time  to 
announce  itself  for  Lincoln. 

On  May  30,  1859,  a  contract  wholly  in  Lincoln's  handwriting, 
was  drawn  up  by  Lincoln  and  signed  by  himself  and  Theodore 
Canisius.  In  the  agreement  it  was  stated  that  the  type  and  other 
equipment  were  the  property  of  Lincoln,  by  virtue  of  Lincoln's 
purchase  of  the  same  from  Burkhardt.  Canisius  was  granted 
the  free  use  of  this  property  for  the  publication  of  a  German 
newspaper,  which  was  strongly  to  support  the  Republican  Party. 
If  the  paper  failed  thus  to  support  the  Republican  Party,  Lincoln, 
as  owner,  was  authorized  to  take  possession  and  dispossess  Can- 
isius. It  was  stipulated  also  that  the  paper,  while  published  in 
German,  should  carry  occasional  articles  in  English. 


LINCOLN  AS  A  NEWSPAPER  OWNER  423 

The  contract  was  written  on  the  two  sides  of  a  single  sheet  of 
legal  cap,  and  the  second  page  was  only  partly  filled.  On  De- 
cember 6,  i860,  a  month  after  Lincoln's  election  as  president,  he 
wrote  a  supplementary  endorsement,  filling  the  blank  space. 
Therein  he  certified  that  Doctor  Theodore  Canisius  had  faith- 
fully fulfilled  the  obligations  of  the  contract  and  satisfied  all 
financial  claims  of  Lincoln,  who  therefore,  for  a  valid  consider- 
ation, conveyed  the  type,  paper  and  good  will  to  Canisius. 

Canisius  had  to  borrow  his  four  hundred  dollars  with  which 
to  repay  Lincoln.  He  obtained  it  from  Charles  F.  Herman,  a 
prominent  German  in  Springfield,  who  at  that  time  was  freight 
agent  of  the  Wabash  Railroad  and  a  somewhat  near  neighbor 
of  Lincoln.  Canisius  gave  Herman  his  note  for  four  hundred 
dollars,  with  this  contract  as  collateral.  The  daughters  of  Mr. 
Herman*  state  that  the  note  remained  and  still  remains  unpaid. 

This  ended  Abraham  Lincoln's  ownership  of  a  German  news- 
paper. It  was  his  property  for  eighteen  months  from  May  30, 
1859,  to  December  6,  i860.  It  did  not  continue  long  after  his 
election.  Lincoln  speedily  gave  Doctor  Canisius  a  consulate  in 
Samoa,  and  Canisius  continued  in  the  consular  service  of  the 
United  States  at  various  posts  from  1861  to  1885. 

The  relation  between  Lincoln  and  Canisius  was  not,  however, 
wholly  commercial.  Lincoln  knew  Canisius  and  held  him  in 
high  regard  and  Canisius  was  a  warm  admirer  of  Lincoln.  His 
paper  adopted  no  change  in  principle  when  Lincoln  became  its 
owner.  The  principles  of  its  editor  were  in  full  accord  with 
those  of  Lincoln. 

Arnold  relates  an  incident  concerning  a  German  editor  whom 
Lincoln  caused  to  be  appointed  to  a  diplomatic  position.  He 
said: 

In  the  early  part  of  Lincoln's  administration,  a  prominent 
editor  of  a  German  newspaper  published  in  the  West,  came  to 
Washington  to  seek  an  appointment  abroad.     With  the  member 

*I  am  indebted  to  these  ladies  for  this  first  publication  of  the  facts  con- 
cerning Lincoln's  one   investment   in   a  newspaper. 


424  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  Congress  from  his  district,  he  visited  the  ''Executive  Man- 
sion," and  his  wishes  were  stated.  The  editor  had  supported 
Mr.  Seward  for  nomination  as  president.  Mr.  Lincoln  imme- 
diately sent  a  messenger  to  the  secretary  of  state,  asking  him  to 
come  to  the  White  House.  Mr.  Seward  soon  arrived,  and  Lin- 
coln, after  a  cordial  greeting,  said:  "Seward,  here  is  a  gentleman 
(introducing  the  editor)  who  had  the  good  sense  to  prefer 
you  to  me  for  president.  He  wants  to  go  abroad,  and  I  want 
you  to  find  a  good  place  for  him."  This  Mr.  Seward  did,  and 
the  president  immediately  appointed  him.* 

This  may  refer  to  Doctor  Theodore  Canisius.f  of  Springfield. 
If  this  be  true,  it  is  interesting  to  learn  from  this  authoritative 
source  that  Canisius  had  at  first  preferred  Seward  to  Lincoln 
as  a  presidential  candidate  and  this  is  wholly  probable.  Pre- 
sumably Lincoln  had  not  at  that  time  emerged  into  sufficient 
prominence  to  be  regarded  by  Canisius  as  a  candidate  who  could 
command  the  German  vote  throughout  the  nation.  The  files 
of  the  paper  edited  by  Doctor  Canisius  are  not  known  to  be  in 
existence,  and  it  would  not  be  wise  to  dogmatize  concerning  the 
editorial  policy  of  the  paper  after  Lincoln  became  its  owner.  It 
would  not  be  unreasonable  to  infer,  however,  that  Doctor  Can- 
isius and  his  paper  did  not  from  that  time  forth  press  Seward's 
claim  to  the  extent  of  violent  opposition  to  Lincoln;  and  cer- 
tainly after  Lincoln's  nomination  the  paper  gave  him  undivided 
support. 

The  admiration  of  Canisius  for  Lincoln  continued  through  his 
life.  He  wrote  a  biography  of  Lincoln  in  German  and  it  ran 
through  several  editions,  which  were  published  in  different 
cities  of  Europe.  It  wTas  based  upon  his  personal  knowledge  of 
Lincoln  and  was  a  sincere  and  worthy  tribute  by  one  of  Lincoln's 
own  neighbors,  and  expressed  the  sentiments  of  that  large  body 
of  citizens  of  foreign  birth  who  held  Lincoln  in  high  regard. 


*Arnold:   Life  of  Lincoln,  pp.   194-195. 

fit  is  barely  possible  that  the  editor  mentioned  was  Colonel  Schneider,  of 
the  StaaU-Zeitung. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE    NOMINATION     OF    LINCOLN 

May,   i860 

The  convention  that  nominated  Lincoln  was  the  first  to  meet 
in  a  building  erected  especially  for  its  own  requirements.  Xo 
American  city  at  that  time  had  a  permanent  structure  known  as 
a  convention  hall,  or  one  intended  for  the  particular  use  of  great 
national  gatherings.  Up  to  that  time  in  every  city  entertain- 
ing a  national  convention  a  theater  or  other  hall,  erected  for 
local  purposes,  had  been  found  sufficiently  large  to  house  any 
convention  that  was  held  within  that  municipality.  When  Chi- 
cago invited  the  Republican  convention  of  i860,  it  was  with  the 
knowledge  that  it  would  be  necessary  for  the  city  to  erect  a 
building  adequately  to  care  for  the  gathering. 

If  we  were  to  depend  entirely  upon  the  press  reports  concern- 
ing "this  gigantic  structure,  the  largest  audience-room  in  the 
United  States,"  as  the  newspapers  of  the  time  truthfully  de- 
scribed it,  we  might  possibly  exaggerate  in  our  own  minds  the 
largeness  of  the  building.  If,  for  instance,  it  were  to  be  com- 
pared with  the  Coliseum  in  which  the  Chicago  conventions  of 
recent  years  have  been  held,  we  should  discover  that  the  old 
\Yigwam  could  have  been  lost  almost  anywhere  inside  of  the 
Coliseum.  It  was  just  about  the  size  of  the  Coliseum  Annex  which 
now  serves  for  offices,  restaurant  and  other  adjunct  uses  of 
national  conventions.  The  Wigwam  stood  at  the  corner  of 
Lake  and  Market  Streets  near  the  fork  of  Chicago  River.  It 
had  a  frontage  of  one  hundred  eighty  feet  on  Market  Street 
and  a  depth  of  one  hundred  feet  on  Lake.     Four  hundred  and 

425 


426  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sixty-six  delegates  and  about  sixty  newspaper  correspondents 
were  seated  upon  an  elevated  platform,  which,  with  a  committee 
room  at  either  end,  occupied  one  entire  side  of  the  building.  The 
rest  of  the  structure  was  open  to  the  public,  the  ladies  and  some 
delegations  provided  with  tickets  being  seated  in  the  gallery. 
Chicago  announced  that  the  building  and  the  hospitality  of  the 
city  were  equal  to  taking  care  of  all  creation. 

Chicago  at  this  time  had  forty-two  hotels,  all  operated  on  the 
American  plan.  Their  rates  were  from  one  dollar  and  a  half  to 
two  dollars  and  a  half  per  day  for  board  and  room,  and  the 
hotel  proprietors  then  and  ever  since  were  accused  of  extortion. 
The  number  of  visitors  who  came,  however,  was  far  beyond  the 
ability  of  hotels  to  accommodate;  private  houses  opened  their 
doors,  some  for  pay  and  others  out  of  hospitality.  The  eastern 
railroads  granted  a  special  round-trip  rate  of  fifteen  dollars  from 
Buffalo,  and  the  western  roads  somewhat  reluctantly  followed 
their  example. 

The  railroad  trains  approaching  Chicago  took  what  now  are 
known  as  straw-votes  among  their  passengers  bound  for  Chi- 
cago. On  a  Michigan  Central  train  of  twelve  coaches,  Seward 
had  210  votes  against  30  for  all  other  candidates.  On  a  Chicago 
and  Northwestern  train  Seward  had  127  and  all  others  44. 
On  a  Chicago  and  Rock  Island  train  Seward  had  112  and  the 
others  totaled  41.  On  these  three  trains  there  appeared  not  to 
have  been  a  single  vote  for  Lincoln ;  but  on  a  Chicago  and  Mil- 
waukee train  Seward  had  368,  Lincoln  93  and  all  others  46; 
while  on  a  New  Albany  and  Salem,  Indiana,  train  Lincoln  had 
51,  Seward  43,  and  the  other  candidates  totaled  131.* 

Within  the  Wigwam  on  the  morning  of  May  sixteenth  were 
crowded  fully  ten  thousand  persons.  Four  years  before  when 
the  Republican  National  Convention  met  in  Philadelphia,  a  hall 


*These  figures  are  given  by  Professor  P.  Orman  Ray,  in  an  address 
before  the  Chicago  Historical  Society,  from  which  I  have  obtained  much 
valuable  information.  Professor  Ray  says  of  this  vote  on  the  Indiana  train 
that  it  is  the  only  one  which  he  found  mentioned  in  the  newspaper  reports  or 
elsewhere   in   which   Lincoln   had  more   votes   than    Seward. 


THE  NOMINATION  OF  LINCOLN  427 

seating  two  thousand  people  had  been  ample  for  both  delegate* 
and  spectators.  At  this  convention  ten  thousand  people  jammed 
the  Wigwam,  and  twenty  thousand  stood  with  hardly  less  en- 
thusiasm outside. 

The  convention  assembled  at  noon  on  Wednesday,  May  16, 
i860.  Seward's  fifty-ninth  birthday.  It  was  confidently  ex- 
pected that  he  would  receive  the  nomination  as  a  birthday 
present. 

Governor  Morgan,  of  Xew  York,  Chairman  of  the  National 
Committee,  called  the  convention  to  order.  David  Wilmot,  of 
Pennsylvania,  author  of  the  famous  Wilmot  Proviso,  was  made 
temporary  chairman  and  delivered  the  "key-note"  speech.  He 
was  not  a  success  as  a  presiding  officer.  A  good  deal  of  time 
was  consumed  discussing  the  question  whether  the  convention 
would  accept  the  invitation  of  the  Chicago  Board  of  Trade  tc 
take  a  short  excursion  on  the  lake  at  five  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon. At  two  o'clock  the  convention  took  recess  for  three  hours 
and  reconvened  at  five  to  effect  its  permanent  organization. 
At  the  five  o'clock  session  Honorable  George  Ashmun,  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, was  elected  permanent  chairman.  He  had  a  good 
voice,  and  his  rulings  were  clear  and  just.  His  election  was  a 
relief  after  the  indecision  and  feeble  presiding  of  Wilmot.  A 
committee  on  resolutions  was  appointed  to  draft  a  platform. 
The  convention  adjourned  until  ten  o'clock  next  morning.  The 
evening  appears  to  have  been  spent  by  a  considerable  number  of 
the  delegates  in  a  sail  on  Lake  Michigan,  but  the  politicians 
were  otherwise  engaged. 

On  Thursday  morning,  the  Seward  men,  all  wearing  badges, 
formed  a  large  and  picturesque  procession  in  front  of  the  Rich- 
mond House,  and  marched  to  the  Wigwam  preceded  by  a  finely 
uniformed  band  playing  in  honor  of  Seward  one  of  the  popular 
airs  of  the  day,  entitled  Oh,  Isn't  He  a  Darling.  The  forenoon 
of  Thursday  passed  with  no  very  exciting  incidents. 

On  Thursday  afternoon  the  first  excitement  occurred.  The 
Committee  on  Platform  earnestly  desired  to  present  a  safe  and 


428  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sane  doctrine  which  would  solidify  all  forces  opposed  to  the 
Democratic  administration.  It  therefore  omitted  from  the  first 
draft  some  of  the  more  pronounced  utterances  of  the  Platform 
of  1856.  Perhaps  the  most  radical  of  the  omitted  affirmations 
was  one  quoted  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence  declar- 
ing that  all  men  were  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain 
inalienable  rights,  among  which  were  life,  liberty  and  the  pur- 
suit of  happiness.  When  the  committee  presented  a  Platform 
from  which  that  affirmation  had  been  omitted,  Joshua  R.  Gid- 
dings, of  Ohio,  a  white  haired,  battle-scarred  veteran  of  the 
anti-slavery  warfare,  arose  and  moved  its  reinsertion.  The 
convention  voted  his  amendment  down,  and  Giddings  rose  and 
indignantly  started  to  walk  out  of  the  Wigwam,  but  was  detained 
and  took  a  seat  in  the  rear  of  the  room,  refraining  from  partici- 
pation in  the  proceedings  until  the  vote  was  rescinded.  A  little 
later  George  William  Curtis,  one  of  the  youngest  of  New  York's 
delegates,  rose,  and  in  an  earnest  and  tactful  speech  renewed 
Giddings'  motion.  His  amendment  prevailed,  and  Giddings  re- 
turned placated,  and  the  Platform  was  adopted  amid  tremendous 
enthusiasm.     Thus  the  first  threatened  split  was  averted. 

This  result  was  achieved  with  a  suddenness  that  surprised  the 
Convention,  and  brought  it  at  an  earlier  hour  than  had  been  ex- 
pected to  the  time  for  nominations. 

If  printers  invariably  kept  their  promises,  Abraham  Lincoln 
would  not  have  been  president  of  the  United  States.  If  the 
convention  could  have  got  to  balloting  on  Thursday  night,  Will- 
iam H.  Seward  would  have  been  nominated.  But  the  secretary 
was  compelled  to  announce  that  the  papers  necessary  for  the 
keeping  of  the  tally  were  not  at  hand,  but  would  arrive  in  a  few 
minutes.  The  convention  was  impatient  at  the  delay,  and  a 
motion  was  made  by  some  unknown  delegate  "that  this  conven- 
tion adjourn  until  ten  o'clock  to-morrow  morning."  The  mo- 
tion to  adjourn  prevailed.  If  the  unnamed  delegate  who  made 
the  motion  to  adjourn  could  be  identified,  he,  perhaps  animated 
by  no  higher  motive  than  restlessness  or  the  desire  for  a  drink, 


o 
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16 


THE  NOMINATION  OF  LINCOLN  429 

would  be  entitled  to  mention  as  one  of  the  otherwise  nameless 
voices  that  have  uttered  the  messages  of  destiny. 

The  New  York  delegation  was  the  largest  and  best  organized 
of  the  state  delegations.  It  was  headed  by  Thurlow  Weed,  and 
had  as  one  of  its  next  most  important  attractions,  a  distinguished 
prize-fighter  who  served  as  bartender  for  the  Seward  interests  at 
the  Richmond  House.  Between  these  two  notable  men,  the 
delegates  had  very  nearly  all  the  Republican  leadership  of  New 
York,  except  Horace  Greeley. 

Horace  Greeley  did  not  come  to  the  Convention  of  i860  as  a 
member  of  the  New  York  delegation.  That  body  was  controlled 
by  the  Seward  interests.  Greeley  sat  in  the  convention  as  the 
substitute  for  a  delegate  from  Oregon,  the  state  over  which  as 
a  territory  Lincoln  had  been  offered  the  office  of  governor. 

Greeley  came  to  the  Chicago  Convention  as  the  avowed  op- 
ponent of  Thurlow  Weed  and  William  H.  Seward.  Thurlow 
Weed  was  a  politician  as  adroit  as  America  has  ever  seen.  De- 
siring no  office  for  himself,  he  greatly  desired  to  say  what  men 
should  occupy  office.  He  was  editor  of  the  Albany  Journal,  and 
the  ablest  paragrapher  of  his  generation.  During  the  period 
when  the  Whig  Party  was  coming  to  its  end  and  the  Republican 
Party  was-  in  process  of  formation,  Weed  and  Seward  had  no 
more  earnest  or  effective  assistant  than  Horace  Greeley,  a 
younger  man,  who  had  come  into  great  power  as  editor  of  the 
New  York  Tribune.  The  Tribune  had  begun  with  many  diffi- 
culties attending  it ;  but  it  grew  to  be  one  of  the  strongest  papers 
in  the  nation.  It  was  read  as  few  papers  are  read  in  rural  com- 
munities, and  it  influenced  the  thought  of  its  readers  as  few 
papers  then  or  since  have  done. 

On  Saturday  evening,  November  11,  1854,  Greeley  wrote  to 
Governor  Seward  a  notable  letter,  beginning  as  follows : 

Governor  Seward : 

The  election  is  over,  and  its  results  sufficiently  ascertained. 
It  seems  to  me  a  fitting  time  to  announce  to  you  the  dissolution 
of  the  political  firm  of  Seward,  Weed  and  Greeley  by  the  with- 


430  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

drawal  of  the  junior  partner — said  withdrawal  to  take  effect  on 
the  morning  after  the  first  Thursday  in  February  next.* 

When  Horace  Greeley  mailed  that  letter,  he  made  it  possible 
for  Abraham  Linclon  to  be  chosen  president  six  years  later. 

So  Greeley  came  to  the  Chicago  Convention,  unrecognized  by 
the  New  York  state  delegation,  but  entitled  to  a  seat,  a  voice  and 
a  vote.  He  came  to  defeat  Seward.  He  did  not  favor  Lincoln, 
though  he  had  heard  Lincoln  in  Chicago  in  1847,  and  met  him 
in  Washington  in  1848,  where  his  impression  was  that  Lincoln 
was  "a  genial,  cheerful  rather  homely  man,  noticeably  tall,  and 
the  only  Whig  from  Illinois,  not  remarkable  otherwise. "t 

Greeley  came  to  Chicago  with  strong  expectation  of  uniting 
the  votes  opposed  to  Seward  in  support  of  Edward  Bates. $  But 
Bates  had  no  possible  hope  of  winning,  and  Greeley,  after  mid- 
night of  Thursday,  sadly  faced  the  fact  that  if  Seward  was  de- 
feated it  must  be  by  another  man  than  Bates.  Reluctantly  he 
came  to  believe  that  the  man  who  could  defeat  Seward  in  the 
convention  without  losing  the  election  at  the  polls  was  Lincoln. 

It  was  possible  for  Lincoln  to  be  chosen  as  the  nominee  of  the 
Republican  Convention  not  because  he  was  believed  to  be  an 
abler  man  than  Seward,  but  because  Seward  by  his  greater 
prominence  had  awakened  certain  antagonisms  which  Lincoln 
by  his  obscurity  had  avoided.  It  must  be  admitted  as  we  view 
the  matter  from  its  present  point  of  vantage  that  the  hostilities 
which  Seward  had  aroused  were  mostly  to  his  credit. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  then  clearly  discerned  that  Pennsylvania 
would  be  hopelessly  lost  to  the  Republican  Party  if  Seward  were 
nominated,  and  Indiana  also  was  more  than  doubtful.  Some  of 
the  states  which  would  probably  vote  against  Seward  were  "Oc- 
tober" states,  whose  national  elections  were  held  a  month  earlier 
than  those  of  the  majority  of  the  states,  and  whose  influence  was 


*The  letter,  together  with  a  long  account  of  the  circumstances  inspiring 
it,  is  given  in  full  in  Greeley's  Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life,  pp.  315-320. 

iGreeley's  Estimate  of  Lincoln,:  An  Unpublished  Address.  The  Century, 
July,    t8qi. 

$See  Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life,  by  Horace  Greeley,  pp.  389  seq. 


THE  NOMINATION  OF  LINCOLN  431 

therefore  accounted  greater  as  foreshadowing-  the  probable  result 
of  the  general  election.  Seward  was  defeated  because  it  was  so 
well  known  just  where  he  stood  on  the  great  national  issues. 

Lincoln  was  keeping  in  close  touch  with  the  situation.  Several 
men  in  the  convention  were  keeping  him  informed.  Among  them 
was  Mark  W.  Delahay,  of  Kansas.  Delahay  was  a  Marylander 
by  birth,  who  had  come  to  Illinois  and  moved  on  to  Kansas, 
where  he  was  first  a  Douglas  Democrat,  and  afterward  became 
a  Republican.  He  is  the  man  who  wrote  to  Lincoln  that  he 
thought  he  could  be  elected  a  member  of  the  Kansas  delegation, 
and  do  something  to  swing  it  for  Lincoln,  but  that  he  could  not 
afford  to  pay  his  own  expenses  to  Chicago  and  back,  and  to 
whom  Lincoln  wrote  saying  that  Lincoln  would  send  him  a 
hundred  dollars  toward  his  expenses.  But  Delahay  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  getting  on  the  delegation,  and  the  delegates  from  Kansas 
were  instructed  for  Seward.  Lincoln  wrote  to  Delahay  saying 
to  come  with  the  delegation;  "not  to  stir  them  up  to  anger"  by 
too  great  insistence  upon  Lincoln,  but  to  come,  and  Lincoln  still 
would  pay  the  hundred  dollars.*  Delahay  came  to  Chicago,  and 
was  in  frequent  communication  with  Lincoln  during  the  Con- 
vention. On  Thursday  afternoon  Delahay  wired  Lincoln  that 
his  nomination  appeared  hopeless,  and  asked  if  Lincoln  would 
accept  a  nomination  as  vice-president  if  Seward  was  chosen  as 
nominee  for  president.  Lincoln  replied  confidentially  that  he 
would  accept,  provided  his  friends  thought  it  wise  for  him  to  do 
so.t 

At  eleven-forty  Thursday  night,  Horace  Greeley,  who  had 
been  earnestly  endeavoring  to  defeat  Seward,  telegraphed  the 
New  York  Tribune,  "My  conclusion  from  all  that  I  can  gather 


*Herndon  quotes  these  letters  without  naming  Delahay.  (Vol.  iii,  pp. 
457-459).  Delahay  continued  to  exercise  more  influence  over  Lincoln  than 
was  good  for  Lincoln,  and  Lincoln  appointed  him  to  a  judgeship,  from  which 
President  Grant  was  forced  to  remove  him.  A  sketch  of  the  life  of  Delahay, 
by  his  daughter,  is  in  the  Reports  of  the  Kansas  Historical  Society,  Vol.  X, 
pp.  638-641.  Delahay  was  a  distant  relative  of  Lincoln,  his  mother's  father 
being  Joshua  Hanks. 

tThis  statement  I  have  from  Honorable  Addison  G.  Procter  of  the 
Kansas  delegation,  to  whom  Delahay  showed  the  telegram. 


432  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to-night  is  that  the  opposition  to  Governor  Seward  can  not  con- 
centrate on  any  candidate,  and  that  he  will  be  nominated." 

Many  accounts  have  been  given  of  what  followed.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  William  H.  Seward  would  have  been  nominated  if 
Horace  Greeley  had  not  quarreled  with  Seward  and  his  manager, 
Thurlow  Weed.  It  is  quite  certain  that  Greeley  on  Thursday 
night  gave  up  all  hope  of  defeating  Seward,  but  that  before 
morning  he  had  changed  his  judgment  by  reason  of  his  faith  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  not  only  could  defeat  Seward  in  the  conven- 
tion, but  also  could  defeat  the  Democratic  candidate  at  the  polls. 
Honorable  Addison  G.  Procter,  the  sole  surviving  delegate  to  the 
convention,  attributes  the  determining  influence  to  the  border- 
state  leaders,  notably  Cassius  M.  Clay.* 

On  Friday  morning  the  Seward  forces  gathered  behind  their 
magnificent  brass  band,  and  paraded  through  the  streets  of  Chi- 
cago in  triumphal  procession  to  the  Wigwam.  The  Lincoln 
forces,  with  much  less  of  display,  packed  the  Wigwam  with 
shouters.  There  were  so  many  Lincoln  shouters  in  the  Wigwam 
that  a  considerable  part  of  the  Seward  crowd  that  had  followed 
the  band  could  not  obtain  entrance.  The  story  of  the  disappoint- 
ment of  the  Seward  men  when  they  returned  from  their  proces- 
sion and  found  themselves  excluded  from  the  seats  for  which 
they  held  tickets  in  the  galleries  of  the  Wigwam,  has  been  told 
often,  and  appears  entirely  reliable.  One  incident  hitherto  un- 
published may  shed  light  on  the  way  in  which  the  Lincoln  shout- 
ers were  able  to  get  into  the  Wigwam  ahead  of  the  Seward  men, 
and  occupy  the  seats.  There  were  no  reserved  and  numbered 
seats,  but  it  was  not  expected  that  tickets  would  be  issued  in  ex- 
cess of  the  capacity  of  the  building.  On  the  evening  before  the 
nomination,  however,  Ward  Hill  Lamon  obtained  from  the 
printers  of  the  seat-tickets  a  large  supply  of  extra  tickets.  He 
set  certain  young  men  at  work  signing  these  tickets  with  the 


*Mr.  Procter's  inteiesting  and  valuable  reminiscences  are  published  by 
the  Chicago  Historical  Society,  in  a  booklet  issued  by  the  University  of 
Chicago  Press. 


THE  NOMINATION  OF  LINCOLN  433 

names  of  the  officers  of  the  Convention.*  These  young  men 
did  their  part  right  merrily,  and  signed  tickets  nearly  all 
night.  In  the  morning,  these  tickets  were  furnished  in  liberal 
number  to  friends  of  Lincoln,  who  were  clamoring  for  tickets 
for  their  friends.  The  tickets  were  given  out  with  the  sugges- 
tion that  it  would  be  well  to  get  in  early.  Of  course,  neither 
Lincoln  nor  any  of  his  responsible  managers  knew  of  this  piece 
of  work,  which  had  the  effect  of  crowding  out  a  large  fraction 
of  Seward's  shouting  strength,  and  giving  the  space  over  to  the 
shouters  for  Lincoln.  A  brass  band  upon  the  street  may  be  con- 
siderably less  effective  than  a  well  placed  company  of  leather- 
lunged  shouters.  But  neither  they  who  followed  the  band  nor 
they  who  packed  the  Wigwam  knew  that  already  the  nomination 
had  very  nearly  been  settled.  It  had  come  to  be  believed  by  a 
considerable  number  of  wavering  delegates  that  if  Seward 
should  be  nominated,  he  would  be  defeated;  for  he  could  not 
carry  Pennsylvania,  Indiana,  or  perhaps  Illinois.  Illinois  and 
Indiana  were  for  Lincoln,  and  the  delegates  had  been  hearing 
more  and  more  about  him,  and  coming  to  think  more  and  more 
favorably  for  him.  When  the  Pennsylvania  delegation  came 
over  to  Lincoln,  the  matter  was  practically  settled. 

A  pamphlet  had  been  circulated  among  the  Pennsylvania  men, 
ostensibly  favorable  to  Cameron  as  president,  but  in  reality 
planned  to  produce  a  sentiment  favorable  to  his  election  as  vice- 
president  on  a  ticket  with  Edward  Bates,  of  Missouri,  who  was 
Greeley's  candidate.  Cameron  was  certain  to  be  named  as  the 
"favorite  son''  of  Pennsylvania,  but  it  was  certain  that  he  could 
not  be  nominated  as  president  and  not  likely  that  he  could 
win  the  nomination  as  vice-president.  The  enthusiastic  friends 
of  Lincoln  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  to  leading  Pennsylvania 
delegates  that  if  they  would  be  content  with  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet 
for   Cameron,  there  would  be  no  trouble  about  arranging  the 


*Honorable  John  H.  Marshall,  for  many  years  circuit  judge,  residing,  as 
die]  his  father  who  was  state  senator  and  Lincoln's  friend,  at  Charleston,  Ill- 
inois, informs  me  that  his  brother,  Senator  Marshall's  oldest  son,  was  one 
of  these  young  men. 


434  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

matter,  provided  Pennsylvania  would  go  for  Lincoln.  That  was 
welcome  news  to  Pennsylvania.  Lincoln  had  no  share  in  the 
making  of  this  bargain,  but  he  kept  it. 

At  ten  o'clock  on  Friday  morning  the  Wigwam  was  jammed, 
and  the  crowd  outside  is  said  to  have  reached  two  blocks  away. 
The  New  Yorkers  prepared  to  do  all  necessary  cheering  for 
Seward.  But  the  Illinois  attendants  at  the  convention  were  far 
more  numerous.  In  the  matter  of  lung  power  the  men  of  the 
prairies  were  far  and  away  superior  to  the  New  York  delega- 
tion, because  there  were  more  of  them. 

Nominations  began  almost  immediately.  There  were  then  no 
nominating  speeches,  such  as  later  have  come  to  thrill  and  some- 
times to  weary  conventions.  Honorable  William  H.  Evarts  first 
obtained  the  floor,  and  presented  the  name  of  Seward  in  these 
words : 

4T  take  the  liberty  to  name  as  a  candidate  to  be  nominated  by 
this  convention  for  the  office  of  president  of  the  United  States, 
William  H.  Seward." 

He  was  immediately  followed  by  Norman  D.  Judd,  of  Illinois, 
with  these  words : 

"I  desire,  on  behalf  of  the  delegation  from  Illinois,  to  put  in 
nomination  as  a  candidate  for  president  of  the  United  States, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois." 

There  were  other  nominations  equally  brief,  and  a  few  sec- 
onds. The  only  one  of  these  that  contained  any  attempt  at  ora- 
tory was  that  of  Mr.  Delano,  of  Ohio,  seconding  the  nomination 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  "a  man  who  can  split  rails  and  maul 
Democrats."     That  little  speech  set  the  convention  on  fire. 

In  the  balloting  now,  the  roll-call  of  the  states  is  in  alphabet- 
ical order.  It  is  an  impressive  sound,  the  musical  names  be- 
ginning with  Alabama,  Arkansas,  and  so  on  down  the  alphabet. 
But  in  i860  a  geographical  order  prevailed,  beginning  with  New 
England  and  moving  westward.  There  were  four  hundred  and 
sixty-five  votes;  two  hundred  and  thirty-three  necessary  to 
choice.     On  the  first  ballot  Seward  had  one  hundred  seventv- 


THE  NOMINATION  OF  LINCOLN  435 

three  and  one-half,  Lincoln  one  hundred  and  two,  with  Cameron, 
of  Pennsylvania,  third  with  fifty  and  one-half.  On  the  second 
ballot  the  name  of  Cameron  was  withdrawn,  and  the  vote  stood, 
Seward  one  hundred  eighty-four  and  one-half,  a  gain  of  eleven 
votes,  and  Lincoln  one  hundred  eighty-one,  a  gain  of  seventy- 
nine.  Chase,  of  Ohio,  now  stood  third  with  forty-two  and  one- 
half  votes.  On  the  third  ballot,  Seward  had  one  hundred  eighty, 
a  loss  of  four  and  one-half,  while  Lincoln  had  two  hundred 
thirty-one  and  one-half,  lacking  only  one  and  one-half  of  re- 
ceiving the  number  necessary  to  nominate.  Hundreds  of  people 
were  keeping  tally-sheets,  and  it  was  plainly  seen  how  nearly  the 
third  ballot  had  come  to  nominating  Lincoln.  Before  the  vote 
was  announced,  Mr.  Carter,  of  Ohio,  sprang  upon  his  chair  and 
announced  a  change  of  five  votes  from  Chase  to  Lincoln.  A 
cannon  had  been  placed  on  the  roof,  but  the  confusion  was  such 
that  for  a  moment  or  two  the  man  in  charge  could  not  be  made 
to  understand  what  had  happened.  When  he  understood  and 
fired  the  gun,  it  could  hardly  be  heard  in  the  Wigwam.  The 
Chicago  Tribune  declared  that  earth  had  heard  no  such  tumult 
since  the  walls  of  Jericho  fell  down. 

Other  states  then  hurried  to  change  their  votes.  There  was 
the  familiar  ''rush  to  get  into  the  band-wagon."  When  the  vote 
was  finally  announced,  out  of  four  hundred  sixty-six  votes  cast, 
with  two  hundred  thirty-four  necessary  to  choice,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, of  Illinois,  had  three  hundred  sixty-four. 

The  nomination  of  Lincoln  occurred  about  half-past  twelve, 
and  was  followed  by  a  number  of  speeches  endorsing  the  nomina- 
tion. At  about  half  past  one  the  convention  adjourned  until 
five  o'clock,  at  which  time  it  reconvened  and  nominated  Hanni- 
bal Hamlin,  of  Maine,  for  vice-president.  Then  the  convention 
gave  cheers  for  the  nominees,  the  platform,  and  the  ladies  of 
Chicago,  and  adjourned  to  "meet  at  the  White  House  on  the 
fourth  of  March  next." 


CHAPTER  XXX 


THE   ELECTION   OF   LINCOLN 


With  the  keenest  possible  interest  Abraham  Lincoln  awaited 
in  Springfield  the  news  of  the  convention.  On  Thursday  he 
accepted  his  probable  defeat  but  he  did  not  give  up  hope.  On 
Friday  morning  he  went  early  to  his  office.  The  convention  did 
not  assemble  until  ten  o'clock,  and  Lincoln  dropped  in  at  the 
office  of  James  C.  Conkling,  who  had  been  attending  the  con- 
vention and  returned  unexpectedly  to  Springfield.  Mr.  Conk- 
ling brought  Lincoln  more  favorable  news  than  he  had  ventured 
to  believe.  Conkling  told  him  that  he  was  to  be  nominated  that 
day.  Lincoln  had  sent  a  message  to  his  friends  the  day  before, 
by  the  hand  of  one  of  the  editors  of  the  Journal,  making  his 
comment  in  pencil  on  the  margin  of  a  copy  of  the  Missouri 
Democrat,  which  contained  some  passages  with  regard  to  Sew- 
ard's stand  on  the  slavery  issue.  Accepting  this  article  as  a  cor- 
rect statement  of  Seward's  position,  he  had  written : 

"I  agree  with  Seward  in  his  'irrepressible  conflict,'  but  I  do 
not  endorse  his  'Higher  Law'  doctrine.  Make  no  contracts  that 
will  bind  me."  Thus,  and  by  telegraph,  had  Lincoln  had  meager 
communication  with  the  managers  of  his  campaign  in  Chicago; 
it  was  heartening  to  get  news  direct  from  Conkling  that  his 
chance  for  the  nomination  was  good. 

Lincoln  returned  from  Conkling's  office  to  the  office  of  Lin- 
coln and  Herndon.*     Herndon  was  in  Chicago.     Lincoln  was 


*Many  accounts  are  current  in  Springfield  of  the  place  and  manner  of 
Lincoln's  receiving  news  of  his  nomination.  No  less  than  three  men,  all 
honest  and  highly  esteemed,  have  told  me  in  detail  of  having  been  the  first 
to  inform  him  of  his  nomination.  I  give  what  I  think  to  be  the  correct 
account. 

436 


THE  ELECTION  OF  LINCOLN  437 

too  nervous  to  sit  down  alone.  He  went  out  and  played  a  few 
games  of  hand-ball  in  an  open  court  on  North  Sixth  Street  be- 
tween John  Carmody's  store  and  a  brick  building  owned  by 
Judge  Logan.  The  Journal  office  was  just  across  the  alley 
from  the  Carmody  store.  He  was  in  his  office  when  the  news 
of  the  first  ballot  reached  him.  The  second  ballot  he  appears  to 
have  received  in  the  telegraph  office,  and  the  news  of  the  third 
and  final  ballot  in  the  Journal  office  shortly  before  one  o'clock. 

It  is  a  matter  of  some  importance  that,  when  the  final  news 
came,  Lincoln  did  not  wait  long  to  receive  the  congratulations  of 
his  friends,  and  said : 

"There  is  a  little  woman  over  on  Eighth  Street  that  will 
be  glad  to  hear  the  news;  if  you'll  excuse  me,  I'll  go  and  tell 
her." 

The  next  day,  Saturday,  a  special  train  left  Chicago,  bearing 
to  Springfield  the  committee  appointed  to  inform  Lincoln  of  his 
nomination.*  Willie  and  Tad  Lincoln  were  the  first  members 
of  the  family  to  greet  the  delegation,  which  they  did  with  a  shout 
of  "Hooray." 

Inside  the  door  Mr.  Lincoln  received  them.  Mr.  Ashmun, 
President  of  the  Convention,  made  the  announcement  briefly, 
and  Lincoln  accepted  in  an  address  of  like  brevity.  There  was  a 
moment  of  silence,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  addressed  Honorable  Will- 
iam D.  Kelley,  of  Pennsylvania: 

"Judge  Kelley,  you  are  a  tall  man;  what  is  your  height?" 

"I  am  six  feet  three,  Mr.  Lincoln." 

"I  beat  you,"  said  Lincoln,  "I  am  six  feet  four." 

These  formalities  and  informalities  being  over,  Mr.  Lincoln 
said: 

"Mrs.  Lincoln  will  be  pleased  to  see  you  in  the  other  room, 
gentlemen.     You  must  be  thirsty  after  your  journey." 

They  passed  into  the  library  and  met  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and  had 
light   refreshments;   but   the   drink   consisted   wholly   of   water. 


*This  occasion  has  often  been  described  in  my  hearing  by  Charles  Carle- 
ton  Coffin,  who  was  present  representing  the  Boston  Journal. 


438  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Some  of  Lincoln's  friends  had  offered  to  provide  wine,  but  Lin- 
coln declined.  ■ 

Lincoln's  letter  of  acceptance  is  as  follows : 

Springfield,  Illinois,  June  3,  i860. 
Sir :  I  accept  the  nomination  tendered  me  by  the  Convention 
over  which  you  presided,  of  which  I  am  formally  apprised  in  a 
letter  of  yourself  and  others,  acting  as  a  Committee  of  the  Con- 
vention for  the  purpose.  The  declaration  of  principles  which 
accompanies  your  letter  meets  my  approval  and  it  shall  be  my 
care  not  to  violate  it  or  disregard  it  in  any  part.  Imploring  the 
assistance  of  Divine  Providence,  and  with  due  regard  to  the 
views  and  feelings  of  all  who  were  represented  in  the  Conven- 
tion, to  the  rights  of  all  the  states  and  territories  and  people  of 
the  nation,  to  the  inviolability  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  per- 
petual union,  prosperity  and  harmony  of  all,  I  am  most  happy  to 
cooperate  for  the  practical  success  of  the  principles  declared  by 
the  Convention. 

Your  obliged  friend  and  fellow  citizen, 
Abraham  Lincoln. 
Hon.  George  Ashmun. 

The  Democratic  Convention  of  i860  was  held  at  Charleston. 
South  Carolina.  Practically  the  whole  mass  of  the  northern 
Democrats  were  for  Douglas  and  the  South  was  against  him. 
Douglas  and  his  managers  offered  as  their  platform  the  Cincin- 
nati platform  of  1856,  with  the  addition  of  the  demand  for  the 
annexation  of  Cuba,  and  an  endorsement  of  the  Dred  Scott  de- 
cision and  of  any  future  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  recog- 
nizing slavery  in  the  territories.  But  the  southern  delegates 
would  not  accept  this  platform  nor  the  man  who  stood  upon  it. 
A  two-thirds  vote  was  required  to  nominate,  and  many  ballots 
were  taken  with  Douglas  in  the  lead,  but  not  with  a  sufficient 
majority  to  give  him  the  necessary  two-thirds. 

The  convention  adjourned  to  Baltimore.  In  the  interval  be- 
tween the  two  meetings  Douglas  continued  in  the  Senate  an 
acrimonious  debate  against  Jefferson  Davis. 

The   Baltimore    Convention   split.      One    division   nominated 


THE  ELECTION  OF  LINCOLN  439 

Stephen  A.  Douglas,  of  Illinois,  for  president,  and  Hershel  B. 
Johnson,  of  Georgia,  for  vice-president.  Their  platform  was 
popular  sovereignty.  The  pro-slavery  wing  of  the  Democratic 
party  nominated  John  C.  Breckenridge,  of  Kentucky,  for  presi- 
dent, and  Joseph  Lane,  of  Oregon,  for  vice-president.  To  in- 
crease the  hopelessness  of  the  Douglas  campaign,  the  American 
Party,  containing  a  forlorn  remnant  of  old  Whigs  and  some 
Democrats,  renamed  themselves  the  Constitutional  Union  Party, 
with  John  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  for  president,  and  Edward  Everett, 
of  Massachusetts,  for  vice-president.  Lincoln  and  Douglas  were 
opposed  to  each  other  again,  but  on  most  unequal  terms.  Every 
day  it  grew  increasingly  plain  to  Lincoln  and  his  friends  that  he 
was  certain  to  be  elected  in  November.  The  cleavage  in  the 
Democratic  ranks  went  to  the  very  bottom.  Two  years  pre- 
vious Lincoln  had  mirthfully  taken  note  of  the  hostility  between 
Douglas  and  Buchanan,  and  had  spoken  of  it  in  terms  of  that 
cheerful  neutrality  of  the  woman  in  the  frontier  story:  "Go  it, 
husband!  Go  it,  bear!"  Even  more  gleefully  could  he  now  enjoy 
that  fight. 

The  Democrats,  in  that  hour  when  union  was  an  absolute  ne- 
cessity, if  any  hope  of  success  was  to  be  cherished,  divided  hope- 
lessly. There  was  a  conundrum  current  in  that  day,  the  answer 
to  which  was  that  Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  a  greater  man  than 
Abraham  Lincoln,  for  Lincoln  split  rails  and  Douglas  split  the 
Democratic  Party. 

The  Republican  Party  needed  every  omen  of  good  cheer  to  en- 
courage it  after  the  nomination  of  Lincoln.  There  came  a  swift 
reaction.  Delegates  from  the  east  returned  to  their  homes  to 
meet  the  question,  "Why  did  you  pass  by  the  great  statesmen  of 
the  Republican  Party  and  give  us  a  railsplitter  ?"  Even  Illinois  felt 
a  kind  of  awestricken  reaction.  It  had  gone  for  Lincoln  as  a  "fav- 
orite son,"  hardly  more  than  half  believing  it  possible  that  he  could 
be  nominated;  and  now  the  Illinois  Republicans  had  an  awful  fear 
that  the  really  great  leaders  of  the  party  would  leave  them  and 
their  candidate  to  get  out  of  the  situation  as  best  they  could. 


440  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Honorable  O.  H.  Browning  was  a  friend  of  Lincoln,  and  of 
course  as  a  delegate  voted  for  him  as  president.  We  may 
profitably  read  a  few  pages  from  his  diary  at  this  point.  He  had 
been  in  frequent  consultation  with  Lincoln;  and,  being  in 
Springfield,  Wednesday,  February  8,  he  wrote : 

At  night  Lincoln  came  to  my  room,  and  we  had  a  free  talk 
about  the  Presidency.  He  thinks  I  may  be  right  in  supposing 
Mr.  Bates  to  be  the  strongest  and  best  man  we  can  run — that 
he  can  get  votes  even  in  this  county  that  he  cannot  get — and  that 
there  is  a  large  class  of  voters  in  all  the  free  States  that  would 
go  for  Mr.  Bates,  and  for  no  other  man.  He  says  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  by  the  time  the  National  convention  meets  in  Chi- 
cago he  may  be  of  opinion  that  the  very  best  thing  that  can  be 
done  will  be  to  nominate  Mr.  Bates.  Dick  Yates  and  Philips 
also  think  Mr.  Bates  stronger  in  this  State  than  any  other  man 
who  has  been  named.  I  hope  to  start  home  at  6  o'clock  in  the 
morning. 

Of  the  convention  he  wrote : 

My  first  choice  for  the  Presidency  was  Mr.  Bates  of  Missouri, 
but  under  instructions  our  whole  delegation  voted  for  Mr.  Lin- 
coln. Many  reasons  influenced  to  support  Mr.  Bates,  the  chief 
of  which,  next  to  his  eminent  fitness,  were  to  strengthen  our 
organization  in  the  South,  and  remove  apprehension  in  the 
South  of  any  hostile  purpose  on  the  part  of  Republicans  to  the 
institutions  of  the  South — to  restore  fraternal  regard  among  the 
different  sections  of  the  L^nion — to  bring  to  our  support  the  old 
whigs  in  the  free  States,  who  have  not  yet  fraternized  with  us, 
and  to  give  some  check  to  the  ultra  tendencies  of  the  Republican 
party.  Mr.  Bates  received  48  votes  on  the  first  ballot,  and  would 
probably  have  been  nominated  if  the  struggle  had  been  pro- 
longed. 

After  the  convention  he  was  sure  that  the  election  was  lost 
unless  Bates  would  take  the  stump  for  Lincoln.  On  Tuesday, 
May  22y  he  wrote : 

Fine  day.  At  work  in  office.  Mrs.  B.  and  I  out  at  Cox's  to 
tea.     "Help  me  Cassius  or  I  sink."     This  P.   M.  I  received  a 


THE  ELECTION  OE  LINCOLN  441 

long  letter  from  Hon.  David  Davis,  Thos.  A.  Marshall,  N.  B. 
Judd,  E.  Peck  &  O.  M.  Hatch,  entreating  me  in  the  most  earnest 
terms  to  go,  without  delay,  to  St.  Louis,  and  see  Judge  Bates. 
and  try  and  prevail  upon  him  to  come  into  Illinois,  and  assist  us 
in  the  campaign.  They  want  his  influence  to  carry  the  old  whig 
element  for  Lincoln.  Some  of  these  same  men  had  blamed  me 
for  supporting  Judge  Bates  for  the  Presidency  and  had  asserted, 
in  the  most  emphatic  terms,  that  he  could  not  carry  Illinois.  I 
believed  before  the  convention,  and  believe  now,  that  he  would 
have  carried  the  entire  Republican  party,  and  the  old  whig  party 
beside,  and  I  think  others  are  beginning  to  suspect  the  same 
thing,  and  that  we  have  made  a  mistake  in  the  selection  of  can- 
didates. 

I  immediately  wrote  a  long  and  urgent  letter  to  Judge  Bates, 
and  follow  it  in  person  tomorrow — for  in  my  opinion,  the  ex- 
istence of  the  party  and  the  highest  good  of  the  country,  are 
alike  dependent  on  our  success,  and  I  am  willing  to  forego  all 
personal  preferences,  and  make  any  reasonable  sacrifice  to  secure 
a  triumph. 

Judge  Bates  at  first  was  non-committal;  he  was  not  sure  it 
would  be  dignified  for  a  man  who  had  been  a  candidate  before 
the  convention  to  go  on  the  stump.  Browning  was  overjoyed 
when  Bates,  a  week  later,  in  an  open  letter  committed  himself  to 
the  Lincoln  cause. 

If  Orville  H.  Browning,  of  Illinois,  felt  thus,  how  did  such 
men  as  Charles  Francis  Adams,  of  Massachusetts,  feel?  He  de- 
livered an  able  speech  in  the  House  of  Representatives  on  May 
31,  i860,  two  weeks  after  the  convention,  on  The  Republican 
Party  a  Necessity.  In  carefully  formulated  logic  he  delivered 
that  address,  which  the  Republican  National  Committee  re- 
printed as  a  campaign  document.  It  was  a  strong  plea  for  the 
Republican  Party,  but  it  did  not  contain  the  name  of  Abraham 
Lincoln ! 

To  their  lasting  honor  let  it  be  recorded  that  Lincoln's  rivals 
before  the  convention,  Seward  and  Chase  and  Cameron  and 
Bates,  supported  him  loyally. 

In  time  the  enthusiasm  which  at  first  was  lacking,  rose;  for 


442  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

it  became  evident  that,  owing-  to  the  divisions  in  the  Demo- 
cratic Party,  Lincoln  had  more  than  an  even  chance  of  winning. 
There  was  much  that  was  picturesque  in  the  campaign  of 
J 860.  There  was  oratory  and  martial  music;  there  were  torch- 
light processions  and  long  parades.  There  was  much  singing. 
Some  very  reputable  poets  wrote  campaign  songs  for  the  march- 
ing clubs.  William  Cullen  Bryant  wrote  one.  Edmund  Clar- 
ence Stedman  rewrote  The  Star  Spangled  Banner  in  praise  of 
Honest  Abe  of  the  West: 

He's  the  Chief  in  whose  rule  all  the  land  shall  be  blest. 
Is  our  noble  Old  Abe,  Honest  Abe  of  the  West! 

Even  Horace  Greeley  dropped  into  poetry  in  a  very  good  song, 
written  for  The  Bobolink  Minstrel: 

As  trembles  the  earth  to  its  mighty  emotion, 

More  firm  grows  each  patriot  knee, 
While  people  and  States  from  the  lakes  to  the  ocean, 

Proudly  join  in  the  march  of  the  free! 

It  must  be  admitted  that  these  well-wrought  poems  did  not 
attain  to  popularity.  Richard  Grant  White,  at  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War,  compiled  a  book  of  war  poetry,  and  went  out  of  his 
way,  both  in  the  text  of  the  book  and  in  the  Introduction  to 
record  his  scorn  of  "that  senseless  farago,"  John  Brown's  Body 
Lies  a-Monld'ring  in  the  Grave.  He  lamented  the  fact  that  they 
had  begun  to  sing  it  in  England,  but  predicted  that  it  would 
soon  die  there  as  already,,  in  1866,  it  was  alleged  to  be  dying  in 
this  country. 

The  songs  that  were  popular  in  i860,  on  Lincoln's  side  (and 
1  forbear  to  quote  those  that  were  sung  in  derision  of  him),  were 
not  composed  by  well-known  poets.  They  were  jingles  set  to  such 
tunes  as  Rosin  the  Bow  and  Old  Uncle  Ned.  They  were  songs 
that  informed  Old  Buck  of  his  ultimate  destination,  and  the 
route,  namely,  Salt  River. 


THE  ELECTION  OF  LINCOLN  443 

There  were  songs  in  recognition  of  the  predestined  fate  of 
Little  Doug,  as  this,  which  was  sung  to  the  tune  of  Uncle  Ned': 

There  was  a  little  man  and  his  name  was  Stevy  Doug, 

To  the  "White  House  he  longed  for  to  go : 
But  he  hadn't  any  votes  in  the  whole  of  the  South, 

In  the  place  where  his  votes  ought  to  grow. 

His  legs  were  short,  but  his  speeches  they  were  long, 

And  nothing  but  himself  he  could  see ; 
His  principles  were  weak,  but  his  spirits  they  were  strong, 

For  a  thirsty  little  soul  was  he. 

As  for  songs  about  "Old  Abe,"  they  were  abundant.  Even 
Willie  and  Tad  Lincoln  sang  in  the  house  in  Springfield,  and 
later  in  the  White  House  how — 

Old  Abe  Lincoln  came  out  of  the  wilderness, 
Down  in  Illinois. 

Arnold,  who  participated  in  this  campaign,  tells  its  story  as 
the  culmination  of  long  deferred  hope : 

This  Presidential  campaign  has  had  no  parallel.  The  enthu- 
siasm of  the  people  was  like  a  great  conflagration,  like  a  prairie 
fire  before  a  wild  tornado.  A  little  more  than  twenty  years 
had  passed  since  Owen  Lovejoy,  brother  of  Elijah  Lovejoy,  on 
the  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  kneeling  on  the  turf  not  then  green 
over  the  grave  of  the  brother  who  had  been  killed  for  his  fidelity 
to  freedom,  had  sworn  eternal  war  against  slavery.  From  that 
time  on,  he  and  his  associate  abolitionists  had  gone  forth  preach- 
ing their  crusade  against  oppression,  with  hearts  of  fire  and 
tongues  of  lightning,  and  now  the  consummation  was  to  be  re- 
alized of  a  President  elected  on  the  distinct  ground  of  oppo- 
sition to  the  extension  of  slavery.  For  years  the  hatred  of  that 
institution  had  been  growing  and  gathering  force.  Whittier, 
Bryant,  Lowell,  Longfellow,  and  others,  had  written  the  lyrics 
of  liberty ;  the  graphic  pen  of  Mrs.  Stowe,  in  ''Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,"  had  painted  the  cruelties  of  the  overseer  and  the  slave- 
holder, but  the  acts  of  slaveholders  themselves  did  more  to  pre 


444  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

mote  the  growth  of  anti-slavery  than  all  other  causes.  The  per- 
secutions of  abolitionists  in  the  South ;  the  harshness  and  cruelty 
attending-  the  execution  of  the  fugitive  slave  laws ;  the  brutality 
of  Brooks  in  knocking  down,  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  Charles 
Sumner,  for  words  spoken  in  debate ;  these  and  many  other  out- 
rages had  fired  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  the  free  states  against 
this  barbarous  institution.  Beecher,  Phillips,  Channing,  Sum- 
ner, and  Seward,  with  their  eloquence ;  Chase,  with  his  logic ; 
Lincoln,  with  his  appeals  to  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  to  the  opinions  of  the  founders  of  the  re- 
public, his  clear  statements,  his  apt  illustrations,  above  all,  his 
wise  moderation — all  had  swelled  the  voice  of  the  people,  which 
found  expression  through  the  ballot-box,  and  which  declared 
that  slavery  should  go  no  further.  It  was  now  proclaimed  that 
"the  further  spread  of  slavery  should  be  arrested,  and  it  should 
be  placed  where  the  public  mind  should  rest  in  the  belief  of  its 
ultimate  extinction."* 

At  that  time  Ohio,  Pennsylvania  and  Indiana  all  held  their 
elections  in  October.  These  all  voted  for  Lincoln.  The  result 
was  now  as  certain  as  any  future  event  could  be  and  Lincoln 
and  his  wife  anticipated  the  happy  day  when  he  was  to  be  elected 
president. 

After  his  nomination,  Lincoln  moved  his  headquarters  from 
his  law  office  to  a  room  in  the  state-house  building.  He  left 
virtually  all  his  law  business  to  Herndon  and  spent  his  days 
receiving  delegations  and  individuals  who  came  to  consult  him. 
His  secretary,  John  G.  Nicolay,  was  with  him  in  the  office,  and 
before  he  departed  for  Washington  he  engaged  another  secre- 
tary, John  Hay. 

It  was  commonly  supposed  in  Springfield  that  Lincoln  would 
not  vote.  Lincoln  himself  had  thought  that  he  would  not  vote 
for  his  own  electors  and  he  adhered  to  this  plan.  He  decided  to 
cast  a  vote  for  the  state  ticket,  but  not  to  vote  for  himself.  He 
went  to  the  polls  accompanied  by  his  law  partner,  William  H. 
Herndon,  his  Danville  associate,  Ward  Hill  Lamon,  and  a  young 

*Life  of  Lincoln,  pp.  170-171. 


THE  ELECTION  OE  LINCOLN  445 

law   student,   Elmer  Ellsworth,   at   that   time  a   member  of  his 
household. 

The  election  of  November  sixth  showed  the  following  results : 
Lincoln  received  180  electoral  votes,  and  a  popular  vote  of 
1,866,452.  Douglas  received  12  electoral  votes  and  a  popular 
vote  of  1,375,1 57.  Breckenridge  received  72  electoral  votes  and 
a  popular  vote  of  847,953.  Bell  received  39  electoral  votes  and 
a  popular  vote  of  570,631.  Douglas  carried  but  one  state  out- 
right, but  had  some  scattering  votes.  Breckenridge  swept  the 
South,  and  Bell  the  border  states,  but  Lincoln  had  the  solid 
North.  But  though  Douglas  had  only  twelve  votes  in  the  elec- 
toral college,  he  had  a  popular  vote  of  more  than  one  and  a  third 
millions,  and  stood  as  a  dangerous  second  to  Lincoln  in  popu- 
lar regard.  He  had  fought  the  campaign  to  its  finish,  stumping 
the  country  on  his  own  behalf  as  presidential  candidates  at  that 
time  had  rarely  done,  and  he  went  down  with  his  colors  flying. 
After  the  election,  Lincoln's  days  w^ere  increasingly  full. 
Photographers  came  to  photograph  him  and  artists  to  paint  him. 
The  Representatives1  Hall  was  not  then  occupied,  and  the  paint- 
ers set  up  their  easels  there.  Lincoln  posed  for  the  artists  a  little 
while  each  morning  as  he  looked  over  his  mail. 

He  greeted  all  who  came  to  see  him  cordially.  Even  Hannah 
Armstrong,  widow  of  his  Clary  Grove  friend,  made  a  pilgrimage 
to  Springfield,  and  wTas  entertained  at  the  Lincoln  home,  but  she 
was  not  very  sure  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  enjoyed  having  her  there. 
The  period  that  followed  Lincoln's  election  was  one  of  grow- 
ing perplexity.  He  was  beset  by  office  holders  and  distressed 
by  the  demands  of  different  factions  that  he  should  commit  him- 
self to  one  policy  or  another.  He  had  no  peace  by  day,  and 
none  too  much  rest  at  night. 

Lincoln  remained  in  Springfield  after  his  nomination  for  the 
presidency.  Except  for  one  journey  to  Chicago,  and  one  which 
he  made  to  visit  his  aged  stepmother,  he  hardly  left  Springfield. 
He  made  no  speeches.  Neither  did  he  make  or  permit  to  be 
made  on  his  behalf  any  other  formal  declaration  than  the  party 
platform.     Honorable  Lawrence  Weldon  wrote: — 


446  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Mr.  Lincoln  took  no  public  part  in  the  campaign  of  i860.  He 
attended  one  political  meeting,  but  declined  to  speak.  On  the 
day  appointed  by  law  the  Republican  electors  met  at  Spring- 
field and  were  entertained  at  dinner  by  Mr.  J.  C.  Conkling,  the 
elector  for  the  district.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  there  as  one  of  the 
guests,  and  talked  freely  but  sadly  as  to  the  condition  of  things 
incident  to  his  election.  Governor  Yates,  who  had  been  elected 
governor,  was  of  the  party,  and  expressed  to  him  the  necessity 
of  being  firm  and  determined.  Lincoln  replied  that  he  hoped 
he  would  be  adequate  to  the  responsibility  of  the  situation ;  and 
that  in  his  hands,  as  president,  the  Republic  of  Washington 
would  not  perish.* 

Among  the  various  things  that  Lincoln  did  between  his  nom- 
ination and  his  departure  for  Washington  was  this,  that  he 
decided  to  grow  a  beard.  This  gave  much  concern  to  the  ar- 
tists who  were  thronging  Springfield  at  the  time,  and  resulted  in 
two  sets  of  pictures,  one  set  made  in  the  spring  and  summer  of 
i860,  showing  Lincoln  without  a  beard,  and  the  other  made  later 
with  a  set  of  whiskers  that  covered  his  face  except  his  upper 
lip.  Artists  generally  have  deplored  the  change ;  for  the  beard 
did  not  hide  the  lower  lip  which  was  the  least  attractive  feature, 
and  it  hid  the  finely  modeled  chin.  But  after  the  beard  had 
passed  its  experimental  stages,  and  had  found  its  metes  and 
bounds,  it  became  a  decorative  feature  which  can  not  be  spared 
from  the  countenance  of  Lincoln. 

A  few  days  after  the  election,  Lincoln  arranged  for  a  visit  to 
Chicago,  where,  by  appointment,  he  met  the  vice-presidential 
candidate,  Honorable  Hannibal  Hamlin,  who  journeyed  from 
Maine  to  meet  him.  For  several  days  there  were  conferences  in 
the  city,  which  became  the  center  of  political  interest  of  the  na- 
tion. Chicago  had  never  seen  a  president  elect  nor  a  vice-presi- 
dent elect  nor  the  wife  of  a  president  elect,  and  it  was  deter- 
mined to  miss  none  of  them.  After  various  private  conferences 
and  visits  and  some  shopping,  there  was  a  notable  reception  in 


^Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln  by  Distinguished  Men  of  His  Time, 
p.  209. 


THE  ELECTION  OF  LINCOLN  447 

the  Tremont  House  on  Friday,  November  twenty-second.  Lin- 
coln stood  first  in  line ;  Mrs.  Lincoln  stood  next  to  him  on  his 
right ;  Mr.  Hamlin  stood  next.  All  three  shook  hands  with  all 
comers.  Lincoln  received  them  all  graciously,  now  holding  to  the 
hand  of  a  particularly  tall  man,  and  now  and  then  greeting  with 
special  cordiality  an  old  friend.  A  small  boy  who  shouted  for 
the  Republican  candidates  was  caught  up  by  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
tossed  almost  to  the  ceiling,  to  the  mutual  delight  of  the  lad  and 
the  future  president.  Eight  little  girls  halted  the  procession 
while  Mr.  Lincoln  painstakingly  wrote  his  autograph  for  each 
of  them.  The  next  day,  Saturday,  Mr.  Hamlin  returned  east, 
and  the  Lincolns  went  back  to  Springfield,  where  they  remained, 
with  the  exception  of  one  visit  of  his,  until  they  left  for  Wash- 
ington. 

On  this  visit  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  met  in  Chicago  by  appoint- 
ment, Joshua  F.  Speed  and  his  wife.  The  two  men  had  a  good 
visit  and  a  happy  recalling  of  old  times.  The  two  women 
were  equally  happy  shopping;  Mrs.  Lincoln  intended  to  go  to 
Washington  wearing  good  clothes. 

Thomas  Lincoln,  Abraham's  father,  had  died,  January  17, 
1 85 1.  Shortly  before  Abraham  Lincoln  left  Springfield,  he 
made  a  journey  to  Coles  County  where  his  stepmother  was  still 
living,  and  bade  her  an  affectionate  farewell.  The  relations 
which  existed  between  this  good  woman  and  her  stepson  were 
ideal,  and  the  meeting  wras  one  which  left  her  with  the  tenderest 
memories.  But  she  had  a  deep  foreboding  with  respect  to  their 
parting.  Some  shadow,  it  seemed  to  her,  hung  over  this  be- 
loved son  of  hers.  She  felt  that  even  if  she  should  live  to  the 
time  of  the  completion  of  his  presidential  term,  she  should  never 
see  him  again. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

THE   INTERREGNUM 

November  6,   i860 — March  4,   1861 

Between  the  presidential  election  in  November  and  the  in- 
auguration on  March  fourth,  is  a  space  of  approximately 
four  months.*  In  some  instances  it  has  proved  none  too  long 
an  interval.  When  a  new  man  is  elevated  to  an  office  as  im- 
portant as  the  presidency,  four  months  is  a  period  well  suited  to 
his  education.  He  has  a  Cabinet  to  select,  an  inaugural  address 
to  prepare,  and  a  multitude  of  matters  to  learn  and  prepare  to 
do.  Grover  Cleveland  may  be  instanced  as  a  president  to 
whom  the  interval  of  four  months  was  invaluable.  So  might 
it  have  been  for  Lincoln.  He  needed  the  time.  But  it  was  a 
period  of  peril  in  1 860-1,  and  it  has  often  proved  too  long  an 
interval  for  the  best  interests  of  the  country.  While  Lincoln 
was  in  Springfield,  preparing  his  inaugural  address,  much  water 
flowed  down  the  Potomac,  as  well  as  the  Sangamon.  Of  mat- 
ters as  they  were  moving  in  Washington,  three  may  be  men- 
tioned, the  disruption  and  reorganization  of  Buchanan's  Cabinet, 
the  Crittenden  Compromise,  and  the  Peace  Conference.  All  these 
were  in  the  background  of  Lincoln's  thinking  as  he  wrote  out  his 
address,  and  these  influenced  the  character  of  his  utterance  and 
the  definition  of  his  policies. 

Within  a  month  after  the  election  of  Lincoln,  the  Congress 
convened.  President  Buchanan  was  in  the  unhappy  situation  of 
having  to  present  a  message  after  the  nation  had  repudiated  his 


*The  date  of  the  election  in  i860  was  November  sixth. 

448 


THE  INTERREGNUM  449 

policy  and  party.  A  fragmentary  diary  kept  by  John  B.  Floyd,* 
Buchanan's  Secretary  of  War,  shows  that  from  the  very  week 
of  Lincoln's  election  Buchanan's  Cabinet  was  split.  According 
to  this  document,  Buchanan's  first  impulse  was  to  accept  the 
result  of  the  election,  and  to  resist  attempts  at  secession,  but  to 
call  a  convention  to  compromise,  if  possible,  the  controversy  that 
threatened  to  disrupt  the  Union.  The  Cabinet  at  this  time  con- 
sisted of  General  Lewis  Cass,  of  Michigan,  Secretary  of  State; 
Howell  Cobb,  of  Georgia,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury;  John  B. 
Floyd,  of  Virginia,  Secretary  of  War ;  Isaac  Toucey,  of  Con- 
necticut, Secretary  of  the  Navy ;  Jacob  Thompson,  of  Missis- 
sippi, Secretary  of  the  Interior;  Joseph  Holt,  of  Kentucky, 
Postmaster-General ;  and  Jeremiah  S.  Black,  of  Pennsylvania,  At- 
torney General. 

On  December  3,  i860,  President  Buchanan  presented  his  mes- 
sage to  Congress,  knowing  that  his  Cabinet  was  split  in  twain 
on  the  matters  contained  in  that  document.  Cass,  Black,  Holt 
and  Toucey  were  on  one  side,  and  Floyd,  Thompson  and  Cobb 
on  the  other.  There  was  some  shifting  of  positions  among  the 
Cabinet  members,  but  practically  the  line  of  division  followed 
that  between  the  seceding  and  the  loyal  states. 

President  Buchanan's  policy  was  the  preservation  of  the 
Union  at  all  hazards. t  But  his  attempts  to  preserve  it  were 
feeble   and   pathetic.      His   Message  to   Congress   displayed   an 


*Published  entire  in  The  Early  Life,  Campaigns  and  Public  Services  of 
Robert  E.  Lee.  Alleged  to  have  been  written  by  "a  distinguished  Southern 
Journalist"  and  published  in  1871  by  E.  B.  Treat,  New  York.  Cited  by 
Xicolay  and  Hay,  Century,  October,  1887. 

iFor  a  defense  of  Buchanan  and  his  administration,  see  Mr.  Buchanan  s 
Administration  on  the  Eve  of  the  Rebellion.  This  book,  at  first  issued 
anonymously,  was  later  acknowledged  as  the  work  of  ex-President  Buchanan 
himself.  It  was  published  by  Appleton,  Xew  York,  in  1866.  The  Manuscript 
Division  of  the  Library  of  Congress  has  an  able  'monograph  by  Honorable 
Jeremiah  S.  Black,  and"  also  an  article  on  the  same  subject  and  using  much 
of  the  material,  by  his  son,  Chauncey  F.  Black,  intended  as  a  concluding 
chapter  to  the  first  volume  of  Lamon's  Life  of  Lincoln.  So  far  as  I  am 
aware,  or  the  records  of  the  Manuscript  Division  show,  these  papers  have 
not  been  examined  by  any  one  except  the  author  of  this  work  since  they 
vere  deposited  with  the  Library  of  Congress.  They  appear,  among  other 
things,  to   settle  the  Question  of  the  real  authorship  of  Lamon's  book. 


450  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

earnest  hope  that  the  Union  might  be  preserved,  and  a  declara- 
tion that  no  state  had  a  right  to  secede,  while  disclaiming  all 
authority  on  the  part  of  the  administration  to  make  that  hope 
effective,  or  to  prevent  the  illegal  act. 

On  December  twentieth,  at  i  115  p.  m.  a  convention  convened  in 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  passed  an  ordinance  of  secession ; 
and  Mr.  Buchanan  did  not  know  of  any  way  in  which  he  could 
prevent  it.  On  December  twenty-sixth,  South  Carolina  sent  a 
Commission  to  Washington  to  treat  with  Mr.  Buchanan  con- 
cerning the  peaceable  departure  of  South  Carolina  from  the 
Union,  and  the  president  received  and  conferred  with  them  on 
the  next  day.  The  point  just  then  immediately  at  issue  was  the 
question  whether  the  forts  in  Charleston  harbor  were  to  be 
defended  against  the  government  of  South  Carolina  which  con- 
sidered itself  an  independent  state,  no  longer  in  the  Union.  The 
president  vacillated ;  but  the  demands  of  the  commissioners  were 
at  length  refused  by  him  through  the  opposition  of  the  reor- 
ganized Cabinet. 

While  the  last  months  of  Buchanan's  administration  displayed 
an  appalling  impotence  upon  his  part,  there  was  an  element  of 
saving  vigor  in  the  loyalty  of  a  portion  of  his  Cabinet.  There 
was  full  need  of  all  the  loyalty  that  existed,  for  within  the  Cab- 
inet as  originally  constituted  was  quite  sufficient  material  for 
the  nucleus  of  a  Cabinet  for  the  Confederacy.  Of  the  seven 
men  whom  Buchanan  had  chosen  as  his  official  advisers  were 
three  secessionists  of  the  most  radical  type.  Howell  Cobb  was 
considered  by  the  Confederate  States  as  a  possible  president  in- 
stead of  Jefferson  Davis.  Jacob  Thompson,  in  December,  i860, 
while  still  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  left  Washington,  and  vis- 
ited North  Carolina  seeking  to  encourage  that  state  to  secede. 
This  mission  did  not  induce  him  to  resign  his  place  in  the  Cabi- 
net, and  he  even  claimed,  what  it  would  seem  could  not  possibly 
have  been  true,  that  Buchanan  knew  and  approved  his  mission. 
John  B.  Floyd,  while  still  in  the  Cabinet,  delivered  over  to  the 
Confederate  States,  organized  as  an  independent  and  hostile  gov- 


THE  INTERREGNUM  451 

ernment,  everything  within  them  belonging  to  the  government 
which  he  as  Secretary  of  War  could  control. 

Jeremiah  S.  Black  was  a  northern  man,  from  Pennsylvania, 
the  president's  own  state.  He  furnished  to  Buchanan  an  elabor- 
ate opinion,  which  Buchanan  used  as  the  basis  of  his  last  mes- 
sage to  Congress,  to  the  effect  that  no  state  had  a  right  to 
secede,  but  affirming  that  the  president  had  no  power  under 
the  Constitution  to  use  the  resources  of  his  office  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Union. 

Early  in  December,  Howell  Cobb  resigned  from  the  Treas- 
ury and  left  it  conveniently  empty.  Philip  F.  Thomas,  of  Mary- 
land, a  Secessionist,  succeeded  Cobb.  He  had  nothing  to  spend 
and  a  short  time  in  which  to  have  expended  it.  His  appoint- 
ment was  unimportant.  General  Cass,  a  Jackson  Democrat  of 
the  old  school,  resigned  from  the  State  Department,  December 
thirteenth.  In  his  place  Buchanan  appointed  Judge  Black,  and 
brought  into  the  Cabinet  as  attorney  general,  Edwin  M.  Stanton. 
This  was  a  change  of  very  great  importance.  On  December 
twenty-ninth  Mr.  Floyd  resigned,  and  went  where  he  belonged. 
He  was  succeeded  by  Joseph  Holt,  a  staunch,  loyal  Democrat,  who 
had  been  serving  as  postmaster  general.  On  January  eighth  Jacob 
Thompson  resigned  his  position  as  secretary  of  the  interior,  and 
the  vacancy  was  unfilled.  On  the  following  day  Philip  F.  Thom- 
as, who  had  succeeded  Howell  Cobb  as  secretary  of  the  treas- 
ury, resigned.  The  New  York  bankers  forced  Buchanan  to 
appoint  as  his  successor  General  John  A.  Dix,  an  old  time  Demo- 
crat, but  a  strong  Union  man.  His  telegram  on  January  twenty- 
ninth  was  the  first  cheering  and  virile  word  representing  the  ad- 
ministration :  "If  any  man  attempts  to  haul  down  the  American 
flag,  shoot  him  on  the  spot." 

On  Sunday  morning,  December  thirtieth,  the  South  Carolina 
commissioners  who  had  arrived  in  Washington,  demanded  rec- 
ognition and  the  right  to  treat  with  the  government  as  though 
they  represented  a  foreign  power.  Buchanan  declined  to  receive 
them  in  that  capacity,  but  was  not  unwilling  to  treat  with  them  as 


452  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

intermediary  between  those  commissioners  and  Congress.  He 
found,  however,  that  he  must  reckon  with  the  loyal  members  of 
his  Cabinet.  As  he  could  come  to  no  terms  with  Black,  Stan- 
ton and  Holt  consistent  with  his  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  these 
enemies  of  his  country,  he  accepted  a  reply  to  them  drafted  by 
Black  and  approved  by  Stanton  and  Holt.  This  was  so  unsatis- 
factory to  the  Confederate  commissioners  that  they  returned  to 
South  Carolina.  Thenceforth  the  South  covered  Buchanan  with 
abuse,  perhaps  greater  even  than  that  of  the  North.  That  poor 
unfortunate  man  in  his  senile  indecision  waited  helplessly  for  the 
end  of  his  troubled  administration. 

The  loyal  members  of  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  however,  engaged 
in  secret  counsel  seeking  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  As  these 
four  members  of  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  including  Dix,  represented 
the  hope  of  the  united  nation  in  the  dying  administration,  so  in  a 
very  real  sense  did  William  H.  Seward  at  this  time  emerge  in 
Congress  as  the  representative  of  the  incoming  administration. 

To  all  intents  and  purposes  Buchanan  abdicated  on  Sunday 
morning,  December  30,  i860.  From  that  time  until  the  end  of 
his  administration  the  Cabinet  virtually  governed  whatever  was 
left  of  the  Union.  Stanton  and  Holt,  and  subsequently  Dix, 
made  a  strong  trio  of  uncompromising  Union  men,  and  Black 
swung  around  first  to  a  degree  of  partial  cooperation  with  them, 
and  later  to  essential  leadership  of  their  earnest  efforts  to  save 
the  Union. 

While  President  Buchanan  and  his  Cabinet  were  thus  working 
at  cross  purposes,  and  unable  to  arrive  at  any  result,  the  Senate 
undertook  the  consideration  of  a  possible  preventive  of  war  and 
disruption  of  the  Union.  The  venerable  John  J.  Crittenden,  of 
Kentucky,  then  seventy-threje  years  of  age,  had  for  many  years 
been  a  leader  of  the  Whig  Party.  He  had  served  long  in  the 
Senate  and  was  about  to  retire,  the  then  vice-president  of  the 
United  States,  Honorable  J.  C.  Breckenridge,  having  been 
chosen  as  his  successor,  to  take  his  seat  with  the  new  adminis- 
tration,  March  4,   1861.     Senator  Crittenden  earnestly  desired 


THE  INTERREGNUM  453 

to  crown  his  service  in  the  Senate  with  a  compromise  which 
should  weld  the  Union  together.  Of  his  loyalty  and  good  faith 
there  can  be  no  question.  His  resolutions  introduced  December 
18,  i860,  proposed,  in  his  own  words: 

.  .  .  The  restoration  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  extending 
the  line  throughout  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  to  the 
eastern  border  of  California,  recognizing  slavery  in  all  the  ter- 
ritory south  of  that  line,  and  prohibiting  slavery  in  all  the  terri- 
tory north  of  it ;  with  a  provision,  however,  that  when  any  of 
those  Territories,  north  or  south,  are  formed  into  States,  they 
shall  then  be  at  liberty  to  exclude  or  admit  slavery  as  they  please ; 
and  that,  in  the  one  case  or  the  other,  it  shall  be  no  objection  to 
their  admission  into  the  Union.  "In  this  way,  sir,"  he  said,  "I 
propose  to  settle  the  question,  both  as  to  territory  and  slavery,  so 
far  as  regards  the  Territories  of  the  United  States. 

"I  propose,  sir,  also,  that  the  Constitution  shall  be  so  amended 
as  to  declare  that  Congress  shall  have  no  power  to  abolish  slav- 
ery in  the  District  of  Columbia  so  long  as  slavery  exists  in  the 
States  of  Maryland  and  Virginia ;  and  that  they  shall  have  no 
power  to  abolish  slavery  in  any  of  the  places  within  their  spec- 
ial jurisdiction  within  the  Southern  States."* 

Further  provisions  of  the  Crittenden  Compromise  were  to 
prevent  an  apprehended  prohibition  of  inter-state  traffic  in 
slaves ;  to  provide  that  if  in  any  state  or  locality  local  sentiment 
or  popular  uprising  should  prevent  the  enforcement  of  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law,  the  owners  of  the  slaves  should  be  compensated ; 
and  that  the  foregoing  constitutional  amendments  should  be 
made  absolutely  irrepealable. 

The  imminent  danger  to  the  Union  and  the  utter  failure  of  the 
Buchanan  administration  to  prevent  its  disruption,  gave  to 
these  proposals  remarkable  popularity.  They  appeared  to  be  the 
only  effective  proposal  for  the  salvation  of  the  Union. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  reaction  that  followed  Lincoln's 
nomination.     It  must  be  remembered  that  a  mightier  reaction 


*Life  of  John  J.   Crittenden,  by  his   daughter,   Mrs.   Chapman    Coleman, 
Philadelphia,   1871 ;   ii,  pp.  224-225. 


454  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

followed  his  election.  Noted  abolitionists  were  denied  the  use 
of  public  halls.  The  entire  North  seemed  to  have  been  seized 
with  a  determination  to  disavow  any  sentiments  which  could 
be  considered  as  bordering  upon  abolition.  Timidity  and  reac- 
tion became  general.  Republican  leaders  made  haste  to  explain 
that  they  were  not  in  sympathy  with  any  measures  which  could 
offend  the  South. 

On  February  6,  1861,  an  all-day  meeting  was  held  in  Faneuil 
Hall,  in  Boston,  in  favor  of  the  Crittenden  Compromise.  The 
Mayor,  Honorable  Joseph  M.  Wightman,  presided.  Reverend 
Doctor  Blagden  offered  prayer.  Repeated  references  were  made 
to  Faneuil  Hall  as  a  place  appropriate  for  such  a  meeting.  A  peti- 
tion was  read  which,  it  was  stated,  had  been  signed  by  22,000 
citizens  of  Massachusetts,  favorable  to  such  a  compromise.  Hor- 
ace Greeley  believed  that  if  the  Crittenden  Compromise  had  been 
submitted  to  popular  vote,  it  would  have  prevailed  by  an  over- 
whelming majority. 

Greeley  himself,  however,  did  not  favor  the  compromise. 
Writing  of  it  later,  he  said: 

The  Republican  Party,  which  had  been  called  into  existence  by 
the  opening  of  free  soil  to  slavery,  seemed  in  positive  danger 
of  signaling  its  advent  to  power  by  giving  its  direct  assent  to  the 
practical  extension  of  slavery  over  a  region  far  larger  and  more 
important  than  that  theoretically  surrendered  by  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill* 

So  astute  a  politician  as  Thurlow  Weed  believed  that  this  com- 
promise ought  to  be  adopted,  and  Seward,  he  of  the  "irrepres- 
sible conflict,"  probably  agreed  with  him.  Weed  went  to  Spring- 
field about  the  time  that  Crittenden  introduced  his  Resolutions, 
and  is  believed  to  have  advised  Lincoln  to  accept  this  compro- 
mise. 

Lincoln  declined.t 


"Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life,  pp.  396-7- 

t Professor  Nathaniel  Wright  Stephenson  makes  this  decision    the  crisis 
in   Lincoln's   career,  and  thinks  that  Weed  went  to   Springfield  as   Seward's 
henchman  to  induce  Lincoln  to  accept  the  compromise.     He  even  thinks  that 


THE  INTERREGNUM  455 

Why  did  Lincoln  refuse  the  Crittenden  Compromise?  One 
reason  may  have  been  that  he  already  had  some  occasion  to  dis- 
trust Crittenden  as  a  compromiser.  One  of  Crittenden's  compro- 
mises had  cut  Lincoln  deeply.  Lincoln  believed  that  he  might 
have  been  elected  Senator  if  Crittenden  had  kept  out  of  Illinois 
politics,  or  had  stood  by  a  long-time  Whig  in  his  contest  with  a 
Democrat.  Lincoln  wrote  to  Crittenden  after  the  election  of 
1858: 

The  emotions  of  defeat  at  the  close  of  a  struggle  in  which 
I  felt  more  than  a  merely  selfish  interest,  and  to  which  defeat  the 
use  of  your  name  contributed  largely,  are  fresh  upon  me;  but 
even  in  this  mood  I  cannot  for  a  moment  suspect  you  of  any- 
thing dishonorable. 

No  one  who  knew  Senator  Crittenden  could  suspect  him  of 
anything  dishonorable;  but  Lincoln,  when  urged  to  follow  Crit- 
tenden in  a  compromise  at  the  end  of  i860,  could  not  have  failed 
to  remember  the  advice  of  Crittenden  at  the  time  of  the  Lincoln- 
Douglas  debates.     Lincoln  was  too  great  and  magnanimous  a 


Lincoln's  decision  was  announced  on  December  twentieth,  "the  very  day 
South  Carolina  adopted  its  Ordinance  of  Secession,"  and  that  this  coincidence, 
"one  of  the  great  events  in  American  history,"  occurred  on  this  day  "by  a 
rare  propriety  of  dramatic  effect."  But  this  seems  to  me  an  overstraining 
of  the  situation.  Crittenden  introduced  his  Compromise  Resolutions  on 
December  eighteenth  ;  there  was  not  time  for  Weed  and  Seward  to  have  come 
to  such  deliberate  judgment  and  for  Weed  to  have  made  the  journey  and  had 
his  long  conference  by  December  twentieth.  Further,  Lincoln  had  already  de- 
clined this  proposal  in  a  letter  to  Washburne.  Moreover,  in  Weed's  own  ac- 
count of  this,  his  second  visit  to  Springfield  since  Lincoln's  nomination,  he 
makes  no  mention  of  the  compromise  as  a  topic  of  conversation.  Still 
further,  Lincoln  had  already  told  Wreed,  in  his  letter  of  December  seven- 
teenth, in  answer  to  Weed's  inquiry  of  the  eleventh,  that  Weed  might  say 
that  he  judged  from  Lincoln's  speeches  that  Lincoln  would  be  "inflexible  on 
the  territorial  question,"  and  that  he  would  not  accept  the  plan  of  extending 
the  Missouri  line.  Lincoln  further  added,  that,  as  Weed  would  find  very 
little  in  Lincoln's  speeches  about  secession,  and  these  published  speeches  were 
to  be  the  assumed  basis  of  his  information  of  Lincoln's  position,  Lincoln 
was  willing  to  have  this  said  to  a  possible  conference  of  governors  about 
which   Weed   had   written : 

"My  opinion  is  that  no  state  can  in  any  way  lawfully  get  out  of  the 
Union  without  the  consent  of  the  others  ;  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  pres- 
ident and  other  government  functionaries  to  run  the  machine  as  it  is." 

This  was,  of  course,  decisive  as  to  the  Crittenden  Compromise,  which 
appears  to  have  been  hardly  mentioned  when  Weed  and  Lincoln  met  later 
in  December. 


456  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

man  to  have  carried  his  resentment  against  Crittenden,  even  if 
he  felt  such  resentment,  to  the  point  of  opposing  through  re- 
venge the  policy  of  a  man  whom  he  believed  to  have  injured 
him;  still,  Lincoln  could  not  forget  how  wrong,  as  it  seemed 
to  him,  had  been  the  judgment  of  Senator  Crittenden  two 
years  before,  and  he  did  not  follow  that  judgment  in  Decem- 
ber, i860. 

But  there  was  a  further  reason  why  Lincoln  did  not  accept 
the  Crittenden  Compromise.  Lincoln  did  not  believe  in  Decem- 
ber, i860,  that  the  South  would  really  go  the  length  of  declar- 
ing war.  Serious  as  the  situation  was,  he  believed  that  the 
South  would  yield  before  it  would  resort  to  actual  bloodshed. 
And  he  fully  expected  that  when  he  showed  a  kindly  firmness, 
the  effect  would  be  a  reuniting  of  the  Union,  even  after  South 
Carolina  had  passed  her  Ordinance  of  Secession. 

A  further  and  appreciative  word  is  due  the  memory  of  Senator 
Crittenden.  In  the  closing  hours  of  Congress,  just  before  he 
was  to  leave  the  Senate  for  ever,  he  took  the  floor,  not  on  behalf 
of  his  compromise,  but  in  favor  of  an  amended  measure,  which, 
it  was  believed,  might  possibly  unite  the  LTnion.  When  certain 
of  the  senators  urged  the  original  Crittenden  measure,  he  said 
that  while  he  personally  would  have  preferred  his  own,  he  would 
vote  against  his  own  and  in  favor  of  the  measure  which  pre- 
sented the  larger  hope  of  effecting  an  agreement  capable  of 
saving  the  Union.  With  that  measure  we  shall  presently  deal. 
Senator  Crittenden,  old  and  feeble,  returned  to  Kentucky,  and 
there  addressed  the  Legislature  in  a  strong  speech  in  favor  of 
the  Union.  His  own  son,  a  West  Point  graduate,  and  a  colonel 
in  the  United  States  Army,  resigned  and  became  a  major  general 
in  the  Confederate  Army,  but  the  father  stood  firm  for  the 
Union.  He  no  longer  had  a  seat  in  the  Senate,  but  he  was 
elected  to  the  House,  and  there  served  with  conspicuous  loyalty 
until  his  death,  July  26,  1863.  He  hoped  to  live  to  see  the 
Union  restored  by  the  complete  defeat  of  the  Confederate 
Army,  and  he  prepared  a  resolution  which  he  hoped  to  present 


THE  INTERREGNUM  457 

to  Congress,  providing  for  a  restored  Union  on  a  basis  of  mag- 
nanimity and  good  will.* 

The  Peace  Convention,  which  related  itself  somewhat  inti- 
mately to  the  Crittenden  Compromise,  was  called  by  resolution 
of  the  Legislature  of  Virginia,  and  met  in  Washington,  at  noon, 
on  Monday,  February  4,  1861,  exactly  a  month  before  the  in- 
auguration of  Abraham  Lincoln.  At  the  outset  the  following 
states  were  represented  by  commissioners : 

Xew  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Kentucky,  Ohio 
and  Indiana. 

Before  the  close,  the  roll  showed  representatives  present  from 
Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Is- 
land, Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Dela- 
ware, Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Ken- 
tucky, Missouri,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Iowa  and  Kansas. 

The  venerable  John  Tyler,  ex-President  of  the  United  States, 
was  chairman,  and  the  representatives  of  the  several  states  were 
men  of  high  standing.  The  convention  continued  its  sessions 
until  Wednesday,  February  twenty-seventh,  Mr.  Lincoln  having 
arrived  in  Washington  on  the  Saturday  previous. 

This  convention  practically  accepted  the  Crittenden  Resolu- 
tions as  the  basis  of  its  discussions,  and  at  length,  but  by  a 
divided  vote,  approved  a  modification  of  the  Crittenden  Reso- 
lutions as  a  proposed  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  sent  ex-President  Tyler  to  the  Congress  to 
present  the  results  of  the  deliberations. t 

It  ought  to  be  remembered  that  there  were  those  who  doubted, 
up  to  the  very  hour  of  the  inaugural,  whether  Lincoln  would 
have  opportunity  to  read  his  address.  The  Constitution  of  the 
LTiited  States  reads : 


*This  resolution,  found  among  his  papers  after  his  death,  is  in  his  Life, 
by  his  daughter,  ii,  p.  369. 

tThe  discussions  were  held  in  secret,  but  full  notes  were  preserved,  and 
just  before  adjournment  the  ban  of  secrecy  was  removed.  The  Proceedings 
were  published  in  1865,  having  been  edited  by  L.  E.  Chittenden,  one  of  the 
delegates  from  Xew  York,  and  later  auditor  of  the  Treasury. 


455  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  President  of  the  Senate  shall,  in  the  presence  of  the  Sen- 
ate and  House  of  Representatives,  open  all  the  certificates,  and 
the  votes  shall  then  be  counted. 

By  whom  were  the  votes  to  be  counted?  It  was  the  duty  of 
the  president  of  the  Senate  to  open  the  certificates,  but  whose 
duty  was  it  to  count  the  votes  ?  What  power  was  there  to  com- 
pel any  one  to  count  them  ?  What  could  be  done  to  punish  any 
one  who  should  refuse  to  count  the  votes? 

The  president  of  the  Senate  was  John  C.  Breckenridge,  an 
unsuccessful  candidate  for  the  presidency;  suppose  he  should 
"open  all  the  certificates"  as  the  Constitution  required,  and  en- 
tertain a  motion  to  refer  to  a  special  committee  the  question 
whether  there  was  authority  for  any  counting  of  the  votes,  and  if 
so,  what  the  authority  was,  and  whose  the  duty  was?  There 
were  members  of  Congress  who  held  that,  as  the  counting  of  the 
votes  which,  as  was  known,  would  declare  Abraham  Lincoln 
president,  would  wreck  the  nation,  any  tactics  of  delay  or  ob- 
struction that  might  avert  that  calamity,  no  matter  what  the 
alternative,  would  be  meritorious. 

Lincoln  himself  was  somewhat  worried  over  this  possibility. 
The  pro-slavery  element  still  in  Congress  was  strong;  what  if  it 
should  show  its  strength  by  making  the  election  of  Lincoln  a 
nullity  by  preventing  the  counting  of  the  vote  ? 

Happily,  no  such  condition  arose.  On  the  second  Wednesday 
in  February,  1861,  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  met  in  joint  ses- 
sion, and  the  vice-president  opened  the  certificates  of  election. 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  also  a  defeated  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
led  in  a  movement  to  simplify  the  procedure.  The  vote  was 
counted  without  incident,  and  Vice-President  Breckenridge  de- 
clared that  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois,  had  been  duly  elected 
president  of  the  United  States,  for  a  term  of  four  years  begin- 
ning at  noon  on  March  4,  1861. 

The  South  had  hardly  expected  that  Lincoln  could  be  elected. 
In  December,  1856,  a  meeting  of  governors  of  slave  states  was 
held,  and  Governor  Wise,  of  Virginia,  declared  that  if  Fremont 


THE  INTERREGNUM  459 

had  been  elected  he  would  have  marched  to  Washington  at  the 
head  of  twenty  thousand  men,  and  prevented  his  inauguration. 

The  dreaded  event  which  had  seemed  impossible  had  finally 
occurred.  An  anti-slavery  president  had  been  elected.  Although 
the  new  Congress  did  not  have  a  Republican  majority  in  either 
House,  the  southern  leaders  were  thoroughly  aroused  and 
alarmed. 

As  soon  as  the  results  of  the  election  were  assured,  the  South 
Carolina  Legislature  called  a  convention  and  adjourned.  The 
convention  assembled,  and  on  December  20,  i860,  passed  an  or- 
dinance declaring  "that  the  Union  now  subsisting  between 
South  Carolina  and  other  states  under  the  name  'United  States 
of  America'  is  hereby  dissolved."  Within  about  six  weeks 
Mississippi,  Florida,  Alabama,  Georgia  and  Louisiana  held  con- 
ventions and  passed  secession  ordinances.  On  February  23, 
1 86 1,  Texas  joined  the  list  of  seceding  states.  The  other  slave 
states  did  not  immediately  follow. 

On  February  4,  1861,  just  four  weeks  before  the  inaugura- 
tion of  the  new  president,  delegates  from  the  seceded  states  met 
at  Montgomery,  Alabama,  and  organized  a  government  under 
the  name  of  the  "Confederate  States  of  America."  A  constitu- 
tion was  promptly  adopted  by  a  newly  elected  southern  Congress, 
and  was  soon  ratified  by  the  states  to  which  it  was  referred. 
Jefferson  Davis,  of  Mississippi,  was  elected  president,  and  Alex- 
ander H.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  was  elected  vice-president. 

These  preparations  in  the  South  produced  what  was  very 
nearly  a  moral  panic  in  the  North.  War,  it  was  felt,  must  be 
averted  at  whatever  cost.  In  Boston  twenty-two  thousand  citi- 
zens signed  a  petition  to  Congress  to  make  such  concessions  as 
should  avert  war.  A  meeting  held  in  that  city  to  commemorate 
the  anniversary  of  the  hanging  of  John  Brown  was  broken  up 
by  a  mob.  The  New  York  Tribune  came  out  with  an  editorial 
on  November  sixteenth  advising  that  the  "erring  sisters,"  the 
Southern  States,  be  permitted  to  "depart  in  peace."  Thurlow 
Weed's  paper,  the  Albany  Journal,  took  essentially  the  same  po- 

17 


460  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sition,  and  so  did  two  other  prominent  New  York  Free-soil 
papers,  the  Times,  and  the  Courier  and  Inquirer.  The  Indian- 
apolis Journal  advocated  compromise  and  concession.  The  De- 
troit Free  Press  declared  editorially  that  if  an  army  was  sent 
south  to  subdue  the  seceding  states,  it  would  encounter  a  fire  in 
the  rear. 

Through  all  this  and  much  more,  Mr.  Lincoln  remained  silent. 
But  he  did  much  thinking,  and  some  confidential  writing.  On 
December  eleventh,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Kellogg,  the  Illinois  member 
of  the  Committee  of  Thirty-three  appointed  by  the  lower  House 
of  Congress  to  consider  the  emergency: 

Entertain  no  proposition  for  a  compromise  in  regard  to  the 
extension  of  slavery.  The  instant  you  do  this,  they  have  us 
under  again ;  all  our  labor  is  lost,  and  sooner  or  later  must  be 
done  over  again.  The  tug  has  to  come,  and  better  now  than 
later. 

To  Elihu  B.  Washburne,  Member  of  Congress  from  the 
Galena  district,  he  wrote  December  thirteenth : 

Prevent  as  far  as  possible  any  of  our  friends  from  demoraliz- 
ing themselves  or  their  cause  by  entertaining  propositions  of 
any  sort  on  slavery  extension.  .  .  On  that  point  hold  firm  as  a 
chain  of  steel. 

But  on  almost  any  other  point  Lincoln  was  more  than  ready  to 
make  concessions.  He  was  himself  in  a  state  of  great  anxiety 
over  the  situation.  Yet  he  did  not  really  believe  that  the  south- 
ern states  would  leave  the  Union,  or  that  they  would  resort  to 
war. 

On  December  twenty-second,  the  ATe^>  York  Tribune  an- 
nounced editorially : 

We  are  enabled  to  say  in  the  most  positive  terms  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  is  utterly  opposed  to  any  concession  or  compromise  that 
shall  yield  one  iota  of  the  position  occupied  by  the  Republican 
party  on  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  territories,  and  that  he 


THE  INTERREGNUM  461 

stands  now  as  he  stood  in  May  last,  when  he  accepted  the  nom- 
ination, square  upon  the  Republican  platform. 

Beyond  this,  Lincoln  was  ready  to  make  concessions;  but  not 
on  the  extension  of  slavery. 

But  what  about  the  man  Abraham  Lincoln,  all  this  time? 
How  did  he  feel  and  what  did  he  think  during-  those  anxious 
months  ? 

Lincoln  entered  upon  his  presidential  campaign  with  some- 
thing almost  like  elation.  Herndon  tells  us  that  Lincoln's  success 
at  Cooper  Union  strengthened  his  already  large  estimate  of  his 
own  powers.  It  "stimulated  his  self-confidence  to  unwonted 
proportions."*  To  be  sure,  he  realized  that  only  a  series  of  most 
favorable  conditions  could  make  him  president,  but  he  also  real- 
ized that  none  of  those  conditions  were  impossible.  As  the  Chi- 
cago Convention  approached,  he  was  alternately  in  hope  and 
fear;  and  there  were  days  when  he  would  willingly  have  ex- 
changed his  uncertain  hope  for  the  certainty  of  a  nomination  as 
vice-president  with  Seward  at  the  head  of  the  ticket. 

After  the  nomination,  his  mood  was  prevailingly  a  happy  one. 
Practically  every  day  he  met  enthusiastic  delegations  who  gave 
him  renewed  assurance  of  the  success  of  his  campaign,  Lin- 
coln had  little  fear  of  defeat  at  the  polls. 

From  the  time  of  the  Democratic  split  in  the  Baltimore  Con- 
vention, Mr.  Lincoln,  as  well  as  every  other  politician  of  the 
smallest  sagacity,  knew  that  his  success  was  as  certain  as  any 
future  event  could  be.f 

It  has  been  alleged  that  the  period  between  Lincoln's  election 
and  his  departure  for  Washington  was  one  of  deep  gloom.  Cer- 
tain of  his  friends,  calling  on  him  and  finding  him  oppressed 
with  a  sense  of  the  responsibilities  which  had  come  upon  him, 
and  wearied  by  the  persistence  of  the  office-seekers,  and  wor- 
ried further  by  the  fact  that  nearly  all  his  neighbors  appeared 


*Herndon's  Lincoln,  iii,  p.  457. 
tLamon,  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  500. 


462  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

suddenly  to  have  become  active  in  efforts  to  obtain  positions  for 
themselves  or  their  relatives,  near  and  remote,  have  given  some 
ground  for  this  impression,  but  that  is  not  the  impression  which 
one  receives  who  talks  with  the  people  who  knew  Lincoln  best 
in  those  days.  On  the  whole,  he  was  cheerful,  and  at  times  even 
merry.  A  few  evenings,  after  the  visitors  of  the  day  had  gone, 
he  met  with  his  old  friends,  arid  they  exchanged  jokes  in  all  the 
freedom  of  the  old  days,  and  remembered  him  in  the  happy  good 
humor  of  what  must  have  been  at  that  time  his  prevailing  mood.* 

Lincoln  was  a  man  of  moods,  and  he  went  from  gaiety  to  de- 
pression without  warning  and  with  little  apparent  occasion.  It 
is  not  likely  that  he  spent  four  months  in  Springfield  after  his 
election  without  some  bad  quarter-hours.  But  his  prevailing 
mood  was  happy  at  this  time.  Lamon  says  that  at  this  time 
"ambition  charmed  his  whole  heart"  and  that  "hope  elevated 
and  joy  brightened  his  crest." 

Thurlow  Weed,  who  was  a  most  astute  judge  of  men,  after 
his  second  visit  to  Lincoln,  said : 

While  Mr.  Lincoln  never  underestimated  the  difficulties  which 
surrounded  him,  his  nature  was  so  elastic,  and  his  temperament 
so  cheerful,  that  he  always  seemed  at  ease  and  undisturbed,  t 

All  in  all,  the  president-elect  at  this  time  was  a  happy  man. 
No  one  at  this  date  will  grudge  to  Abraham  Lincoln  the  happi- 
ness of  those  days. 


^Professor  Stephenson  thinks  that  Lincoln  was  "firm  as  steel"  until  the 
day  he  refused  to  accept  the  Crittenden  Compromise,  but  that  that  momen- 
tous decision  brought  its  swift  reaction,  and  that  he  became  melancholy  and 
irresolute,  and  lived  his  last  months  in  Springfield  in  mingled  gloom,  des- 
peration and  a  vain  attempt  to  recover  hope.  I  can  find  no  evidence  in  sup- 
port of  this  view. 

fFor  this  entire  incident,  see  Weed's  Autobiography, 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THE   JOURNEY    TO    WASHINGTON 

Most  of  the  time  of  the  president-elect  after  his  election  and 
before  his  removal  to  Washington,  was  taken  up  with  people 
from  out  of  town.  Mrs.  Lincoln  accepted  invitations  to  dine 
with  her  friends,  and  Lincoln  now  and  then  stole  away  for  an 
evening  with  his  old  associates ;  but  the  days  were  mostly  filled 
with  other  matters.  As  the  time  of  their  departure  approached, 
Mrs.  Lincoln  endeavored  to  pay  her  social  obligations.  There 
was  a  children's  party  in  the  Lincoln  home  a  few  weeks  before 
the  departure  of  the  family;  some  people  now  in  Springfield 
cherish  the  invitations  which  they  received  as  boys  or  girls, 
written  in  Mrs.  Lincoln's  own  hand.  And  once,  at  least,  and 
probably  more  than  once,  small  groups  of  friends  gathered  in 
response  to  a  neatly  written  invitation : 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln 

will  be  pleased  to  see  you 

Thursday  evening 

at  8  o'clock 


A  week  before  they  left  Springfield  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln 
gave  a  general  reception  to  their  old  friends  and  neighbors.  The 
Springfield  papers,  filled  with  national  matters,  do  not  give  the 
affair  adequate  space ;  probably  the  Lincolns  preferred  that  it  be 
a  sort  of  home  affair;  but  the  Missouri  Democrat,  of  St.  Louis, 
had  a  somewhat  full  account  of  what  is  called  Mr.  Lincoln's  first 
levee  after   his  election.      It   occurred   on  Wednesday   evening, 

463 


464  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

February  sixth,  and  the  account  was  written  on  the  following 
clay.* 

The  first  levee  given  by  the  President-elect,  took  place  last 
everting,  [Wednesday,  February  sixth]  at  his  own  residence,  in 
this  city,  and  it  was  a  grand  outpouring  of  citizens  and  strangers, 
together  with  the  members  of  the  legislature.  Your  humble  serv- 
ant was  invited  to  attend.  Mr.  Lincoln  threw  open  his  house 
for  a  general  reception  of  all  the  people  who  felt  disposed  to  give 
him  and  his  lady  a  parting  call.  The  levee  lasted  from  seven  to 
twelve  o'clock  in  the  evening-,  and  the  house  thronged  by  thou- 
sands up  to  a  late  hour.  Mr.  Lincoln  received  the  guests  as 
they  entered  and  were  made  known.  They  then  passed  on,  and 
were  introduced  to  Mrs.  Lincoln,  who  stood  near  the  center  of 
the  parlors,  and  who,  I  must  say,  acquitted  herself  most  grace- 
fully and  admirably — She  was  dressed  plainly,  but  richly.  She 
wore  a  beautiful,  full  trail,  white  moire  antique  silk,  with  a 
small  French  lace  collar.  Her  neck  was  ornamented  with  a 
string  of  pearls.  Her  head  dress  was  a  simple  and  delicate  vine, 
arranged  with  much  taste.  She  displayed  but  little  jewelry,  and 
this  was  well  and  appropriately  adjusted.  She  is  a  lady  of  fine 
figure  and  accomplished  address,  and  is  well  calculated  to  grace 
and  to  do  honors  at  the  White  House. 

Mr.  Lincoln  rented  his  house  to  Mr.  Tilton,  Superintendent  of 
the  Wabash  Railway,  and  spent  the  last  week  of  his  life  in 
Springfield  in  the  Chenery  House.  A  change  had  become  neces- 
sary, also,  in  Lincoln's  office  arrangements.  The  Legislature 
met  early  in  December,  and  it  was  no  longer  convenient  for  Lin- 
coln or  the  governor  for  him  to  occupy  an  office  in  the  capitol 
building.  Joel  Johnson,  an  old  friend,  had  recently  erected 
some  brick  buildings  on  the  northwest  corner  opposite  the  Chen- 
ery House,  and  he  offered  Lincoln  the  double  parlors  on  the  sec- 
ond floor  as  a  reception-room.  Lincoln  gratefully  accepted,  and 
it  was  there  that  he  received  his  guests  from  the  first  of  Decem- 
ber until  the  early  part  of  February.  Mr.  Johnson's  buildings 
later  became  the   Revere  House.     The  weeks   flew  by   swiftly 


^Illinois  State  Historical  Society  Journal,  ii,  1918-19,  p.  386. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  465 

enough  for  the  Lincoln  family,  but  far  too  slowly  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  nation.  Increasingly  Lincoln  felt  the  weight  of  his 
new  responsibility;  yet  to  some  who  saw  him  he  seemed  to  real- 
ize it  all  too  inadequately. 

On  the  night  before  the  departure  from  Springfield,  Sunday, 
February  tenth,  Mr.  Lincoln  roped  the  family  trunks  with  his 
own  hands,  took  some  of  the  hotel  cards,  and  turning  them 
over  wrote  upon  them,  "LINCOLN,  EXECUTIVE  MAN- 
SION, WASHINGTON."  These  cards  he  tacked  to  the  trunks 
and  had  them  ready  for  transportation  to  the  station  early  in  the 
morning.  Monday,  February  11,  1861,  dawned  dark,  cold  and 
drizzly.  Lincoln's  friends  and  neighbors  to  a  number  which  the 
reporters  estimated  at  a  thousand,  gathered  in  and  about  the 
"Wabash  station.  A  special  train  stood  waiting.  At  half  past 
seven  Lincoln  and  his  family  entered  the  dilapidated  hotel  bus 
and  rode  down  to  the  station.  There  was  a  short  farewell  re- 
ception in  the  waiting-room.  Lincoln  stood  silent  for  the  most 
part,  and  shook  hands  with  his  neighbors  and  friends.  Time  did 
not  permit  his  taking  the  hand  of  each.  The  ringing  of  the 
engine  bell  warned  him  and  his  family  to  go  on  board  the  train 
where  the  other  members  of  the  party  awaited  him.  The  press 
reports  state  that  Lincoln  was  pale  and  seemed  to  be  bearing  up 
under  deep  emotion.  The  somberness  of  the  weather  was  re- 
flected in  the  demeanor  of  the  assembled  company.  Gloom  and 
depression  of  spirit  were  manifest  on  the  faces  of  the  whole 
company.  The  leave-taking  was  solemn.  In  after  years,  it 
seemed  as  though  some  premonition  had  been  in  everybody's 
mind,  by  no  means  excepting  that  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Mr.  Lincoln 
disappeared,  entering  the  front  end  of  the  rear  car,  but  in  a  mo- 
ment reappeared  on  the  rear  platform.  In  a  voice  that  choked 
with  emotion,  and  with  tears  filling  his  eyes,  he  delivered  this 
last  address  to  his  old  neighbors : 

My  friends :  No  one,  not  in  my  situation,  can  appreciate  my 
feeling  of  sadness  at  this  parting.  To  this  place,  and  the  kind- 
ness of  these  people,  I  owe  everything.     Here  I  have  lived  a 


466  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

quarter  of  a  century,  and  have  passed  from  a  young  to  an  old 
man.  Here  my  children  have  been  born,  and  one  is  buried.  I 
now  leave,  not  knowing  when  or  whethei  ever  I  may  return, 
with  a  task  before  me  greater  than  that  which  rested  upon  Wash- 
ington. Without  the  assistance  of  that  Divine  Being  who  ever 
attended  him,  I  cannot  succeed.  With  that  assistance,  I  cannot 
fail.  Trusting  in  Him,  who  can  go  with  me,  and  remain  with 
you,  and  be  everywhere  for  good,  let  us  confidently  hope  that 
all  will  yet  be  well.  To  His  care  commending  you  as  I  hope  in 
your  prayers  you  will  commend  me,  I  bid  you  an  affectionate 
farewell.* 

The  presidential  party  which  made  the  whole  journey,  con- 
sisted of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln,  their  three  sons,  Robert,  William 
and  Thomas,  their  brother-in-law,  Doctor  W.  S.  Wallace,  the 
two  secretaries,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Lockwood 
Todd,  Honorable  Norman  B.  Judd,  Honorable  David  Davis,  J. 
M.  Burgess,  George  C.  Latham,  W.  S.  Wood,  B.  Forbes,  Col- 
onel E.  V.  Sumner,  Major  David  Hunter,  Captain  George  W. 
Hazard,  Captain  John  Pope,  Colonel  Ward  Hill  Lamon  and 
Colonel  Elmer  E.  Ellsworth.  A  considerable  number  of  other 
men,  including  Senator  O.  H.  Browning  and  Governor  Richard 
Yates,  accompanied  the  train  when  it  left  Springfield,  and 
dropped  off  at  Indianapolis  or  other  places  along  the  route. 
Personal  friends  and  local  committees  joined  the  party  from 
time  to  time,  so  that  a  considerable  number  of  people  first  and 
last,  were  members  of  the  presidential  party.  At  all  the  im- 
portant points  along  the  road  the  train  was  scheduled  to  stop  for 
a  longer  or  shorter  time  to  enable  people  to  see  and  hear  Lincoln. 

Besides  the  advertised  stops,  the  train  was  occasionally  halted 
at  a  junction  or  to  take  water,  and  there,  also,  Lincoln  had  to 
appear  and  speak  to  the  people  who  assembled  about  the  station. 


*The  text  of  the  address  as  here  quoted  is  that  which  was  prepared  by- 
Mr.  Lincoln  with  the  assistance  of  his  secretary  immediately  after  the  train 
left  Springfield.  It  differs  slightly  from  the  forms  printed  at  the  time,  and 
is  that  which  has  been  accepted  by  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Society  for 
the  Lincoln  monument  on  the  grounds  of  the  capitol  at  Springfield.  This 
form  was  first  published  by  Xicolay  and  Hay  in  1886,  from  the  original 
manuscript  and  is  the  form  which  Lincoln  approved,  and  is  graven  on  the 
base  of  the  statue  in  front  of  the  Illinois  State  Capitol  building. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  467 

If  he  had  grown  somewhat  rumpled  and  untidy  in  appearance 
since  the  last  stop,  Mrs.  Lincoln  "fixed  him  up"  before  he  went 
upon  the  platform,  he  lifting  her  to  the  car-seat  to  adjust  his 
cravat  and  brush  his  hair  a  little.  One  of  these  unscheduled 
stops  was  at  a  railway  junction  near  Lafayette,  Indiana,  six 
hours  from  Springfield,  and  Lincoln  spoke  of  the  contrast  in 
speed  between  the  time  when  he  left  Indiana  in  1830  and  that 
which  his  train  was  making.  That  can  not  have  been  the  only 
contrast  of  which  he  was  thinking.  By  day  as  he  traveled  and 
by  night  as  he  lay  in  luxurious  quarters  in  hotels  provided  in 
the  several  cities  where  he  spent  the  night,  he  must  have  thought 
much  of  the  strange  way  by  which  he  had  come  and  of  that 
which  was  now  taking  him  to  the  White  House.* 

The  journey  of  Lincoln  to  Washington  occupied  almost  two 
weeks.  There  were  scheduled  stops  in  a  number  of  important 
cities,  including  five  state  capitals  where  the  Legislatures  were 
in  session.  All  these  stops  were  in  response  to  official  invita- 
tions. Beside  these,  there  were  frequent  wayside  stops  where 
Lincoln  made  brief  addresses. 

The  first  halt  was  at  Indianapolis,  on  Monday  afternoon,  Feb- 
ruary eleventh.  The  Lincoln  family  was  entertained  at  the  Bates 
House,  and  Lincoln  spoke  from  the  balcony  to  a  large  assembly. 

Next  morning,  Tuesday,  February  twelfth,  was  Lincoln's  fifty- 
second  birthday.  His  special  train  left  Indianapolis  at  eleven 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  accomplished  the  run  to  Cincinnati 
in  five  hours  and  fifteen  minutes.  The  weather  was  excellent, 
and  there  was  a  procession  along  decorated  streets  leading  ulti- 
mately to  the  Burnett  House,  where  the  Lincoln  family  spent  the 
night. 

Lincoln  in  his  address  recalled  the  fact  that  he  had  spoken 
just  once  before  in  Cincinnati,  and  that  in  the  year  1859,  after  his 
debates  with  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  On  that  previous  occasion  he 
had  addressed  no  small  portion  of  his  remarks  to  the  people  of 
Kentucky;    and   being   now   at   the    southernmost   point    in    his 


*This  little  address  is  in  The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  p.  385. 


468  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

journey,  he  spoke  again  quite  as  much  to  the  people  south  of 
the  river  as  he  did  to  those  of  Cincinnati. 

On  the  morning-  of  Wednesday,  February  thirteenth,  he  left 
Cincinnati,  and  arrived  at  Columbus  where  the  Legislature  was 
in  session.  He  addressed  the  General  Assembly  and  held  a  packed 
reception  in  which  he  attempted  to  shake  hands  with  every  one, 
but  had  to  give  it  up,  so  great  was  the  crowd.  Here  as  every- 
where he  was  met  by  a  committee  composed  of  leading  citizens 
and  officials.     He  spent  that  night  in  the  governor's  residence. 

On  Thursday,  February  fourteenth,  he  left  Columbus  at  eight 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  reached  Pittsburgh  in  a  pouring  rain 
which  interfered  much  with  the  program.  It  was  announced, 
however,  that  he  would  speak  next  morning  at  eight  o'clock,  and 
leave  at  eleven. 

On  Friday,  February  fifteenth,  Lincoln  delivered  an  address  in 
Pittsburgh  and  left  for  Cleveland,  where  the  night  was  spent  in 
the  Weddell  House.  What  Lincoln  said  in  Cleveland  is  typical  of 
his  addresses  on  this  tour.  He  avoided  a  technical  discussion  of 
national  issues  and  endeavored  to  allay  excitement.     He  said: 

I  am  convinced  that  the  cause  of  Liberty  and  the  Union  can 
never  be  in  danger.  Frequent  allusion  is  made  to  the  excitement 
at  present  existing  in  our  national  politics.  It  is  well  that  I 
should  also  allude  to  it  here.  I  think  there  is  no  occasion  for  any 
excitement.  The  crisis,  as  it  is  called,  is  altogether  an  artificial 
crisis.  In  all  parts  of  the  nation  there  are  differences  of  opinion 
on  politics.  There  are  differences  of  opinion  even  here.  You 
did  not  all  vote  for  the  person  who  now  addresses  you.  A  large 
number  of  you  did — enough  for  all  practical  purposes — but  not 
all  of  you.  Farther  away  there  were  fewer  who  voted  for  me, 
and  their  numbers  decreased  as  they  got  farther  awTay.  What  is 
happening  now  will  not  hurt  those  who  are  farther  away  from 
here.  Have  they  not  all  the  rights  now  that  they  ever  had? 
Do  they  not  have  their  fugitive  slaves  returned  as  ever?  Have 
they  not  the  same  Constitution  that  they  have  lived  under  for 
the  last  seventy-odd  years  ?  Have  they  not  a  position  as  citizens 
of  this  common  country,  and  have  we  any  power  to  change  that 
position  ?    What  then  is  the  matter  with  them  ?    Why  all  this  ex- 


THE  JOURXEY  TO  WASHINGTON  469 

citement?  Why  all  these  complaints?  As  I  said  before,  this 
crisis  is  all  artificial.  It  has  no  foundation  in  facts.  It  was  not 
argued  up,  as  the  saying  is,  and  cannot  therefore  be  argued 
down.     Let  it  alone,  and  it  will  go  down  of  itself. 

This  speech  and  others  like  it  must  indicate  either  that  Lin- 
coln was  deliberately  avoiding  the  facing  of  the  issue,  or  that 
he  did  not  realize  how  serious  the  situation  actually  was.  The 
crisis  was  very  much  more  severe  than  any  word  of  Lincoln's 
in  the  early  part  of  his  journey  would  indicate.  It  is  probable 
that  to  some  extent  he  was  moved  by  the  great  demonstrations  in 
his  favor  and  gave  to  them  a  more  hopeful  interpretation  than 
they  deserved. 

On  Saturday,  February  sixteenth,  Mr.  Lincoln  left  Cleveland 
and  arrived  in  Buffalo.  At  a  small  station  an  incident  occurred 
which  was  much  commented  upon  at  the  time,  and  is  worth  re- 
calling as  it  was  reported  in  the  daily  press : 

At  Xorth  East  station  a  flag  inscribed  "Fort  Sumter"  was  car- 
ried right  up  where  Mr.  Lincoln  stood,  but  he  did  not  seem  to 
take  the  hint,  and  made  no  allusion  to  it  in  his  few  remarks.  At 
the  same  station  Mr.  Lincoln  took  occasion  to  state  that  during 
the  campaign  he  had  received  a  letter  from  a  young  girl  of  this 
place,  in  which  he  was  kindly  admonished  to  do  certain  things, 
and  among  others  to  let  his  whiskers  grow,  and  that,  as  he  had 
acted  upon  that  piece  of  advice,  he  would  now  be  glad  to  wel- 
come his  fair  correspondent,  if  she  was  among  the  crowd.  In  re- 
sponse to  his  call,  a  little  lassie  made  her  way  through  the  crowd, 
was  helped  to  the  platform,  and  kissed  by  the  President.* 

In  the  several  capital  cities  Lincoln  was  greeted  by  governors 
and  high  officials.  In  Buffalo  the  reception  committee  was 
headed  by  ex-President  Fillmore.  In  that  city  the  party  spent 
Sunday,  and  was  glad  of  a  day  of  rest.  Lincoln's  addresses  had 
been  brief,  but  there  had  been  many  of  them,  and  he  was  weary 
and  growing  hoarse. 


*New  York  Herald,  Sunday,  February  17,   1861. 


470  THE  LIFE  OF-  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

By  this  time  Mr.  Lincoln  had  had  opportunity  to  get  some 
reaction  from  the  impression  which  his  speeches  were  making  on 
the  country.  Some  papers  were  disposed  to  speak  kindly  of  his 
wayside  addresses,  but  few,  if  any,  were  enthusiastic.  James 
Gordon  Bennett,  of  the  New  York  Herald,  was  frankly  antag- 
onistic, and  his  criticism  of  Lincoln's  addresses,  which  the  Herald 
denominated  "drippings  from  the  inaugural"  was  on  the  whole 
less  caustic  than  might  have  been  expected.     It  said, 

Abraham  Lincoln,  as  President  elect  of  the  United  States,  is 
in  a  fair  way  to  lose  that  high  reputation  which  he  gained  in  his 
Illinois  stumping  campaign  of  1858  with  Judge  Douglas,  as  a 
candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate.  Since  his  departure 
from  Springfield,  en  route  for  the  White  House,  he  has  made 
several  little  speeches,  but  in  none  of  them  has  he  manifested  the 
disposition  or  the  capacity  to  grapple  manfully  with  the  dangers 
of  this  crisis  in  reference  to  the  restoration  of  the  Union,  or  the 
maintenance  of  the  peace  of  the  country.  ...  If  Mr.  Lincoln 
has  nothing  better  to  offer  upon  this  fearful  crisis  than  the  fool- 
ish consolations  of  his  speech  at  Columbus,  let  him  say  nothing 
at  all. 

On  Monday,  February  eighteenth,  the  party  moved  on  to  Al- 
bany. Here  Lincoln  was  greeted  by  Governor  Morgan.  Here 
also,  he  met  the  most  prominent  officials  of  New  York  State 
and  an  important  delegation  which  came  from  the  city  of  New 
York.  The  impression  which  he  appears  to  have  made  at  Al- 
bany was  that  he  was  less  saintly  and  more  shrewd  than  had 
commonly  been  reported.  The  impression  that  he  was  a  good- 
natured  man  without  force  began  to  yield  a  little  to  the  con- 
viction that  Lincoln  possessed  some  elements  of  strength  of 
character.  The  reporter  for  the  New  York  Herald  who  accom- 
panied the  expedition  generally  reflected  in  his  daily  story  the 
known  sentiment  of  the  editorial  columns,  but  as  the  train 
neared  New  York,  he  gave  the  following  impression  of  the  per- 
sonality of  Lincoln: 

Towering  above  all,  with  his  face  and  forehead  furrowed  by 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  471 

a  thousand  wrinkles,  his  hair  unkempt,  his  new  whiskers  look- 
ing as  if  not  yet  naturalized,  his  clothing-  illy  arranged,  Mr. 
Lincoln  sat  near  the  rear  of  the  saloon  car.  Putting  prejudice 
aside,  no  one  can  see  Mr.  Lincoln  without  recognizing  in  him  a 
man  of  immense  power  and  force  of  character  and  natural  talent. 
He  seems  so  sincere,  so  conscientious,  so  simple  hearted,  that  no 
one  can  help  liking  him  and  esteeming  any  disparagement  of  his 
ability  or  desire  to  do  right,  as  a  personal  insult. 

This  was  a  courageous  bit  of  writing  on  the  part  of  the 
Herald  reporter,  and,  violently  opposed  to  Lincoln  as  Bennett 
was,  he  printed  the  tribute  as  it  was  written. 

Lincoln  could  not  fail  to  realize  a  difference  in  the  atmosphere 
in  Albany  from  that  which  he  had  experienced  in  the  capitals  oi 
Indiana  and  Ohio.  Republican  New  York  had  been  for  Seward, 
and  was  not  yet  reconciled  to  his  defeat;  but  New  York  as  a 
whole  was  not  Republican.  Governor  Morgan  was  then  and 
for  a  time  continued,  one  of  Lincoln's  strongest  opponents,  and 
Fernando  Wood,  Mayor  of  New  York  City,  was  a  Democrat  of 
the  deepest  dye. 

Part  of  the  way  from  Buffalo  to  Albany  "the  Prince  of  Rails" 
as  some  of  the  newspapers  now  called  Mr.  Lincoln,  rode  upon 
the  engine.  It  is  recorded  that  he  expressed  himself  as  highly 
gratified  by  the  experience. 

On  Monday,  February  18,  1 86 1,  while  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
in  Albany,  doing  his  best  to  make  a  good  impression  upon  the 
Legislature  of  New  York  State,  Jefferson  Davis  was  inaugu- 
rated president  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America,  at  Mont- 
gomery, Alabama.  Lincoln  was  aware  of  this  event  while  he 
was  receiving  a  measured  courtesy  in  Albany.  He  had  oppor- 
tunity to  read  about  it  next  day  as  he  was  on  his  way  to  New 
York  City. 

He  also  had  opportunity  to  read  in  the  columns  of  the  Herald 
a  categorical  demand  that  Mr.  Lincoln  should  devote  himself 
immediately  to  patching  up  a  peace  with  the  seceded  states,  call- 
ing a  special  session  of  Congress  to  pass  an  amendment  to  the 


472  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Constitution  such  as  the  South  would  approve,  and  filling  not  a 
single  office,  except  his  Cabinet,  until  such  a  constitutional 
amendment  was  assured  of  adoption. 

The  Herald  further  inquired  in  a  leaded  editorial, 

What  will  Mr.  Lincoln  do  when  he  arrives?  What  will  he 
say  to  the  citizens  of  this  great  metropolis?  Will  he  kiss  our 
girls,  and  give  a  twirl  to  the  whiskers  which  he  has  begun  to 
cultivate?  Will  he  tell  our  merchants,  groaning-  under  the  pres- 
sure of  •  the  greatest  political  convulsion  ever  experienced  in 
America  that  "nobody  is  hurt"  or  that  "marching  troops  into 
South  Carolina"  and  bombarding  its  fortresses  is  "no  inva- 
sion"? 

The  Herald  editorial  of  the  following  day  says : 

The  masses  of  the  people  did  not  turn  out.  There  was  a  faint 
cheer  as  Mr.  Lincoln  entered  his  carriage  at  the  railway  station, 
but  none  of  those  spontaneous  movements  for  which  our  people 
are  noted. 

The  celebration  arranged  for  Lincoln  in  New  York  City  was 
the  most  imposing  anywhere  along  the  route ;  New  York  would 
have  been  content  with  nothing  less ;  but  in  no  other  city  had 
there  been  such  manifest  coldness,  and  Lincoln  must  have  left 
it  with  a  distinct  chill. 

On'  Wednesday,  February  twentieth,  Lincoln  arrived  in  Tren- 
ton. The  New  Jersey  Legislature  was  in  session  and  he  visited 
both  Houses.  It  was  in  his  address  before  the  New  Jersey  Legis- 
lature that  he  spoke  of  the  marked  influence  upon  his  own  boy- 
hood of  his  reading  the  story  of  the  battles  of  the  Revolutionary 
War,  and  especially,  of  his  early  profit  in  the  use  of  Weems' 
Life  of  Washington. 

On  Thursday,  February  twenty-first,  Lincoln  arrived  in  Phila- 
delphia. On  the  following  morning  he  visited  Independence 
Hall,  and  raised  a  flag  over  the  building  where  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  signed.     By  this  time  Lincoln  had  a  greatly 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  473 

deepened  sense  of  the  solemnity  of  his  undertaking.  He  had 
been  informed  of  a  plot  to  assassinate  him  on  the  way  to  Wash- 
ington.     To   this   plot   he   made    reference    in   his   address   that 


All  the  political  sentiments  I  entertain  have  been  drawn,  so 
far  as  I  have  been  able  to  draw  them,  from  the  sentiments  which 
originated  in,  and  were  given  to  the  world  from,  this  hall.  I 
never  had  a  feeling,  politically,  that  did  not  spring  from  the  sen- 
timents embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  ...  It 
was  not  the  mere  matter  of  the  separation  of  the  colonies  from 
the  mother-land,  but  that  sentiment  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, which  gave  liberty  not  alone  to  the  people  of  this 
country,  but  I  hope  to  the  world,  for  all  future  time.  It  was  that 
which  gave  promise  that,  in  due  time,  the  weight  would  be  lifted 
from  the  shoulders  of  men.  This  is  the  sentiment  embodied  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Now,  my  friends,  can  this 
country  be  saved  upon  that  basis?  If  it  can,  I  will  consider  my- 
self one  of  the  happiest  men  in  the  world,  if  I  can  help  to  save  it. 
If  it  cannot  be  saved  upon  that  principle,  it  will  be  truly  awful! 
But  if  this  country  cannot  be  saved  without  giving  up  the  prin- 
ciple, I  was  about  to  say:  "I  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  the 
spot,  than  surrender  it."  ...  I  have  said  nothing  but  what  I  am 
willing  to  live  by,  and  if  it  be  the  pleasure  of  Almighty  God,  to 
die  by. 

Before  leaving  Springfield,  Lincoln  took  the  manuscript  of 
his  Inaugural  Address  to  the  office  of  the  Journal,  and  had  it 
put  in  type,  in  order  that  he  might  have  copies  for  use  in  ob- 
taining the  advice  of  friends.  So  far  as  known,  however,  he 
did  not  part  with  more  than  one  copy  at  a  time,  nor  leave  any 
copy  permanently  out  of  his  possession.  He  appears  to  have 
carried  all  his  eggs  in  one  basket.  He  had  the  address  in  a 
satchel,  wThich  was  mislaid  at  Harrisburg.  When  a  satchel 
which  Lincoln  thought  he  recognized  as  his  was  found  his  key 
opened  it,  but  it  was  found  to  contain  a  soiled  shirt,  some  paper 
collars,  a  pack  of  cards  and  a  bottle  of  whisky  nearly  full,  none 
of  which  articles  belonged  in  Lincoln's  bag.     Finally,  his  own 


474  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

bag  was  found,  much  to  Lincoln's  relief;  for  Lamon  declares 
that  he  never  saw  Lincoln  so  annoyed,  perplexed  and  angry  as 
he  was  when  he  thought  the  bag  was  lost,  and  that  the  finding 
of  the  bag  with  the  whisky  produced  a  laugh  that  restored  his 
good  humor.  The  finding  of  Lincoln's  own  satchel  brought  him 
back  his  "certificate  of  moral  character,  written  by  himself.'' 

Why  did  Lincoln,  on  his  way  to  Washington,  content  him- 
self with  the  utterance  of  platitudes?  Why  did  he  not  utter 
some  really  great  message  to  each  assembled  crowd?  The  trip 
was  admirably  planned  for  effective  speech-making.  In  five 
great  states,  Indiana,  Ohio,  New  York,  New  Jersey  and  Penn- 
sylvania, Legislatures  were  in  session;  and  from  each  of  these 
bodies  Lincoln  received  and  accepted  invitations  to  address  their 
Houses  in  joint  session.  Five  short  speeches,  each  uttering 
some  one  strong  and  reassuring  paragraph  would  not  have  been 
too  much  for  an  orator  like  Lincoln.  The  cities  of  Cleveland, 
New  York  and  Philadelphia  all  offered  exceptional  opportun- 
ities to  influence  the  thought  of  the  nation.  Judged  by  the  effect, 
we  cannot  affirm  that  in  any  one  of  these  places  Lincoln  rose  to 
the  full  opportunity  offered  by  the  occasion.  At  Cincinnati  he 
spoke  to  the  people  across  the  Ohio  River ;  there  more  than  any- 
where else  he  seemed  aware  of  his  opportunity.  Why  did  he  not 
rise  to  it  in  other  cities? 

The  answer  doubtless  is  twofold.  First,  Lincoln  did  not  fully 
realize  the  seriousness  of  the  crisis,  nor  the  importance  of  his 
wayside  utterances.  Secondly,  Lincoln  was  reserving  his  mes- 
sage to  be  incorporated  in  his  Inaugural  Address.  Into  that 
address  he  had  put  his  very  best  endeavor,  and  he  was  yet  to 
change  it  after  consulting  Seward  and  other  influential  friends. 
Lincoln's  habitual  caution  prevented  his  saying  anything  which 
he  might  have  occasion  to  modify,  or  speaking  as  president 
while  another  man  sat  in  the  presidential  chair.  Hence  the 
newspapers  failed  to  find  in  his  addresses  en  route  any  great 
statesmanlike  affirmations  such  as  they  might  have  desired  to 
discover  in  the  words  of  a  president-elect. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  475 

Lincoln  left  Philadelphia  at  half  past  nine  on  the  morning  of 
Washington's  birthday  and  arrived  at  Harrisburg,  the  capital  of 
Pennsylvania,  where  he  was  greeted  by  the  Legislature.  There 
he  delivered  his  last  address  en  route.  There,  also,  he  received 
what  appeared  to  be  confirmation  of  the  rumor  that  there  was  a 
plot  to  assassinate  him  as  he  passed  through  Baltimore.  He 
left  the  special  train  and  the  presidential  party  at  Harrisburg, 
and,  acting  on  advice  which  he  believed  to  be  valid,  made  a  night 
journey  to  Washington.  Concerning  this  trip,  there  has  been 
much  discussion,  and  it  is  claimed  by  some  and  denied  by  others, 
that  Lincoln  regretted  having  entered  Washington  in  the  way 
he  did.  The  reports  of  his  disguise  were  all  fabricated,  but  the 
utmost  secrecy  was  maintained  concerning  his  withdrawal  from 
the  party  and  the  manner  and  time  of  his  arrival  in  Washing- 
ton. His  only  companions  on  this  last  lap  of  his  journey  were 
Colonel  Ward  Hill  Lamon  and  Allan  Pinkerton.  The  entire 
party  returned  together  from  Harrisburg  to  Philadelphia,  where 
at  midnight  Lincoln  and  his  two  associates  took  their  berths  in 
a  sleeping-car  of  the  regular  train  from  Xew  York.  They  ar- 
rived in  Washington  at  six  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  Saturday. 
February  twenty-third.  They  were  met  in  the  station  by  Hon- 
orable E.  B.  Washburne,  who  conducted  them  to  the  Willard 
Hotel,  where  a  little  later  they  were  joined  at  breakfast  by  Will- 
iam H.  Seward.  Late  that  evening  Lincoln's  family  arrived, 
having  encountered  no  sign  of  danger  or  any  incivility  as  they 
passed  through  Baltimore. 

There  had  been  no  plan  for  a  public  entry  into  Washington. 
In  that  city  the  celebration  was  to  occur  more  than  a  week  later. 
It  had  been  planned  from  the  beginning  that  the  arrival  of  the 
Lincoln  party  should  be  without  formality,  but  no  one  had  con- 
templated so  humiliating  an  end  of  a  journey  that  had  been  on 
the  whole  one  of  such  triumph.  The  comments  of  the  news- 
papers in  many  instances  were  not  flattering,  and  some  carica- 
tures held  the  president-elect  up  to  ridicule  as  a  man  of  faint 
heart.     For  this  charge  there  was  no  justification.     Lincoln  ac- 


476  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

cepted  the  advice  of  responsible  men,  who  believed  the  danger 
to  be  real.  Lincoln  was  a  man  of  prudence,  but  he  wa^  never 
a  coward. 

The  journey  of  the  special  train  upon  Saturday  was  a  sad 
ending  of  what  had  been  a  spectacular  journey.  From  Harris- 
burg  to  Baltimore  and  on  to  Washington,  people  continued  to 
gather,  curious  to  see  the  president-elect.  It  became  necessary  to 
tell  the  crowds  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  on  the  train.  The 
crowds  could  scarcely  credit  the  statement,  and  those  who  had  to 
make  the  announcement  from  time  to  time  did  it  with  very  little 
joy  or  pride.  They  invented  the  best  excuse  they  could  think 
of;  important  business  had  suddenly  called  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
Washington ;  but  the  members  of  the  presidential  party  made 
this  statement  with  little  liking,  and  when  the  train  arrived  in 
Baltimore  and  there  was  no  demonstration  of  an  adverse  char- 
acter, the  feeling  of  resentment  grew  against  those1  who  had 
advised  the  president  to  desert  the  party  and  slip  into  Wash- 
ington in  such  undignified  fashion.  However  the  journey  ended 
and  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  the  children  reached  Willard's  Hotel  that 
night.  The  Lincoln  family  was  reunited  and  glad  enough  that 
this  part  of  the  performance  was  well  over. 

A  full  week  and  more  intervened  between  Lincoln's  arrival 
and  the  service  of  inauguration.  It  was  a  solemn  week.  If 
Lincoln  left  home  with  something  less  than  a  realizing  sense  of 
the  gravity  of  the  situation,  and  if  the  enthusiasm  of  his  greet- 
ings along  the  way  did  something  to  encourage  in  him  a  false 
sense  of  security,  a  week  in  Washington  left  him  with  no  pos- 
sible illusion  as  to  the  gravity  of  the  situation  confronting  him 
and  the  nation.  Secession  was  an  accomplished  fact,  and  civil 
war  was  about  to  begin.  What  qualities,  what  training  had 
Abraham  Lincoln  to  fit  him  to  cope  with  so  desperate  a  situa- 
tion? The  nation  and  the  world  asked  that  question,  and  Lin- 
coln himself  must  have  given  it  most  solemn  consideration  in 
that  ominous  week. 

Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  in  Washington,  busy  in  many  mat- 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  477 

ters  relating  to  those  perplexing  times.  He  was  loyal  to  Lin- 
coln and  the  government.  But  now  and  then  the  oddity  of  the 
situation  came  over  him,  a  sense  of  the  absurdity  of  the  election 
of  a  man  like  Lincoln  to  the  presidency  which  Douglas  had  him- 
self so  long  aspired  to  attain.  He,  also,  took  a  journey,  and 
then  returned  to  Washington.  In  the  days  of  his  debate  with 
Lincoln,  Douglas  traveled  on  a  special  train  with  a  flat  car  at- 
tached, carrying  a  brass  cannon,  while  Lincoln  rode  in  the  day 
coach.  Now  Lincoln  was  traveling  in  state,  while  Douglas  was 
on  the  regular  train.  But  some  luxury  was  granted  to  Douglas ; 
he  had  the  comfort  of  a  berth  in  a  sleeping-car,  then  a  relatively 
new  and  crude  affair ;  and  he  had  also  a  bottle  of  liquor.  Lying 
in  his  berth,  half  awake,  and  less  than  half  sober,  he  thought 
over  the  incongruity  of  the  situation,  and  burst  out  at  length 
into  uproarious  laughter :  "Abe  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United 
States!  Good  lord!  Abe  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United 
States !" 


APPENDIX 

I.       JESSE    HEAD 

Abraham  Lincoln  lived  and  died  without  knowing  where  the 
marriage  record  of  his  parents  could  be  found.  He  had  never 
had  occasion  to  inquire  about  it  while  his  parents  were  living, 
and  when  he  emerged  into  prominence  it  was  too  late.  His 
mother  died  in  1818  and  his  father  in  1851.  When,  in  i860, 
he  found  occasion  to  inquire  about  it,  the  record  was  not  found 
in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky,  where  he  was  born  and  where  he 
supposed  his  parents  were  married.  His  inquiries  resulted  only 
in  starting  unpleasant  rumors,  and  these  were  long  in  finding 
disproof.  One  important  step  in  the  proving  of  the  chastity  of 
Lincoln's  mother,  though  not  the  only  or  the  final  one,  was  the 
discovery,  in  1878,  of  a  marriage  return,  in  Washington  County, 
Kentucky,  certifying  that  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks 
were  married,  June  12,  1806,  by  the  Reverend  Jesse  Head,  a  dea- 
con in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 

But  who  was  Jesse  Head?  Doctor  J.  M.  Buckley,  editor  of 
The  Christian  Advocate,  made  diligent  inquiry  thirty  years  ago 
and  discovered  a  grandson  of  Jesse  Head,  the  Reverend  E.  B. 
Head,  then  serving  on  the  Lawrenceburg  circuit  in  Anderson 
County,  Kentucky.  Some  information  was  obtained  from  him 
and  others,  but  it  left  much  room  for  research. 

The  Christian  Advocate  on  May  25,  1882  (p.  322),  presented 
full  proof  of  the  identity  of  Jesse  Head.  Doctor  Buckley  then 
wrote :  "The  following  points  may  be  considered  as  for  ever 
settled:  1.  There  was  such  a  man  as  Jesse  Head,  a  local  deacon 
in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  1806.  2.  The  Reverend 
Jesse  Head  was  at  no  time  nor  in  any  place  a  member  of  an 

479 


480  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Annual  Conference,  or  duly  admitted  on  trial  in  any  Conference, 
and  therefore,  notwithstanding  his  long  and  honorable  career,  he 
escaped  all  record  in  Methodism." 

Despite  the  facts  brought  out  by  The  Christian  Advocate  there 
were  those  who  affirmed  that  there  never  had  been  such  a  man  as 
Jesse  Head;  that  the  whole  record  was  a  fraud,  of  modern  crea- 
tion, made  seventy  years  after  the  events  described,  and  intended 
to  falsify  history  by  fraudulent  documentary  proof  of  the  legit- 
imacy of  Abraham  Lincoln.  For  a  good  while  it  seemed  unlikely 
that  we  should  ever  learn  anything  very  definite  about  Jesse 
Head.     It  now  is  possible  to  write  his  life  history. 

Jesse  Head  was  born  in  Frederick  County,  Maryland,  June  10, 
1768,  son  of  William  Edward  Head,  a  Revolutionary  soldier. 
He  was  married,  January  9,  1789,  to  Jane  Ramsey,  daughter  of 
Robert  and  Susannah  Ramsey,  of  Bedford  County,  Pennsyl- 
vania. She  was  born  April  10,  1768.  The  young  couple  re- 
moved to  Washington  County,  Kentucky,  and  located  near 
Springfield,  the  county-seat.  He  was  a  cabinet-maker  by  trade. 
He  had  a  farm  of  fifty-four  acres  on  Road  Run,  near  to  the 
Berrys  arid  Lincolns.  It  is  probable  that  his  being  a  neighbor 
was  the  occasion  of  their  calling  him  to  solemnize  the  marriage 
of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks,  for  both  the  Lincolns  and 
Hankses  were  Baptists.  He  probably  located  in  Kentucky  about 
1796.  His  name  is  not  in  the  Washington  County  tax  list  for 
1795,  but  is  there  in  1797,  in  1800,  1801,  1803  and  1805.  The 
intermediate  lists  and  many  subsequent  lists  have  perished.  He 
was  in  Washington  County  until  18 10.  He  became  a  justice  of 
the  peace,  his  service  beginning  January  6,  1798.  He  became  a 
trustee  of  the  town  of  Springfield,  April  3,  1802,  and  chairman 
of  that  board  June  10,  1803.  His  last  signed  document  in  Wash- 
ington County  is  a  court  order  as  justice  of  the  peace,  October 
10,  1 8 10.  His  work  as  a  carpenter  included  the  erection  of 
Stocks  and  a  whipping-post  and  pillory  at  the  Washington  County 
court-house. 

But  what  about  his  ecclesiastical  standing?     On  October  2, 


APPENDIX  481 

1805,  was  held  at  Anthony  Houston's  in  Scott  County,  Ken- 
tucky, a  meeting  of  the  Western  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church.  Bishop  Asbury  presided.  A  list  was  re- 
ported of  the  deacons  and  local  preachers  of  the  conference,  and 
among  the  former  was  recorded  the  name  of  Jesse  Head.  This 
is  the  one  known  record,  and  this  recently  discovered,  which 
shows  his  ecclesiastical  status  in  the  records  of  any  conference. 
But  this  was  not  the  beginning  of  his  career  as  a  Methodist  dea- 
con. Honorable  L.  S.  Pence,  of  Lebanon,  Kentucky,  discovered 
a  book  of  "court  martials"  of  men  reported  as  delinquent  in 
militia  duty,  and  on  May  25,  1798,  it  was  recorded  that  Jesse 
Head  was  cleared  of  delinquency,  "he  having  a  license  to  preach, 
according  to  the  rules  of  the  church  to  which  he  belongs." 

The  records  of  that  period  are,  of  course,  fragmentary  and 
meager ;  but  these  two  certify  to  the  standing  of  Jesse  Head 
from  1798  on. 

Among  the  Draper  manuscripts  in  the  library  of  the  University 
of  Wisconsin  is  a  letter  of  General  Robert  B.  McAfee,  of  No- 
vember 25,  1845,  m  which  he  states  that  the  famous  Harrodsburg 
Springs  were  discovered,  in  1806,  by  Reverend  Jesse  Head,  a 
Methodist  minister.  This  letter  was  written  long  before  Jesse 
Head  was  known  in  connection  with  the  marriage  of  the  Lin- 
colns.  The  year  1806,  in  which  this  discovery  of  the  Springs  is 
said  to  have  been  made,  is  the  same  in  which  Jesse  Head  married 
the  Lincolns.  Four  years  later,  in  18 10,  Jesse  Head  moved  to 
Harrodsburg,  and  there  he  lived  for  thirty-two  years.  He  died 
March  22,  1842;  and  his  wife  died  August  30,  1851.  They  were 
buried  in  their  own  yard  in  Harrodsburg,  but  after  some  years 
their  bodies  were  removed  to  the  Harrodsburg  cemetery.  Their 
graves  were  unmarked,  and  were  in  danger  of  becoming  un- 
known; but  recently  they  have  been  identified,  and  on  November 
2,  1922,  a  simple  and  appropriate  monument  with  bronze  tablet 
was  erected  above  their  graves. 

Jesse  Head  was  an  editor,  a  straight  old-fashioned  Democrat. 
The  story  that  he  inculcated  abolition  principles  in  Thomas  and 


482  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Nancy  Lincoln  is  without  foundation,  but  he  was  a  friend  to 
colored  people  and  had  influence  with  them. 

He  did  not  accumulate  money.  Twice  he  would  have  been  sold 
out  at  sheriff's  sale  but  for  the  kindness  of  his  son.  Once  all  his 
furniture  was  exposed  for  sale  and  the  other  time  his  house. 
They  were  all  bidden  in  by  local  parties,  for  his  son,  then  living 
in  Washington,  D.  C.  This  dutiful  son  provided  a  home  for  his 
parents  while  they  lived. 

The  Misses  Mary  A.  and  Martha  Stephenson  have  dug  deep 
into  the  dust  of  ancient  records  in  Harrodsburg  to  learn  for  me 
all  that  may  be  found  about  Jesse  Head.  Among  the  rest,  they 
have  found  the  court  orders  of  these  sales,  made  to  George  M. 
Head,  and  they  enable  us  to  learn  just  what  were  the  worldly 
goods  and  chattels  of  Jesse  Head. 

He  owned  three  beds,  one  valued  at  $10,  one  at  $7.50  and  one 
at  $7.25.  There  was  a  toilet  glass  at  which  he  shaved,  and  it  was 
bid  in  at  $1.12^2.  There  was  a  folding  table,  of  his  own  work- 
manship, which  brought  $2.12^.  There  was  "a  lott  of  cup- 
boardware,"  $3.25;  six  plates,  25  cents;  tinware  and  coffee  mill, 
62^/2  cents;  two  small  tables,  25  cents;  a  pair  of  andirons,  50 
cents.  There  was  a  bookcase  which  brought  $5,  and  a  small 
table  which  brought  $1.  There  were  pots  and  pans  and  "kittles" 
and  skillets  and  tongs  and  spinning  wheel  which  need  not  here  be 
separately  priced.  He  owned  a  horse,  the  value  of  which  was 
$15.25,  as  determined  by  the  highest  bid,  a  spotted  cow  and  a 
red  cow  and  calf,  each  of  which  brought  $6.25.  He  had  a  "wag- 
gon" which  was  found  to  be  worth  $11.25. 

He  had  some  books,  a  good  many  for  a  man  of  his  station 
and  financial  ability.  He  had  seven  volumes  of  the  sermons  of 
John  Wesley  and  two  volumes  of  Wesley's  Notes.  He  had 
Fletcher's  Works  in  three  volumes,  and  several  volumes  of 
church  history.  His  library,  sold  book  by  book,  brought 
$16.74^.  His  whole  personal  property  brought  $114.30.  His 
son  bid  all  this  in.  No  single  item  appears  to  have  been  sold 
outside. 


APPENDIX  483 

There  was  a  sale  at  the  court-house  door.  The  sheriff  came 
to  the  home  of  Jesse  Head  and  loaded  the  $11.25  "waggon," 
hitched  up  to  it  the  $15.25  horse,  and  led  the  red  cow  and  the 
spotted  cow  behind,  and  took  them  to  the  court-house  door  and 
sold  them  under  the  hammer.  But  there  appears  to  have  been 
no  competition.  Every  one  appears  to  have  understood  that 
Jesse  Head's  son  intended  to  buy  these  articles,  and  to  have  a 
bill  of  sale  made  out  to  him,  and  to  send  the  goods  back  for  the 
use  of  his  parents  so  long  as  they  lived.  So  after  a  time,  they 
all  came  back,  the  red  cow  and  calf,  and  the  spotted  cow  and  the 
horse  and  "waggon"  and  the  tongs  and  "kittles"  and  spinning 
wheel  and  the  rest,  and  the  books  which  were  the  old  man's 
pride.  And  I  imagine  that  Jesse  Head  and  his  wife  knelt  down 
in  the  midst  of  their  house  that  had  been  left  to  them  desolate  and 
thanked  God  for  a  faithful  son.  In  like  manner  the  house  was 
kept  from  being  sold  above  their  heads,  and  they  had  a  home  as 
long  as  they  lived. 

So  far  as  any  record  has  been  found,  Jesse  Head  was  never 
ordained  an  elder,  but  held  his  deacon's  orders  through  life,  and 
signed  his  marriage  returns,  of  which  there  are  many,  "Jesse 
Head,  D.M.E.C.,"  which  meant  "Deacon  in  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church."  He  was  never  pastor  of  the  Methodist 
Church  in  Harrodsburg,  nor  is  there  any  record  of  his  having 
founded  a  Methodist  church  in  any  other  city,  though  that  claim 
has  been  made  for  him.  His  grandson  thought  that  he  was  an 
intimate  friend  of  Methodist  bishops,  but  if  this  is  the  case,  no 
record  is  found  of  it.  If  he  ever  attended  an  Annual  Conference 
we  do  not  know  it.  But  he  maintained  his  standing  as  a  deacon, 
and  was  proud  of  his  membership  in  the  Methodist  Church.  He 
was  fond  of  controversy,  was  a  hard  hitter,  and  made  enemies 
and  warm  friends.  He  was  a  man  of  courage  and  fidelity. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  concerning  slavery  he  was  in 
advance  of  his  generation;  indeed,  there  is  the  best  of  reason  to 
suppose  that  he  was  not.  He  was  the  owner  of  a  negro  woman 
and  her  children,  the  negress  being  a  cook  and  maid  of  all  work 


484  THF  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

for  Mrs.  Head,  until  his  poverty  compelled  him  to  part  with  her 
and  with  most  of  his  property.  He  was  a  good  fighter,  a 
courageous  pioneer  preacher.  He  was  not  widely  known  in  his 
own  day,  and  owes  his  fame  solely  to  the  accident  of  his  having 
married,  among  scores  of  obscure  couples,  one  for  whom  was 
reserved  the  distinction  of  distinguished  parenthood.  But  he  and 
the  men  like  him  deserve  high  honor  for  their  zeal,  their  integrity, 
their  contribution  to  the  welfare  of  a  new  society.  He  was  one 
of  a  considerable  number  of  local  preachers  and  exhorters  and 
deacons  who,  never  attaining  to  any  clerical  distinction,  do  their 
work  faithfully  and  well.  Methodism  has  a  right  to  claim  Jesse 
Head,  and  to  remember  that  he  was  one  among  many  of  her 
faithful  preachers  in  the  days  of  the  pioneers.  But  he  belongs 
in  no  exclusive  sense  to  any  one  sect.  He  is  a  worthy  represen- 
tative of  a  goodly  group  of  humble,  honest  and  most  useful  men, 
the  pioneer  preachers. 

II.      AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL  LETTER 

This  letter,  containing  important  data  concerning  the  Hanks 
family,  was  written  by  Dennis  F.  Hanks  for  William  H.  Hern- 
don,  and  preserved  in  the  Library  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 

Aprial  the  26.  1866 
Dennis  F  Hanks  was  Born  in  Hardin  County  on  the  tributary 
branch  of  the  South  fork  of  Nolin  on  the  old  Richard  Creal  farm 
in  the  old  peach  orchard  in  a  Log  Cabin  3  miles  from  Hogins  Vill 
thence  we  moved  to  Murcur  County  and  Staid  there  a  Bout  3 
years  and  Moved  Back  a  gain  to  the  same  place  and  there  Re- 
mained untill  we  moved  to  Spencer  County  Indiana  this  was  I 
think  in  the  year  1816  if  my  Memory  serves  me  Rite  My  mother 
and  Abes  mothers  mother  was  sisters  My  mothers  Name  was 
Nancy  Hanks  Abes  Grand  Mother  was  Lucy  Hanks  which  was 
my  mothers  Sister  the  woman  that  raised  me  was  Elizabeth 
Sparow  the  Sister  of  Lucy  and  Nancy  The  other  Sister  hir 
Name  was  polly  Friend  So  you  see  that  there  was  4  sisters  that 
was  Hankses 

I  Have  No  Letter  from  my  friends  yet    I  Dont  No  the  Reason 


APPENDIX  4S5 

Bily  did  you  write  to  William  Hall  in  Misouri  Frankford  I  think 
he  coul  tell  you  sumthing  that  would  Be  Rite  He  is  my  half 
Brother    try  him 

William  I  have  seen  a  Book  which  states  that  Lincolns  was 
Quakers  I  say  this  is  mis  take  They  was  Baptist  all  this  talk 
about  their  Religious  talk  is  a  humbug  they  try  to  make  them  out 
Puritins     This  is  Not  the  case 

You  asked  me  what  sort  of  songs  or  Intress  Abe  tuck  part  in 
I  will  say  this  anything  that  was  Lively  He  never  would  sing 
any  Religious  Songs  it  apered  to  me  that  it  Did  not  souit  him 
But  for  a  man  to  preach  a  Sermond  he  w7ould  Lissin  to  with  great 
Atention 

Did  you  find  out  from  Richard  Creal  if  He  lived  on  the  place 
whare  A  Lincoln  was  Born  or  Not  I  am  gowing  there  in  May 
to  Visit  my  Birth  place  the  15th  of  May  this  is  my  Birth  Day 
1799     it  has  Ben  48  years  Sence 

Any  thing  you  want  to  No  Let  it  Cum      your  friend 

D.  F.  Hanks 

My  first  School  Master  was  By  the  Name  Warden  taught 
School  at  the  old  Baptist  church  on  Nolin  nere  Brunks  farm  at 
the  Big  Spring  Down  in  a  Deepe  hollow  Close  By  the  House 

III.     NEW  SALEM   ELECTIONS 

The  Illinois  State  Historical  Society  has  the  Poll  Books  of 
New  Salem  during  the  half  dozen  years  when  it  was  a  voting 
precinct.  A  number  of  them  are  in  Lincoln's  handwriting.  The 
following  are  the  summaries  of  these  elections,  with  records  of 
the  vote  and  official  service  of  Abraham  Lincoln: 

A  Pole  Book  of  an  election  held  in  Clarys  Grove  Precinct  on 
the  first  day  of  August  1831  at  the  house  of  John  M.  Cameron 
in  New  Salem  to  elect  one  Representative  to  Congress ;  two 
magistrates  and  two  constables  in  the  above  mentioned  Precinct. 

Abraham  Lincoln  voted  for  James  Turney  for  congress,  Rob- 
ert Conover  for  Magistrate,  Pollard  Simmons  for  Magistrate, 
John  Armstrong  for  constable,  Henry  Sinco  for  Constable. 

At  an  election  held  at  the  house  of  John  McNeil  in  the  New 
Salem  precinct  in  the  county  of  Sangamon  and  State  of  Illinois 
en  the  20th  day  of  September    in    the    year   of    our    Lord    one 


486  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty  two  the  following  named 
persons  received  the  number  of  votes  annexed  to  their  respec- 
tive names  for  constable. 

John  Clary  had  Forty-one  votes   for  constable 

John  R.   Herndon  had  Twenty-two  votes  for  constable. 

William  McNeely  had  Thirteen  votes  for  constable. 

Baxter  B.  Berry  had  nine  votes  for  constable 

Edmund  Greer  had  four  votes  for  constable 

Samuel  Rutledge       ) 

Hugh  Armstrong     >  Judges  of  the  election. 

James  White  ) 

Attest   A.  Lincoln     ) 

William  Green  j      Clerks  of  the  election 

I  certify  that  the  above  Judges  and  Clerks  were  qualified 
according  to  law,  September  20,  1832.     Bowling  Green  J.  P. 

I  certify  that  the  Judges  and  Clerks  this  election  was  duly 
qualified. 

Bowling  Green 
Nov.  5th  1832.  J.  P. 

At  an  election  held  at  the  house  of  Samuel  Hill  in  the  New 
Salem  precinct  in  the  county  of  Sangamon  and  State  of  Illinois 
on  the  fifth  day  of  November  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty-two  the  following  named 
persons  received  the  number  of  votes  annexed  to  their  respective 
names  for  the  following  described  offices  (to  wit) 

Daniel  Stookey  had  one  hundred  and  eighty-five  votes  for 
elector  of  President  and  Vice  President. 

Abner  Flack  had  one  hundred  and  eighty-five  votes  for  elector 
of  President  and  Vice  President. 

James  Evans  had  one  hundred  and  eighty-five  votes  for  elec- 
tor of  President  and  Vice  President. 

Adam  Dunlap  had  one  hundred  and  eighty-five  votes  for 
elector  of  President  and  Vice  President. 

John  C.  Alexander  had  one  hundred  and  eighty-five  votes  for 
elector  of  President  and  Vice  President. 

William  B.  Archer  had  seventy  votes  for  elector  of  President 
and  Vice  President. 

Leonard  White  had  seventy  votes  for  elector  of  President 
and  Vice  President. 


Clerks  of  the  election 


APPENDIX  487 

James  B.  Moore  had  Seventy  votes  for  elector  of  President 
and  Vice  President. 

Elijah  lies  had  seventy  votes  for  elector  of  President  and 
Vice  President. 

Pierre  Menard  had  seventy  votes  for  elector  of  President  and 
Vice  President. 

James  Rutledge  ] 

Bowling  Green  I  judges  of  the  election 

Hugh  Armstrong        J 

A.  Lincoln 
William  Green 
Lincoln  voted  for .... 
William  B.  Archer 
Leonard  White 
James  B.  Moore 
Elijah  lies 
Pierre  Menard 

At  an  election  held  at  the  house  of  William  F.  Berry  the  New 
Salem  precinct  in  the  county  of  Sangamon  and  State  of  Illinois 
on  the  fifth  day  of  May  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  thirty  four  the  following  named  persons  re- 
ceived the  number  of  votes  annexed  to  their  respective  names 
for  the  following  described  office  to  wit. 

Garrett  Elkin  had  eighty-four  votes  for  Sheriff. 

David  Dickinson  had  seventy  seven  votes  for  Sheriff 

Zachariah  Peter  had  four  votes  for  Sheriff. 
Certified  by  us. 

Bowling  Green  J 

Hugh  Armstrong     V    Judges  of  the  election 

David  Whray  \ 

Attest  A.  Lincoln     j     _,    ,        „    ,       ,      . 
,,  ~    .  r    Clerks  of  the  election. 

Mentor  Graham        ) 

I  certify  that  Hugh  Armstrong,  David  Whray,  Mentor  Gra- 
ham and  A.  Lincoln  were  qualified  by  me  according  to  law  as 
Judges  and  Clerks  of  the  election.  Bowling  Green  J.  P. 

I  certify  that  Bowling  Green  was  qualified  by  me  according 
to  law  as  Judge  of  the  election. 

Mentor  Graham. 

Abraham  Lincoln  voted  for  David  Dickson  for  Sheriff 

New  Salem  Precinct,  Poll  list  August  4,  1834. 


488  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

At  an  election  held  at  the  house  of  William  F.  Berry  in  the 
New  Salem  precinct  in  the  County  of  Sangamon  and  State  of 
Illinois  on  the  twenty-seventh  day  of  October  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty  four  the  following 
named  persons  received  the  number  of  votes  annexed  to  their  re- 
spective names  for  the  following  described  offices  (to  wit) 

William  L.  May  had  Seventy  two  votes  for  Representative  to 
Congress, 

James  Turney  had  one  vote  for  Representative  to  Congress. 

Benjamin  Mills  had  three  votes  for  Representative  to  Con- 
gress.    Certified  by  us 

James  Pantier  ) 

Pollard  Simmons       l  Judges  of  the  election 

William  Jones  \ 

Attest  A.    Lincoln    )     _,    ,        _    ,  •  . 

Mentor  Graham        \    Clerks  of  the  electl0n' 

I  certify  that  the  Judges  and  Clerks  of  this  election  was  sworn 
according  to  law,  New  Salem  October  27,  1834. 

Bowling  Green     J.  P. 
and  John  Clary  served  as  constable. 
Lincoln  voted  for  William  L.  May. 

At  an  election  held  at  the  house  of  N.  Alley  in  the  New 
Salem  Precinct  in  the  county  of  Sangamon  and  State  of  Illinois 
on  the  third  day  of  August  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  thirty  five,  the  following  named  persons  re- 
ceived the  number  of  votes  annexed  to  their  respective  names 
for  the  following  described  offices  to  wit. 

John  Calhoun  had  ninety-eight  votes  for  State  Senator  in 
place  of  E.  D.  Taylor.     Resigned. 

A.  J.  Herndon  had  seventy-seven  votes  for  State  Senator  in 
place  of  E.  D.  Taylor.     Resigned. 

Peter  Cartwright  had  fifty  three  votes  for  State  Senator  in 
place  of  George  Forquer.     Resigned. 

Job  Fletcher  had  one  hundred  and  twenty-votes  for  State 
Senator  in  place  of  George  Forquer.     Resigned. 

Edward  Mitchell  had  twenty-eight  votes  for  County  Recorder. 

William  Herndon  had  thirty-eight  votes  for  County  Recorder. 

James  Campbell  had  one  vote  for  County  Recorder. 

Benjamin  Tabott  had  thirty  three  votes  for  County  Recorder, 


APPENDIX  489 

Andy  Orr  had  nine  votes  for  County  Recorder. 

William  L.  Fowkes  had  one  vote  for  County  Recorder. 

Martin  M.  Morgan  had  twenty-one  votes  for  County  Recorder. 

Thomas  M.  Neale  had  one  hundred  and  twenty-nine  votes  for 
County  Surveyor. 

Reuben  Harrison  had  thirty-eight  votes  for  County  Surveyor. 

Parnell  Hamilton  had  three  votes  for  County  Surveyor. 

William  G.  Cantrill  had  thirty-eight  votes  for  County  Com- 
missioner. 

William  Statts  had  ninety-four  votes  for  County  Commis- 
sioner. 

Young  McLemon  had  one  vote  for  County  Commissioner. 

David  Newsom  had  two  votes  for  County  Commissioner, 

Peter  G.  Cawardin  had  thirteen  votes  for  County  Commis- 
sioner. 

I.  Langston  had  thirty-three  votes  for  Coroner. 

George  W.  Dickinson  had  two  votes  for  Coroner. 

Joseph  H.  Shepherd  had  fourteen  votes  for  Coroner. 

Boracha  Dunn  had  thirteen  votes  for  Coroner. 

Bowling  Green  had  one  hundred  twenty-one  votes  for  Justice 
of  the  Peace. 

Robert  Conover  had  seventy-five  votes  for  Justice  Peace. 

Thomas  Wynne  had  one  hundred  and  two  votes  for  Justice 
Peace. 

Samuel  Combs  had  forty-three  votes  for  Justice  Peace. 

Hugh  Armstrong  had  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven  votes 
for  Constable. 

Jesse  Shirley  had  seventeen  votes  for  Constable. 

Bennett  Abell  had  Seventy-two  votes  for  Constable. 

Samuel  B.  Neely  had  thirty  seven  votes  for  constable. 

John  Duncan  had  fifty-three  votes  for  constable. 

Asa  Combs  had  thirty-eight  votes  for  Constable. 

A.  Lincoln  voted  for  John  Calhoun  for  Senator,  Voted  for 
Job  Fletcher  for  Senator.  Voted  for  Thomas  M.  Neale  for 
County  Surveyor. 

Voted  for  Edward  Mitchell  for  County  Recorder.  Voted  for 
William  Statts  County  Commissioner.  Voted  for  I.  Langston 
for  Coroner.  Voted  for  Bowling  Green  for  Justice  of  the 
Peace.  Voted  for  Robert  Conover  for  Justice  of  the  Peace. 
Voted  for  Hugh  Armstrong  for  Constable.  Voted  for  Asa 
Combs  for  Constable. 


490  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Precinct  in  the  County  of  Sangamon  State  of  Illinois.  At 
an  election  held  at  New  Salem  on  Monday  the  ist  day  of  August 
one  thousand  and  thirty  six,  the  following  named  persons  re- 
ceived the  number  of  votes  annexed  to  their  names  for  the  fol- 
lowing described  offices  viz. 

John  T.  Stuart  had  eighty-six  votes  for  representative  to 
Congress. 

William  L.  May  had  fifty-nine  votes  for  representative  to 
Congress. 

Job  Fletcher  had  seventy-three  votes  for  State  Senator. 

Moses  K.  Anderson  had  sixty-seven  votes  for  State  Senator. 

Ninian  W.  Edwards  had  eighty-four  votes  for  State  Represen- 
tative. 

Dan  Stove  had  eighty-one  votes  for  Representative. 

A.  Lincoln  had  one  hundred  and  seven'  votes  for  representa- 
tive. 

John  Dawson  had  eighty-two  votes  for  representative. 

William  F.  Elkin  had  eighty-four  votes  for  representative. 

R.  L.  Wilson  had  sixty-nine  votes  for  representative. 

Andrew  McCormick  had  sixty-seven  votes  for  representative. 

Aaron  Vandever  had  forty-seven  votes  for  representative. 

John  L.  Thompson  had  none. 

John  Clahoun  had  sixty-two  votes  for  representative. 

Jacob  M.   Early  had  fifty-nine  votes  for  representative. 

Michael  Mann  had  thirty-nine  votes  for  representative. 

Richard  Quinton  had  fifty-six  votes  for  representative. 

George  Power  had  fifty-four  votes  for  representative. 

Thomas  Wynne  had  seventy-one  votes  for  representative. 

Thomas  Young  had  three  votes  for  representative. 

James  Baker  had  none. 

William  G.  Cantrill  had  forty-four  votes  for  County  Com- 
missioner. 

William  Hickman  had  forty-five  votes  for  County  Commis- 
sioner. 

Christopher  B.  Stafford  had  sixty  votes  for  County  Commis- 
sioner. 

Thomas  J.  Nance  had  one  hundred  and  nine  votes  for  County 
Commissioner.  James  Pantier  had  sixty-two  votes  for  County 
Commissioner. 

Zach?riah  Peter  had  seventy-two  votes  for  County  Commis- 
sioner. 


APPENDIX 

John  Kelley  bad  two  votes  for  County  Commissioner. 

Garrett  Elkin  had  eighty  votes  for  Sheriff. 

Edmund  Taylor  had  sixty  votes  for  Sheriff. 

Jackson  Langston  had  forty  odd  votes  for  Coroner. 

S.  C.  Hampton  had  none,  for  Coroner. 

David  W.  Clark  had  thirty-five  votes  for  Coroner. 

Certified  by  us 

James  Black        1 

Jesse  Mallby       V      Judges  of  the  election 

Andrew  Beane    \ 

Attest.   Mentor  Graham 


491 


Clerks  of  the  election. 
Charles  J.  b.  Clarke 

I  certify  that  the  foregoing  Judges  and  Clerks  was  Duly 
Sworn  according  to  Law.     New  Salem  August  1,  1836. 

Bowling  Green  J.  P. 

In  this  election  of  August  1,  1836,  in  the  list  of  voters  I  do 
not  find  that  Abraham  Lincoln  voted.  There  is  a  name  thai: 
follows  that  of  Bowling  Greene,  which  looks  like  Abraham 
Seward,  and  I  have  endeavored  to  make  it  read  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, especially  as  I  find  no  Abraham  Seward  in  other  New 
Salem  elections,  but  it  does  not  look  like  the  name  Lincoln. 

At  an  election  held  at  the  house  of  Caleb  Carman  in  the  New 
Salem  Precinct  on  the  7th  day  of  November  A.  D.,  one  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  thirty-six  for  the  purpose  of  electing  electors 
to  vote  for  a  President  and  Vice  president  of  the  United  States 
of  America ;  the  following  named  persons  received  the  number 
of  votes  annexed  to  their  respective  names. 

J.  D.  Whiteside  had  for  elector  thirty-four  votes. 

Samuel  Leach  had  for  elector  thirty-four  votes. 

John   Pearson   had   for   elector  thirty-four  votes. 

John  Wyate  had  for  elector  thirty-four  votes. 

J.  Hackleton  had  for  elector  thirty-four  votes. 

Benjamin  Bond  had  for  elector  sixty-five  votes. 

J.  A.  Whiteside  had  for  elector  sixty-five  votes, 

Levan  Lane  had  for  elector  sixty-five  votes. 

A.  G.  Wight  had  for  elector  sixty-five  votes. 

John  Henry  had  for  elector  sixty-five  votes. 

18 


492  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Certified  to,  by  us. 

Jas  Black  \ 

Jas  Golds  by  I    Judges  of  the  above  election. 

Elijah  Houghton      \ 

Attest  ) 

Mentor  Graham         >-    Clerks  of  the  above  election. 

Thomas  I.  Nance     ) 

I  do  certify  that  the  above  Judges  and   Clerks  were  legally 
sworn  according  to  law  by  me. 

Bowling  Green 

November  7,  1836.  J.  P. 

Lincoln  voted  for  Benjamin  Bond,  J.   A.   Whiteside,   A.   G. 
Wight,  Levan  Lane,  John  Henry. 


IV.     LINCOLN   IN   THE   LEGISLATURE 

The  following  data,  from  the  Blue  Book  of  Illinois,  gives  the 
dates  on  which  the  General  Assembly  convened  and  adjourned 
during  Lincoln's  membership  in  that  body: 

8th  General  Assembly  1832-1834,  Convened  at  Vandalia,  De- 
cember 3,  1832.     Adjourned  March  2,  1833. 

9th  General  Assembly,  1834- 1836. 

First  session  convened  at  Vandalia  December  1,  1834;  ad- 
journed March  6,  1837.  Second  session  July  10,  1837;  ad- 
journed July  22,  1837. 

10th  General  Assembly,  1836- 1838. 

First  Session  convened  at  Vandalia  December  5,  1836;  ad- 
journed July  22,  1837. 

nth  General  Assembly,   1838- 1840. 

First  session  at  Vandalia,  December  3,  1838;  adjourned 
March  4,  1839.  Second  session  convened  at  Springfield,  De- 
cember 9,   1839;  Adjourned  February  3,   1840. 

1 2th  General  Assembly,  1840- 1842. 

First  session  convened  at  Springfield  November  23,  1840; 
Adjourned  December  5,  1840.  Second  session  December  7, 
1840;  Adjourned  March  1,  1841. 


APPENDIX  493 

v.     Lincoln's  attendance  in  1841 

The  following  is  compiled  for  me  by  Miss  Georgia  L.  Os- 
borne, Assistant  Librarian  of  the  Illinois  State  Historical  So- 
ciety, and  shows  the  attendance  of  Lincoln  at  the  session  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  Illinois  for  the  term  of  1840-41,  as  re- 
corded in  the  House  Journal,  from  "the  fatal  first  of  January" 
until  the  adjournment  of  the  session. 

Present  Jan.     1st,  1841 


2nd, 

Jan.  3rd,  was  bunday 

it 
ii 

a 
a 

5th, 
6th, 

a 

a 

(Tuesday) 

tt 
tt 

a 
a 

7th, 
8th, 

a 
a 

tt 
tt 

a 

a 

9th, 
nth, 

tt 
a 

Jan.  10th,  Sunday 

ii 
ii 
it 

a 
tt 
a 

12th, 
19th, 

2 1  St, 

a 
tt 
tt 

Jan.  17th,  Sunday 
(Present  in  the  morning) 

ii 

a 

22nd, 

it 

ii 
ii 
ii 

a 
a 
a 

23rd, 

25th, 
26th, 

a 
tt 
a 

Jan.  24th,  Sunday 

ii 
ii 

a 
a 

27th, 
28th, 

a 
a 

a 
a 
a 

a 
a 

Feb 

29th, 
30th, 

ISt, 

a 
a 
a 

Jan.  31st,  Sunday 

a 

a 

2nd, 

a 

a 
a 
a 
a 
a 

a 
a 
a 
a 
it 

3rd, 
4th, 

5*, 
6th, 
8th, 

a 
tt 
a 
a 
a 

Feb.  7th,  Sunday 

a 
a 

tt 

9th, 
10th, 

tt 
a 

a 

a 

nth, 

it 

ft 

a 

1 2th, 

a 

a 
a 

a 
a 

15th, 
13th, 

a 
a 

Feb.  14th,  Sunday 

494  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Present 

Feb 

1 6th, 

1841 

a 

tt 

17th, 

tt 

(( 

a 

1 8th, 

a 

a 

a 

19th, 

tt 

a 

a 

20th, 

a 

Feb.  2 1  st,  Sunday 

n 

a 

22nd, 

a 

a 

a 

23rd, 

a 

a 

tt 

24th, 

a 

a 

a 

25th, 

tt 

tt 

a 

26th, 

tt 

a 

a 

27th, 

tt 

Feb.  28th,  Sunday 

"     March 

1st, 

tt 

Adjournment 

VI.     THE  GRAVES  OF  ANN  RUTLEDGE 

The  following  letter  from  Honorable  Thomas  P.  Reep,  of 
Petersburg,  gives  the  facts  concerning  the  original  and  present 
graves  of  Ann  Rutledge : 

The  Concord  Cemetery  was  set  apart  by  one  of  the  Berrys, 
who  owned  the  land  at  the  time.  It  was  probably  opened  as  a 
grave-yard  about  1828-9,  and  was  the  community  burying 
ground  for  the  Sand  Ridge  settlement.  The  marker  bears  the 
date  1837,  but  the  cemetery  was  used  many  years  earlier;  Ann 
Rutledge  and  her  father  were  buried  there  in  1835.  The  marker 
of  David  Rutledge  bears  date  of  June  7,  1842. 

The  facts  concerning  the  removal  of  Ann's  body  are  rather 
sordid.  The  Oakland  Cemetery  at  Petersburg  was  established 
some  thirty-five  years  ago  with  Edward  Laning  as  President, 
and  my  cousin,  Samuel  Montgomery,  as  Secretary.  Montgomery 
was  a  local  undertaker.  He  conceived  the  idea  that  there  would 
be  some  advertising  value,  and  a  consequent  increase  in  the  sale 
of  lots,  in  the  removal  of  the  body  of  Ann  Rutledge  to  Oakland 
Cemetery,  and  mentioned  the  idea  to  Mr.  Laning,  who  approved. 
McGrady  Rutledge,  Ann's  cousin,  approved  the  plan,  and  con- 
sented on  behalf  of  the  Rutledge  family.  He  had  been  present 
at  Ann's  burial,  and  said  that  he  could  not  remember  on  which 
side  of  her  brother,  David,  Ann  was  buried,  but  she  was  buried 
on  one  side  and  a  child  on  the  other.  The  grave  of  David  Rut- 
ledge was  marked,  and  the  marker  is  still  there.  On  May  5, 
1890,  Samuel  Montgomery  and  McGrady  Rutledge  went  to  Con- 


APPENDIX  495 

cord  Cemetery,  accompanied  by  two  men  as  diggers.  The  graves 
on  each  side  of  that  of  David  Rutledge  were  opened,  and,  as 
McGrady  had  predicted,  the  bones  of  a  child  were  found  upon 
one  side  and  those  of  an  adult  on  the  other.  Those  of  the  grown 
person  were  removed  to  Oakland  Cemetery  at  Petersburg  as 
those  of  Ann  Rutledge.  Mr.  Montgomery  made  oath  to  these 
facts  in  1922 ;  I  prepared  the  affidavit,  and  it  is  among  the  files 
of  the  Lincoln  League  at  Petersburg,  and  also  on  record  in  the 
Recorder's  Office^  in  order  that  hereafter  there  may  be  no  dis- 
pute about  the  facts. 

VII.  SANGAMON,  AND  THE  JOURNAL 

The  Sangamon  Journal  was  published  weekly  from  November 
10,  183 1,  to  June  13,  1848.  It  appeared  first  as  a  daily  on  Mon- 
day, June  13,  1848,  and  has  since  been  issued  both  daily  and 
weekly,  under  the  various  titles  of  Sangamo  Journal,  Sangamon 
Journal,  and  Illinois  State  Journal.  The  title  of  Sangamon 
Journal  was  retained  from  the  beginning  till  January  12,  1832, 
when,  with  number  11,  it  was  changed  to  Sangamo  Journal.  This 
paper  supported  the  Whig  Party,  thus  favoring  a  national  bank, 
protective  tariff,  and  internal  improvements.  From  the  birth  of 
the  Republican  Party  the  Journal  supported  its  principles.  Pub- 
lished by  Simeon  and  Josiah  Francis,  1832-1835;  Simeon  Fran- 
cis, 1835-1838;  Simeon,  Allen  and  J.  Newton  Francis,  1838-1843; 
Simeon  and  Allen  Francis,  1843- 185 5;  W.  H.  Bailhache  and 
Edward  L.  Baker,  1855-1862.  On  September  23,  1847,  tne 
name  was  changed  to  Illinois  Journal,  and  on  August  13,  1855, 
was  changed  to  that  by  which  it  has  since  been  known,  namely: 
Illinois  State  Journal. 

The  name  Sangamon,  derived  from  the  Pottawatomie 
through  the  French,  was  pronounced  Sangamaw  in  early  days, 
and  in  conformity  with  this  pronunciation  was  often  spelled 
Sangamo.  It  is  now  uniformly  spelled  and  pronounced  Sangamon. 

Of  the  signification  of  the  name  Governor  Reynolds  says  : 

The  Indians,  long  before  a  white  man  saw  the  Sangamon 
Country,  were  appraised  of  its  fertility  and  rich  products.  In  the 


496  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Pottawatomie  language — "Sangamon"  means  the  country  where 
there  is  plenty  to  eat.  According  to  our  parlance,  it  would  be 
termed  the  land  of  milk  and  honey.* 

VIII.    THE  LINCOLN  CIRCUIT 

The  Eighth  Judicial  District  was  constituted  in  1847,  and  the 
courts  established  under  this  distribution  remained  unchanged  for 
more  than  a  decade.  The  counties  included  were  Sangamon, 
Tazewell,  Woodford,  Logan,  DeWitt,  Piatt,  Champaign,  Ver- 
milion, Edgar,  Shelby,  Moultrie,  Macon  and  Christian.  Menard, 
Mason  and  Livingston  were  in  the  Eighth  district  just  previous 
to  the  change  in  the  sitting  of  the  courts  in  1847. 

In  traveling  the  circuit  from  one  county-seat  to  another,  the 
road  crossed  Coles,  and  Lincoln  often  practised  there;  but  there 
is  no  record  that  Coles  was  ever  officially  a  part  of  the  circuit. 

During  all  the  years  after  Lincoln's  return  from  his  one 
term  in  Congress,  Judge  David  Davis  was  on  the  bench,  and 
Lincoln  accompanied  him  from  one  county-seat  to  another. 

Lincoln  was  the  only  one  of  the  lawyers  who  rode  the  entire 
circuit.  Of  his  associates  on  the  circuit  it  is  recorded  that  Logan 
rarely  left  Sangamon  County;  Stuart  went  only  into  Tazewell, 
Logan  and  McLean  Counties ;  the  Macon  County  lawyers  went 
into  Piatt  only;  Swett  and  Gridley  attended  McLean,  DeWitt, 
Champaign  and  Vermilion  Counties,  and  Moore  of  DeWitt,  and 
Lodge  of  Piatt,  limited  their  practise  to  their  own  counties  and 
McLean.  Joseph  Cunningham,  the  youngest  of  these  associates 
of  Lincoln  on  the  Circuit,  practised-  only  in  Champaign  and  Ver- 
milion Counties.  Oliver  P.  Davis,  Oscar  F.  Harmon  and  E.  S. 
Terry,  of  Danville,  with  the  Indiana  lawyers,  Dan  Mace  and  Jim 
Wilson  of  Lafayette,  Ned  Hannegan,  Dan  Voorhies  and  Joe 
Ristine  of  Covington,  made  the  court  at  Danville  of  great  interest. 

The  Lincoln  circuit  is  now  marked,  the  roads  being  desig- 
nated, and  the  county-seats  having  granite  markers  with  bronze 


*Reynolds\  My  Life  and  Times,  p.  237. 


APPENDIX 


497 


tablets  set  in,  bearing  a  head  of  Lincoln  in  bas-relief,  and  this 
inscription : 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

travelled  this  way  as  he 

Rode  the  Circuit 

of  the 

Old  Eighth  Judicial*  District 

1847  1859 

Erected  1921 


(Insignia  of  D.  A.  R.} 


(Monogram  of  L.  C.  M.  A.) 


IX.     THE   FIRST  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

It  is  well  known  that  Lincoln  and  Douglas  met  in  joint  de- 
bate at  Peoria,  in  October,  1854.  Their  plan  for  other  joint 
discussions,  and  the  truce  which  they  made,  have  been  the  occa- 
sion of  much  discussion;  and  I  have  never  felt  satisfied  with 
Herndon's  explanation,  (iii.  pp.  373,  374).  Several  times  Lin- 
coln engaged  in  important  joint  debates  with  other  political  op- 
ponents. One  such  incident  occurred  in  the  campaign  of  1840, 
where  Lincoln  met  on  the  same  platform  at  Albion,  Honorable 
Isaac  T.  Walker  (Journal  of  the  Illinois  Historical  Society  for 
January,  1917,  pp.  489-491).  A  similar  discussion  with  Hon- 
orable Anthony  Thornton,  at  Shelbyville,  June  15,  1856,  has  been 
made  the  subject  of  an  historical  painting  (Journal  of  the  Illinois 
State  Historical  Society  for  April,  1917,  pp.  97-100).  Doubt- 
less there  were  many  other  joint  debates  in  which  Lincoln 
participated,  most  of  which  have  left  no  permanent  record. 
There  is,  however,  a  contemporary  record  of  what  may  have 
been  the  first  public  debate  between  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.  It  is  preserved  in  the  Illinois  State  Regis- 
ter of  Saturday,  November  23,  1839,  and  it  is  notable  not  only 
as  the  first  joint  debate  between  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  nine  years 
preceding  their  epoch-making  contest,  but   for  the  criticism  it 


498  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

makes  upon  Lincoln's  mannerisms  as  they  appeared  to  an  un- 
friendly critic  at  that  stage  of  his  career,  and  also  because  this 
may  be  the  first  time  that  Springfield  heard  Stephen  A.  Douglas 
referred  to  as  "the  little  giant."  This  discussion  occupied  three 
evenings,  Tuesday,  Wednesday  and  Thursday,  October  19-21, 
1839.  The  report  in  the  Register  is  in  two  editorials  and  a  com- 
munication.   The  leading  editorial  follows : 

THE    CAMPAIGN 

The  Federal  Candidates  for  electors  of  President  and  Vice 
President  are  already  in  the  field.  Cyrus  Walker  Esq.,  one  of 
them,  addressed  the  citizens  of  this  place  in  the  Court  House,  on 
Tuesday  last.  He  was  replied  to  by  Stephen  A.  Douglas  Esq.,. 
and  it  was  the  general  opinion  of  all  present  that  Mr.  Douglas 
left  the  Federal  Candidate  for  elector  not  an  inch  of  ground  to 
stand  upon.  Mr.  Lincoln,  another  Federal  Candidate  for  elector, 
followed  in  the  evening. 

His  argument  was  truly  ingenious.  He  has  however,  a  sort 
of  assumed  clownishness  in  his  manner  which  does  not  become 
him,  and  which  does  not  truly  belong  to  him.  It  is  assumed — 
assumed  for  effect.  Mr.  Lincoln  will  sometimes  make  his 
language  correspond  with  this  clownish  manner,  and  he  can  thus 
frequently  raise  a  loud  laugh  among  his  Whig  hearers,  but  this 
entire  game  of  buffoonery  convinces  the  mind  of  no  man,  and  is 
utterly  lost  on  the  majority  of  his  audience. 

We  seriously  advise  Mr.  Lincoln  to  correct  this  clownish 
fault,  before  it  grows  upon  him. 

But  we  have  digressed.  The  main  object  of  calling  in  Mr. 
Lincoln,  was  to  raise  up  Mr.  Walker,  who  had  been  actually 
demolished  by  Mr.  Douglas  in  the  afternoon.  Lincoln  made  out 
to  get  Walker  rather  unsteadily  on  his  legs  again,  and  between 
two  Whig  Speakers  our  Democratic  "little  giant,"  as  Walker 
called  him,  had  a  rough  time  of  it.  Lincoln  misrepresented 
Douglas,  as  was  apparent  to  every  man  present. 

This  brought  a  warm  rejoinder  from  Mr.  Douglas.  Mr. 
Walker  then  rose,  complained  of  Mr.  D.  for  his  warmth,  and 
went  on  for  an  hour  starting  new  points.  Thus  a  concerted  plot 
of  "two  pluck  one,"  began  to  show  itself.  *  But  under  these  dis- 
advantages Mr.  Douglas  literally  swamped  his  adversaries.     His 


APPENDIX  499 

arguments  were  not  answered ;  while  his  opponents  were  driven 
from  every  ground  which  they  assumed. 

On  Wednesday  evening  Mr.  Douglas  took  the  floor,  before  a 
large  audience,  and  delivered  one  of  the  most  powerful  arguments 
against  an  United  States  Bank  that  we  ever  listened  to.  It  sunk 
deep  into  the  hearts  of  his  hearers.  There  was  a  profound  silence 
upon  his  conclusion,  and  a  settled  gloom  covered  the  counte- 
nances of  the  Whigs — .  They  saw  how  utterly  hopeless  must  be 
the  attempt  to  answer  him.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  however  again 
put  forward ;  but  he  commenced  with  embarrassment  and  con- 
tinued without  making  the  slightest  impression.  The  Mr.  Lim 
coin  of  Wednesday  night  was  not  the  Mr.  Lincoln  of  Tuesday. 
He  could  only  meet  the  arguments  of  Mr.  Douglas  by  relating 
stale  anecdotes  and  old  stories,  and  left  the  stump  literally 
whipped  off  of  it,  even  in  the  estimation  of  his  own  friends. 

On  Thursday  evening  Mr.  Wiley  and  Mr.  Baker  spoke.  We 
have  not  time  to  do  justice  to  the  remarks  of  the  former,  who 
in  a  modest  and  quiet  speech,  threw  more  light  on  the  subject  by 
the  facts  which  he  produced  than  any  speaker  who  preceded  him. 
He  enlightened  his  audience.  His  remarks  will  be  "bread  cast 
upon  the  waters,"  which  will  be  gathered  after  many  days. 

We  view  the  situation  of  Mr.  Walker,  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  their 
Federal  colleagues,  as  peculiarly  unfortunate. 

If  they  are  asked  who  they  intend  to  vote  for  (if  elected)  for 
President  they  cannot  answer.  If  they  are  asked  whether  they 
are  in  favor  of  Mr.  Clay's  project  of  a  U.  S.  Bank,  they  are 
dumb. 

When  they  are  called  upon  for  their  measure  for  collecting 
and  disbursing  the  public  money,  they  have  none  to  give.  In 
short,  they  have  no  measures,  no  principles,  to  advance.  The 
people  are  left  to  grope  in  the  dark,  amidst  the  phantoms  raised 
by  these  Federal  orators. 

Their  ground  is  opposition — opposition  to  the  Administra- 
tion ;  and  when  reminded  that  the  great  Bank,  under  whose  ban- 
ner they  have  been  fighting  for  eight  years,  is  broken  down,  and 
utterly  insolvent,  they  seek  to  disown  their  great  paper  cham- 
pion. 

Under  such  disadvantages,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  Mr.  Walk- 
er and  Mr.  Lincoln,  two  of  the  Federal  Candidates  for  electors, 
should  have  got  used  up  on  the  occasion  alluded  to.  The  men 
are  smart  enough,  but  the  cause  they  have  espoused  is  rotten  to 
the  core. 


500  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Again  Lincoln  and  Douglas  met  in  joint  discussion  at  the 
State  Fair  at  Springfield  in  October,  1854.  Douglas  spoke  on 
the  first  day  of  the  fair,  Tuesday,  October  third.  "I  will  men- 
tion," said  he  in  his  opening  remarks,  "that  it  is  understood  by 
some  gentlemen  that  Mr.  Lincoln  of  this  city  is  expected  to  an- 
swer me.  If  this  is  the  understanding,  I  wish  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
would  step  forward  and  let  us  arrange  some  plan  upon  which  to 
carry  out  this  discussion."  Lincoln  was  not  present  at  the  mo- 
ment in  Representatives'  Hall,  where  the  crowd  had  been  driven 
by  unfavorable  weather,  but  he  soon  appeared  and  heard  Doug- 
las in  the  main  part  of  his  address.  The  next  day  Lincoln  spoke 
in  the  same  place,  the  hall  being  packed  on  each  occasion.  Doug- 
las sat  directly  in  front  of  Lincoln,  and  said  at  the  beginning, 
"My  friend  Mr.  Lincoln  expressly  invited  me  to  stay  and  hear 
him  to-day,  as  he  heard  me  yesterday,  and  to  answer  and  defend 
myself  as  best  I  could.  I  thank  him  for  his  courteous  offer." 
Twelve  days  afterward,  on  October  sixteenth,  they  met  again  in 
joint  debate  in  Peoria,  where  Lincoln  made  one  of  his  most 
notable  addresses,  embodying,  as  Horace  White  believed,  the 
substance  of  what  two  years  later  he  delivered  in  Bloomington 
and  known  as  his  "lost  speech." 

X       THE  LINCOLN   AND  DOUGLAS  SPEAKING  DATES  IN    1 858 

Douglas  stated  that  in  the  one  hundred  days,  .exclusive  of  Sun- 
days, between  his  return  to  Illinois  and  the  November  election 
in  1858,  he  delivered  one  hundred  thirty  political  addresses.  Lin- 
coln began  later,  and  spoke  somewhat  less  frequently,  but  after 
he  got  well  into  the  campaign,  he  was  speaking  almost  every 
day.  Not  all  the  speeches  are  of  record.  While  the  method  of 
speaking  from  the  rear  platform  of  a  train  had  not  then  reached 
its  present  recognition,  both  candidates,  in  passing  through  cities 
not  on  their  official  list,  made  more  or  less  formal  addresses. 
The  Democratic  campaign  committee  kept  standing  at  the  head 
of  some  of  the  newspapers  of  that  political  faith,  notably  the 


APPENDIX 


50i 


Register  of  Springfield  and  the  Times  of  Chicago,  a  list  of 
Douglas's  advance  engagements,  keeping  the  list  revised  so  as  to 
give  notice  about  two  weeks  ahead.  The  Press  and  Tribune  of 
Chicago  and  the  Journal  of  Springfield  performed  a  like  service 
for  Lincoln.  From  those  newspapers  these  lists  of  dates  have 
been  compiled.  Where  blanks  occur,  the  speaker  was  usually 
making  a  rather  long  journey,  or  one  involving  inconvenient 
train  connections,  to  his  next  appointment,  and  sometimes  was 
speaking  while  on  the'  way. 

Thursday,  June  17,  1858.  Lincoln's  speech  at  the  Republican 
Convention  at  Springfield. 

Friday,  July  9.  Douglas's  speech  at  Tremont  House,  Chi- 
cago.    Lincoln  was  present. 

Saturday,  July  10.  Lincoln's  speech  at  same  place.  Douglas 
was  not  present. 

Friday,  July  16.  Douglas's  speech  at  Bloomington.  Lincoln 
was  present. 

Saturday,  July  17.  Douglas's  speech  at  Springfield  in  the 
afternoon;  Lincoln's  speech  at  Springfield  in  the  evening. 
Neither  of  the  candidates  was  present  when  the  other  spoke  at 
Springfield. 

Although  both  candidates  were  speaking  frequently,  the  for- 
mal announcements  of  Douglas  in  state-wide  publication  do  not 
begin  until  July  2J,  and  those  of  Lincoln  August  12.  For  con- 
venience in  tracing  their  routes,  the  two  series  of  dates  are  ar- 
ranged in  a  single  table,  giving  both  town  and  county,  and  day 
of  week  and  month.  It  will  be  noted  that  Lincoln  was  careful, 
wherever  possible,  to  follow  Douglas,  and  not  permit  Douglas  to 
follow  him. 

DOUGLAS  LINCOLN 

JULY 


Clinton,  Dewitt  Co. 
Monticello,  Piatt  Co. 


Tuesday,  2J 
Thursday,  29 


502  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

DOUGLAS  LINCOLN 

Saturday,  31 
Paris,  Edgar  Co. 

AUGUST 

Monday,  2 
Hillsboro,  Montgomery  Co. 

Wednesday,  4 
Greenville,  Bond  Co. 

Friday,  6 
Edwardsville,  Madison  Co. 

Saturday,  7 
Winchester,  Scott  Co. 


Monday,  9 

Tuesday,   10 
Wednesday,  II 

Thursday,   12 

Friday,  13 

Saturday,  14 

Monday,   16 

Tuesday,   17 
Wednesday,  18 


Beardstown,  Cass  Co. 


Havana,  Mason  Co. 


Pittsfield,  Pike  Co. 
Beardstown,  Cass  Co. 

Havana,  Mason  Co. 

Lewiston,  Fulton  Co. 

Peoria,  Peoria  Co. 

Thursday,  19 
Lacon,  Marshall  Co.  Peoria,  Peoria  Co. 

Friday,  20 

Saturday,  21 

First  Joint  Debate 

Ottawa,  La  Salle  Co.  Ottawa,  La  Salle  Co. 

Monday,  23 
Tuesday,  24 
Wednesday,  25 
Galena,  Jo  Daviess  Co.  Augusta,  Hancock  Co. 


APPENDIX 

503 

DOUGLAS 

LINCOLN 

Thursday,  26 

Friday,  2j 

Second  Joint  Debate 

Freeport, 

Junction, 

Stephenson  Co.                       Freeport, 
Saturday,  28 

Du  Page  Co. 

Monday,  30 

Stephenson 

Co. 

Joiiet,  Will  Co. 

Tuesday,  31 

Carlinville 

:,  Macoupin 

Co. 

SEPTEMBER 

Wednesday,  1 

Thursday,  2 

Pontiac,  Livingston  Co.  Clinton,  Dewitt  Co. 

Friday,  3 

Saturday,  4 

Lincoln,  Logan  Co.  Bloomington,  McLean  Co. 

Monday,  6 
Jacksonville,  Morgan  Co.  Monticello,  Piatt  Co. 

Tuesday,  7 

Mattoon,  Coles  Co. 
Wednesday,  8 
Carlinville,  Macoupin  Co.  Paris,  Edgar  Co. 

Thursday,  9 

Hillsboro,  Montgomery  Co. 
Friday,  10 
Belleville,  St.  Clair  Co. 

Saturday,  11 
Waterloo,  Monroe  Co.  Edwardsville,  Madison  Co. 

Monday,   13 
Chester,  Randolph  Co.  Greenville,  Bond  Co. 

Tuesday,   14 

Wednesday,  15 

Third  Joint  Debate 

Jonesboro,  Union  Co.  Jonesboro,  Union  Co. 

Thursday,  16 
Benton,  Franklin  Co. 


504  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

DOUGLAS  LINCOLN 

Friday,  17 
Saturday,   18 

Fourth  Joint  Debate 
Charleston,  Coles  Co.  Charleston,  Coles  Co. 

Monday,  20 

Sullivan,  Moultrie  Co. 
Tuesday,  21 
Danville,  Vermilion  Co. 

Wednesday,  22 

Danville,  Vermilion  Co. 
Thursday,  23 
Urbana,  Champaign  Co. 

Friday,  24 

Urbana,  Champaign  Co. 
Saturday,  25 
Kankakee,  Kankakee  Co. 

Monday,  27 

Jacksonville,  Morgan  Co. 
Tuesday,  28 
Hennepin,  Putnam  Co. 

Wednesday,  29 
Henry,  Marshall  Co.  Winchester,  Scott  Co. 

Thursday,  30 

Metamora,  Woodford  Co. 

OCTOBER 

Friday,  1 

Pittsfield,  Pike  Co. 
Saturday,  2 
Pekin,  Tazewell  Co. 

Monday,  4 
Oquawka,  Henderson  Co.  Metamora,  Woodford  Co. 

Tuesday,  5 
Monmouth,  Warren  Co.  Pekin,  Tazewell  Co. 

Wednesday,  6 

Thursday,  7 

Fifth  Joint  Debate 

Galesburg,  Knox  Co.  Galesburg,  Knox  Co. 


APPENDIX  505 

DOUGLAS  LINCOLN 

Friday,   8 

Saturday,  9 
Macomb,  McDonough  Co.  Oquawka,  Henderson  Co. 

Monday,    11 
Carthage,  Hancock  Co.  Monmouth,  Warren  Co. 

Tuesday,  12  ■ 

Wednesday,   13 

Sixth  Joint  Debate 

Ouincy,  Adams  Co.  Quincy,  Adams  Co. 

Thursday,   14 
Friday,   15 

Seventh  Joint  Debate 
Alton,  Madison  Co.  Alton,  Madison  Co. 

Saturday,   16 
Gillespie,  Macoupin  Co. 

Monday,  18 
Decatur,  Macon  Co.  Mt.  Sterling,  Brown  Co. 

Tuesday,   19 

Wednesday,  20 
Springfield,  Sangamon  Co.  Rushville,   Schuyler  Co. 

Thursday,  21 
Atlanta,  Logan  Co. 

Friday,  22 
Bloomington,  McLean  Co.  Carthage,  Hancock  Co. 

Saturday,  23 
Monday,  25 

Macomb,  McDonough  Co. 
Tuesday,  26 


Toulon,  Starke  Co. 


Geneseo,  Henry  Co. 


Wednesday,  27 
Thursday,  28 


Friday,  29 
Rock  Island,  Rock  Island  Co.  Petersburg,  Menard  Co. 

Saturday,  30 

Lincoln  delivered  at  Springfield  his  last  speech  of  the  cam- 
paign.    The  election  occurred  on  Tuesday,  November  2. 


506  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

XI.     THE  ARMSTRONG  MURDER  TRIAL  ALMANAC 

I  have  given  much  space  in  the  text  to  the  almanac  alleged 
to  have  been  used  in  the  Armstrong  murder  trial,  but  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  pamphlet  from  the  Chicago  Historical  Library 
seems  to  me  to  make  it  advisable  to  publish  the  notes  which  I 
made  concerning  it.  I  have  no  doubt  that  I  examined  it  more 
carefully  than  any  other  critic;  and  as,  unhappily,  the  almanac 
itself  is  not  and  may  not  hereafter  be  available  for  the  inspection 
of  others,  this  evidence  is  pertinent. 

The  almanac  is  one  published  by  the  American  Tract  Society, 
and  is  entitled, — 

Illustrated  Family  Christian  Almanac 
for  the  Year  of  Our  Lord 

By  David  Young, 
Hanover  Neck,  N.  J. 

Mr.  Gunther  procured  the  almanac  in  1893  fro™  a  lawyer  liv- 
ing in  Alton,  Illinois.  Three  letters  from  him  to  Mr.  Gunther 
accompany  the  pamphlet,  and  there  is  reference  to  an  affidavit 
by  John  Huston,  of  Beardstown,  alleged  to  have  been  deputy 
sheriff,  and  presumably  certifying  that  the  almanac  was,  as  he 
believed,  the  same  used  at  the  trial.  In  a  newspaper  clipping 
from  an  Alton  paper,  contemporary  with  the  sale,  and  based  on 
information  furnished  by  this  lawyer,  it  is  stated  that  he  origi- 
nally paid  five  dollars  for  it.  The  correspondence  shows  that  he 
sold  it  to  Gunther  for  fifty  dollars.  In  the  second  letter,  dated 
July  31,  1893,  this  lawyer  says, — 

The  almanac  I  have,  and  which  is  unquestionably  that  used 
by.  Mr.  Lincoln,  was  an  almanac  of  1854  with  date  changed  to 
'^y.  This  I  am  able  to  ascertain  only  by  a  brief  note  in  an  ob- 
scure place  and  seems  to  have  been  overlooked  at  the  time.  The 
almanac  was  prepared  in  the  hotel  of  E.  C.  Foster,  an  old  re- 


APPENDIX 


507 


spected  citizen  who  states  that  he  was  cognizant  of  the  work 
while  being  done  by  Mr.  L.  and  the  Dr.  (Moore,*  I  believe).  .  .  . 
There  is  not  a  shadow  of  a  doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  facts  are 
as  he  stated. 

The  letter  which  accompanied  the  book  and  completed  the  sale 
was  a  month  later,  August  30,  1893. 

The  author  of  the  above  letters  was  incorrect  as  to  the  year 
to  which  the  almanac  belonged.  The  obscure  note  in  which  he 
found  the  year  unchanged  was  this : 

Venus  will  be  a  morning  star  till  May  13;  then  an  evening 
star  until  Feb.  28,   1854. 

The  year  1853  was  understood  after  the  date  May  thirteenth. 
That  was  the  year  for  which  the  almanac  was  issued.  The 
back  cover  shows  the  church  festivals  for  the  year  1853,  and  is 
unaltered. 

The  front  cover  originally  bore  its  date  in  comparatively 
light  type,  wrought  into  the  scroll  work  of  the  cover-design.  It 
has  been  scratched  out  with  a  knife,  and  the  date  1857  printed  in 
bold  type.  On  the  title  page  the  character  3  is  changed  to  7  by 
scratching  and  writing  in  with  a  pen.  I  judge  that  the  top  bar 
of  the  7  is  the  original  top  of  the  3. 

Twelve  pages  have  the  date  at  their  top,  one  for  each  month. 
In  every  case  the  date  is  changed  with  type,  a  character  7  being 
used  after  a  knife  had  been  employed  in  scratching. 

The  man  who  did  this  work  was  so  desirous  of  doing  it  well 
that  he  overdid  it,  and  had  to  change  back  in  one  place  where  it 
said  that  "The  sixteenth  Presidential  term  of  four  years  began 
on  the  fourth  day  of  March  1853  and  will  expire  on  the  third 
of  March  1857."  These  figures  were  scratched,  but  changed 
back  to  allow  Millard  Fillmore  his  full  four  years. 

One  thing  is  certain,  this  work  was  not  done  hastily  in  the 
Beardstown  hotel  on  the   night  before  the  almanac  was  used. 


*The  name  of  the  physician  appears  to  have  been  Parker. 


5o8  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  reached  Beardstown  that  night.  If  the  work  was  done 
there  under  Lincoln's  direction  that  was  the  time  when  it  was 
done.  But  it  is  too  well  performed  to  have  been  done  in  that 
way.  Both  in  the  matching  of  the  type  and  in  the  work  done 
by  the  pen  there  is  evidence  of  more  skill  than  could  thus  have 
been  extemporized.     It  called  for  careful  work. 

And  yet  the  work  does  not  pass  anything  like  a  critical  exam- 
ination. Every  page  where  the  changes  have  been  made  shows 
when  held  to  the  light  that-  the  paper  has  been  scraped,  and  a 
very  little  scrutiny  reveals  the  substitution  of  the  7  for  the  erased 
figure.  It  is  hardly  conceivable  that  some  one  of  the  twelve 
jurors  would  not  have  detected  the  imposture,  and  quite  un- 
likely that  either  the  judge  or  the  prosecuting  attorney  would 
have  permitted  the  exhibit  to  have  gone  to  the  jury  with  a  fraud 
so  readily  discernible. 

Whoever  prepared  the  almanac  did  it  with  reference  to  this 
case.  Either  it  is  the  original  almanac,  or  some  one  who  knew 
of  the  case  and  of  the  rumor  that  Lincoln  played  a  trick  upon  the 
court  thought  of  it  as  an  interesting  experiment  and  undertook 
to  see  how  well  he  could  succeed  in  such  a  venture  as  Lincoln 
was  alleged  to  have  undertaken.  Did  Lincoln  do  it,  or  did 
some  clever  and  curious  journeyman  printer  undertake  to  see 
how  good  an  imitation  he  could  make  of  the  almanac  which 
Lincoln  was  alleged  to  have  used?  The  man  who  did  the  actual 
work  was  a  printer,  and  besides  that  was  clever  with  the  use  of 
the  knife  in  erasure  and  of  the  pen  in  the  drawing  of  figures 
for  which  he  had  no  font  of  type,  as  on  the  title  page  where 
he  needed  to  insert  one  part  of  one  figure. 

It  was  not  a  job  hastily  done  in  one  evening  by  the  light  of 
tallow  dips.  It  called  for  daylight  and  time  and  care.  It  was 
not  done  in  Beardstown  on  the  night  before  the  trial. 

But  among  the  difficulties  of  the  imposture  was  this,  that  by 
no  possibility  could  the  days  of  the  week  in  1853  be  made  to 
correspond  with  the  days  of  the  week  in  1857.  The  1853  al- 
manac thus  produced  showed  that  August  twenty-ninth  occurred 


APPENDIX 


509 


on  Monday.  Every  member  of  the  jury  knew  that  the  murder 
occurred  on  Saturday  night.  Would  any  lawyer  dare  to  proceed 
on  the  assumption  that  twelve  men  who  could  read  would  fail  to 
see  that  the  important  line  began  "29  Mo"  and  not  "29  Sa1'? 
\Yas  it  possible  that  the  prosecuting  attorney  would  not  have 
discovered  this  the  very  instant  he  looked  at  the  page? 

Everybody  knew  that  the  murder  occurred  on  the  last  Sat- 
urday night  before  the  close  of  the  camp-meeting.  That  fact 
had  come  out  strongly  not  only  in  the  Armstrong  trial  but  in 
the  earlier  trial  of  his  associate,  Norris.  To  find  on  the  closely 
printed  page  with  its  abbreviations  the  date  on  which  the  position 
of  the  moon  was  to  be  learned,  it  was  necessary  to  run  the  eye 
down  the  margin  to  find  in  adjacent  columns  "29  Sa."  It  was 
impossible  to  leap  over  the  "Sa"  from  the  "29"  to  the  position 
of  the  moon  and  not  notice  that  the  day  of  the  week  was  wrong. 
If  all  that  had  been  desired  had  been  to  make  an  1853  almanac 
look  like  one  of  1857,  the  figures  at  the  top  of  the  pages  would 
have  passed  a  superficial  examination.  But  for  the  purpose 
which  this  almanac  required  to  be  used,  it  was  necessary  that 
Saturday  should  fall  on  August  twenty-ninth,  and  that  combina- 
tion could  not  have  been  found  in  an  almanac  earlier  than  1857 
and  later  than  1846. 

A  local  account  preserved  in  an  undated  clipping  from  the  pe- 
riod of  the  Armstrong  interview  says, — 

Duff  Armstrong's  faith  in  the  genuineness  of  the  almanac  is 
not  generally  shared  by  the  Petersburg  people,  who  remember 
the  trial.  Uncle  Johnny  Potter,  who  was  an  intimate  friend  of 
the  Armstrongs,  laughed  and  shook  his  head  when  he  was  asked 
what  the  real  facts  were.  It  seems  that  after  the  trial  the  friends 
of  the  Armstrongs  talked  the  matter  over.  Some  of  them  re- 
membered as  positively  as  the  witnesses  had  done  that  there  was 
nearly  a  full  moon  on  the  night  Pres  Metzker  was  beaten  at 
the  camp-meeting.  They  insisted  on  their  recollections  in  spite 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  documentary  evidence.  There  was  an  over- 
hauling of  old  almanacs  in  various  households.  Sure  enough, 
they  showed  a  moon  nearly  in  mid-heavens  at  the  hour  of  the 


510  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

affray.  Then  there  was  inquiry  for  the  almanac  which  had  been 
presented  by  Mr.  Lincoln  in  court.  The  little  pamphlet  could 
not  be  found. 

The  present  almanac  is  alleged  to  have  been  preserved  by  Hon- 
orable J.  Henry  Shaw,  and  to  have  been  found  after  his  death 
by  John  Husted,  who  is  said  to  have  been  deputy  sheriff  at  the 
time  of  the  trial  and  to  have  gone  to  Virginia  after  Allen. 
Husted  appears  to  have  owned  the  almanac  in  1888  when  the 
Eggleston  story  appeared. 

Those  persons  who  believe  this  to  be  the  genuine  almanac  hold 
two  or  three  different  opinions.  One  is  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
himself  imposed  upon.  This  is  not  likely.  It  would  not  have 
been  easy  to  deceive  as  astute  a  man  as  Mr.  Lincoln  with  this 
almanac.  If  Mr.  Lincoln  used  this,  he  may  be  presumed  to  have 
prepared  it  or  at  least  to  have  accepted  it  with  full  knowledge  of 
the  use  to  which  it  was  adapted. 

When  Edward  Eggleston  published  his  The  Graysons,  popular 
interest  was  roused  in  the  Armstrong  trial.  The  Perrysburg  of 
his  story  is  supposed  to  be  Petersburg.  In  this  story  Lincoln  is 
represented  as  a  young  and  almost  unknown  man,  whereas  in 
1858  Lincoln  was  already  a  national  figure  and  was  aspiring  to 
be  president.  He  had  already  received  a  large  vote  for  the  vice- 
presidency  in  the  Convention  of  1856.  There  are  other  wide 
departures  from  historic  accuracy,  to  which  accuracy  the  story 
does  not  pretend. 

At  that  time  Duff  Armstrong  was  himself  living  and  he  was 
interviewed  by  J.  McCan  Davis,  and  the  interview  widely  pub- 
lished. Armstrong  was  at  this  time  a  member  of  the  Disciples 
Church  and  a  respected  man  in  the  community.  He  denied  that 
he  was  guilty,  and  declared  that  Metzker  attacked  him  without 
provocation  and  that  he  acted  only  in  self-defense.  As  to  the 
almanac,  Armstrong  said: 

It's  all  foolishness  to  talk  about  Lincoln  having  had  that 
almanac  fixed  up  for  the  trial.     He  didn't  do  anything  of  the 


APPENDIX  511 

kind.  I  recollect  that  after  he  had  been  asking  the  witnesses 
about  the  moonlight  he  suddenly  called  for  an  almanac.  There 
wasn't  any  in  the  court  room  of  the  year  he  wanted.  So  he  sent 
my  cousin  Jake  out  to  find  one.  Jake  went  out  and  after  a  while 
he  came  back  with  the  almanac.  Lincoln  turned  to  the  night  of 
the  fight  at  the  camp-meeting  and  it  showed  that  there  wasn't 
any  moon  at  all  that  night.  Then  he  showed  it  to  the  jury.  That 
was  all  there  was  to  the  almanac  story.  That  almanac  was  all 
right. 

All  members  of  the  Armstrong  family  who  have  been  inter- 
viewed appear  to  be  united  in  this  testimony.  Xone  of  them 
admit  that  the  almanac  was  other  than  a  genuine  almanac.  The 
people  of  Beardstown  confidently  point  out  the  drug-store,  still 
in  operation,  where  the  almanac  used  was  obtained. 

One  thing  grows  clear  as  tradition  is  explored,  and  that  is  that 
the  almanac  has  a  far  larger  place  in  the  story  than  it  had  in 
the  trial.  The  story  has  been  so  improved  as  to  make  it  seem 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  placed  his  sole  dependence  upon  this  exhibit. 
It  has  been  told  that  he  introduced  no  witnesses  for  the  defense : 
that  he  did  not  cross-examine  the  witnesses :  that  he  appeared  to 
be  neglecting  the  case  until  the  last  dramatic  moment  when  he 
produced  his  one  and  unanswerable  argument.  Lincoln  did  in- 
troduce witnesses,  chiefly  to  show  such  previous  good  character 
as  Duff  Armstrong  could  claim;  for  there  was  no  opportunity 
for  direct  evidence  against  that  of  the  state's  principal  witness, 
Allen.  He  did  all  that  was  ordinarily  done  in  such  a  case,  and 
appears  to  have  left  nothing  undone  that  a  lawyer  might  have 
been  expected  to  do  in  such  a  case.  Lincoln  was  at  this  time  a 
distinguished  lawyer,  and  his  presence  was  a  matter  of  some  note. 
Nevertheless,  this  was  only  a  case  of  local  interest,  and  his  accept- 
ance of  the  case  was  considered  chiefly  in  the  light  of  his  friend- 
ship for  the  family.  Not  that  Lincoln  had  outgrown  criminal 
practise.  Lawyers  in  Illinois  in  that  day  did  not  specialize.  They 
took  such  cases  as  came  to  them,  whether  civil  or  criminal. 

It  was  only  after  Lincoln  had  become  president  that  Beards- 
town  recalled  with  pride  Mr.  Lincoln's  relations  to  the  town  from 


512  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  day  when  one  of  its  citizens,  Denton  Offutt,  hired  him  and 
John  Hanks  and  John  D.  Johnston,  all  living  at  that  time  near 
Decatur,  to  build  a  flat-boat  and  go  with  it  to  New  Orleans,  till 
he  returned  in  1858  to  plead  for  the  life  of  the  son  of  Hannah 
Armstrong.  Six  visits,  all  told,  Lincoln  is  known  to  have  made 
to  Beardstown,  but  four  of  them  were  in  1831  and  1832.  He 
had  not  been  in  Beardstown,  so  far  as  is  known,  from  1832  till 
1858,  a  period  of  twenty-six  years.  He  returned  to  defend  Duff 
Armstrong,  May  7,  1858,  and  in  the  same  summer,  August  12, 
1858,  when  he  followed  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  had  spoken 
in  the  same  place  on  the  preceding  day. 

There  were  Democrats  enough  in  Beardstown  who  would 
have  reminded  him  of  the  fraud,  if  it  had  occurred,  and  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  could  not  have  failed  to  learn  of  it,  or  to  refer  to  it 
to  the  discrediting  of  Lincoln  who  was  to  speak  in  Beardstown 
on  the  following  day. 

For  many  years  no  one  was  able  to  get  a  statement  from  Duff 
Armstrong  for  publication.  J.  McCan  Davis,  of  Springfield,  Illi- 
nois, at  length  persuaded  Armstrong  to  tell  what  he  remem- 
bered of  the  broil  in  which  he  was  supposed  to  have  murdered 
a  companion,  and  also  of  the  trial  in  which  Lincoln  secured  his 
release.  Armstrong  was  in  his  sixty-third  year  when  he  gave  this 
interview  and  had  long  been  a  respected  citizen  of  the  little  vil- 
lage of  Ashland.  He  had  been  for  several  years  a  member  of  the 
Christian  or  "Disciples"  Church.  His  trial  for  the  murder  of 
"Pres"  Metzker  was  a  subject  he  seldom  talked  about;  he  would 
fain  forget  it,  and  those  about  him  have  not  often  been  inquisi- 
tive. 

The  accounts  hitherto  printed  he  pronounces  glaringly  inac- 
curate. This  is  his  own  story  of  the  alleged  murder  and  of  the 
trial : 

duff  Armstrong's  own  story 

"It  was  on  a  Saturday  night,  and  camp-meeting  was  over  for 
the  day.     In  the  edge  of  the  grove  were  three  bars  where  liquor 


APPENDIX  513 

was  sold.  Here  gathered  all  the  men  and  boys  who  went  to 
camp-meeting  to  drink  whisky  and  have  a  good  time — and  a 
great  many  went  for  no  other  purpose.  I  had  been  at  the  meet- 
ing two  or  three  clays,  and  had  been  drinking  much,  but  I  was 
then  becoming  sober.  Up  to  this  time  Tres'  Metzker  and  I  had 
been  good  friends;  but  Tres'  had  been  drinking  and  was  in  an 
ugly  mood.  He  had  a  loaded  whip  in  his  hand  and  was  deter- 
mined to  have  a  fight  with  me.  I  hit  him  a  terrible  blow,  knock- 
ing the  skin  from  one  of  my  knuckles.  We  clinched,  and  Tres' 
rather  got  the  best  of  me.  I  was  strong  for  one  of  my  size,  and 
was  able  to  catch  him  and  throw  him  back  over  me.  He  got  up 
first  and  came  at  me  again.  Then  we  fought  like  tigers.  At 
last  he  got  me  under  him.  More  than  a  hundred  people  stood 
by  watching  the  fight,  and  when  the  boys  saw  Tres'  was  getting 
the  best  of  me  they  pulled  him  off.  We  walked  up  to  the  bar, 
and,  each  taking  a  drink  of  whisky,  we  bumped  glasses  and  were 
friends  again.  I  saw  nothing  more  of  him  until  the  next  morn- 
ing, when  he  walked  to  the  bar  with  a  stolen  quilt  around  him. 
His  right  eye  was  swollen  shut.  He  bathed  it  with  a  glass  of 
whisky,  drank  another  glass,  and  then  mounted  his  horse  and 
rode  away.  Several  days  after  that  he  died.  Then  the  officers 
came  and  arrested  me  and  put  me  in  jail. 

"I  had  a  preliminary  trial  at  Havana  and  was  held  without 
bail.  All  the  bad  luck  in  the  world  seemed  to  come  to  me  now. 
On  this  very  day  my  father,  'Jack'  Armstrong,  died.  On  his 
deathbed  he  said  to  my  mother :  'Hannah,  sell  everything  to  clear 
"Duff."  '     These  were  almost  his  last  words. 

"After  the  change  of  venue  to  Beardstown  Lincoln  told  my 
mother  he  would  defend  me.  At  the  trial  I  had  about  twenty- 
five  witnesses.  The  strongest  witness  against  me  was  Charles 
Allen.  He  was  the  witness  that  swore  about  the  moon ;  he  swore 
it  was  a  full  moon  and  almost  overhead.  'Uncle  Abe'  asked  him 
over  and  over  about  it,  but  he  stuck  to  it.  Then  he  said  he  saw  me 
strike  Metzker  with  a  slung-shot.  'Uncle  Abe'  asked  him  to  tell 
how  it  was  done.     He  got  up  and  went  through  the  motion, 


514  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

struck  an  overhand  blow,  just  as  he  declared  he  saw  me  do  by 
the  light  of  the  full  moon.  'Uncle  Abe'  had  him  do  it  over  again. 
After  Allen's  testimony  everybody  thought  I  would  be  convicted. 
After  'Uncle  Abe'  had  talked  to  the  jury  a  little  while,  he  said : 
'Now,  I  will  show  you  that  this  man  Allen's  testimony  is  a  pack 
of  lies;  that  he  never  saw  Armstrong  strike  Metzker  with  a 
slung-shot ;  that  he  did  not  witness  this  fight  by  the  light  of  the 
full  moon,  for  the  moon  was  not  in  the  heavens  that  night.' 
And  then  'Uncle  Abe'  pulled  out  the  almanac  and  showed  the 
jury  the  truth  about  the  moon.  I  do  not  remember  exactly  what 
it  was — whether  the  moon  had  not  risen,  or  whether  it  had  set ; 
but  whatever  it  was  it  upset  Allen's  story  completely.  He  passed 
the  almanac  to  the  jurors  and  they  all  inspected  it.  Then  'Uncle 
Abe'  talked  about  the  fight,  and  showed  that  I  had  acted  in  self- 
defense  and  had  used  no  weapon  of  any  kind.  But  it  seemed  to 
me  'Uncle  Abe'  did  his  best  talking  when  he  told  the  jury  what 
true  friends  my  father  and  mother  had  been  to  him  in  the  early 
days,  when  he  was  a  poor  young  man  at  New  Salem.  He  told 
how  he  used  to  go  out  to  Jack  Armstrong's  and  stay  for  days; 
how  kind  mother  was  to  him,  and  how,  many  a  time,  he  had 
rocked  me  to  sleep  in  the  old  cradle.  He  said  he  was  not  there 
pleading  for  me  because  he  was  paid  for  it ;  but  he  was  there  to 
help  a  good  woman  who  had  helped  him  when  he  needed  help. 
Lawyer  Walker  made  a  good  speech  for  me,  too,  but  'Uncle 
Abe's'  beat  anything  I  ever  heard. 

"As  'Uncle  Abe'  finished  his  speech,  he  said :  T  hope  this  man 
will  be  a  free  man  before  sundown.'  The  jury  retired  and  nearly 
everybody  went  to  supper.  As  soon  as  the  judge  and  the  law- 
yers got  back  from  supper  the  jury  was  brought  in.  They  had 
to  pass  me,  and  I  eyed  them  closely  for  some  hopeful  sign.  One 
of  them  looked  at  me  and  winked.  Then  I  knew  it  was  all  right ; 
when  the  foreman  handed  up  the  verdict  of  'not  guilty'  I  was  the 
happiest  man  in  the  world,  I  reckon.  'Uncle  Abe'  would  not 
charge  my  mother  a  cent ;  he  said  her  happiness  over  my  freedom 
was  his  sufficient  reward. 


APPENDIX  515 

"When  the  war  broke  out  the  four  brothers  of  us  enlisted  in 
the  army.  Jim  was  wounded  at  Belmont;  Pleasant  died.  I 
served  on  until  the  end  of  the  war,  when  mother  took  a  notion 
she  wanted  me.  People  laughed  at  her  when  she  said  she  would 
write  to  the  President,  but  she  said,  'Please  goodness,  I  am 
a-going  to  try  it.'  She  got  'Squire  Garber  of  Petersburg  to  write 
to  'Uncle  Abe,'  and  in  a  few  days  mother  got  a  telegram  signed 
'A.  Lincoln,'  telling  her  I  had  been  honorably  discharged.  At 
that  time  I  was  at  Elmira,  N.  Y.,  helping  pick  up  deserters,  and 
a  discharge  was  the  last  thing  I  was  dreaming  of." 

xii.     Lincoln's  beard 

Delphos,  Kansas. 
Mar.   1,   1923. 
Rev.  Wm.  E.  Barton, 

Oak  Park,  111. 
Dear  Sir : 

Yours  of  recent  date  at  hand  and  I  take  pleasure  in  complying 
with  your  request,  and  will  repeat  the  story  of  the  correspond- 
ence and  subsequent  meeting  with  Mr.  Lincoln. 

I  have  a  very  vivid  remembrance  of  those  weeks  preceding  Mr. 
Lincoln's  election,  filled  with  excitement  and  the  turbulent  years 
which  followed.  My  father  was  an  ardent  admirer  of  the  great 
man  and  the  principles  for  which  he  stood  and,  childlike,  I  fol- 
lowed in  his  footsteps.  I  recall  my  indignation  at  the  unkind 
comments  of  my  school-mates  whose  friends  were  supporting 
the  opposition,  and  you  may  be  sure  that  I  resented  them.  I  think 
I  did  not  see  his  picture  until  later  when  my  father  brot  home 
a  poster  to  us  children;  it  was  crude  and  coarse — Mr.  Lincoln 
and  Hamlin  occupied  the  center  and  their  faces  were  surrounded 
by  a  rail  fence,  by  way  of  frame;  the  outer  edge  of  the  picture 
was  finished  with  portraits  of  former  presidents.  Possibly  I 
was  a  trifle  disappointed  with  his  appearance  for  I  thot  to 
myself  that  he  would  look  better  if  he  had  whiskers  and  I  posted 
a  letter  with  that  advice  that  very  afternoon  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  I 
told  him  that  I  had  seen  his  picture  and  thot  that  he  would 
be  better  looking  if  he  wore  a  beard  and  told  him  that  if  he 
would,  I  would  try  to  coax  my  two  brothers,  who  were  Demo- 


516  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

crats,  to  vote  for  him  and,  if  he  had  not  time  to  reply,  would  he 
have  his  little  girl  answer  my  letter.  I  must  have  been  fearful 
that  his  feelings  would  be  hurt  for  I  told  him  that  I  thot  the 
rail  fence  around  his  picture  looked  real  pretty.  I  do  not  re- 
member anything  more  that  I  wrote  him. 

In  a  few  days  came  a  letter  in  reply  which  follows:     (I  still 
have  this  in  my  possession). 
Private 

Springfield,  111., 
Oct.  19,  i860. 
Miss  Grace  Bedell 

My  Dear  Little  Miss. 

Your  very  agreeable  letter  of  the  15th  is  received — 

I  regret  the  necessity  of  saying  I  have  no  daughter — I  have 
three  sons — one  seventeen,  one  nine  and  one  seven,  years  of  age. 
They,  with  their  mother  constitute  my  whole  family — 

As  to  the  whiskers,  having  never  worn  any,  do  you  not  think 
people  would  call  it  a  piece  of  silly  affection  if  I  were  to  begin 
it  now  ? 

Your  very  sincere  well  wisher, 

A.  Lincoln. 

It  seems  to  me  that  his  letter  shows  the  kindly  humorous  side 
of  his  nature  and  also  the  public  interest  shown  through  these 
passing  years. 

In  February,  1861,  while  on  his  way  to  Washington  to  be  in- 
augurated he  was  accompanied  by  ex-Governor  Patterson  and 
others  on  that  memorable  trip.  President  Lincoln  asked  ex- 
Governor  Patterson,  who  was  a  former  resident  of  our  town,  if 
he  knew  of  a  family  by  the  name  of  Bedell  living  there  and  're- 
ceived an  affirmative  reply.  After  a  short  speech  delivered  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  from  the  platform  at  the  rear  end  of  the  car  he  said 
'T  have  a  correspondent  in  this  place  and,  if  she  is  present,  I 
would  like  to  see  her."  I  was  with  friends  in  the  crowd  but  I 
had  neither  heard  nor  seen  the  great  man.  The  people  began  to 
shout,  "Who  is  it? — Give  us  her  name."  He  said,  "Her  name 
was  Grace  Bedell  and  she  wrote  me  that  she  thought  I  would  be 
better  looking  if  I  wore  whiskers." 

I  was  half  led,  half  carried  to  the  platform,  running  by  the 
track  on  which  Mr.  Lincoln's  train  stood.  He  stepped  down, 
took  my  hand  as  he  said,  "You  see,  I  let  those  whiskers  grow 


APPENDIX  517 

for  you,  Grace."  He  stooped  and  kissed  me  and  then  resumed 
his  journey,  leaving  a  much-confused  child  who  had  but  one 
thought ;  to  get  home  to  her  mother.  When  I  reached  home  and 
told  my  story,  I  found  a  little  bunch  of  stems  which  was  all  that 
was  left  of  a  bouquet  of  winter-roses,  which  I  had  hoped  to  give 
the  President  with  some  others  which  were  to  be  presented. 

Perhaps  I  might  add  one  thing  which  has  always  lived  in  my 
memory.  The  humiliation  which  was  mine  when  I  was  asked 
how  I  happened  to  write  to  him  and  how  I  had  addressed  my 
letter.  I  said,  "I  addressed  it  'Hon.  Abraham  Lincoln,  Esq.' 
I  knew  it  was  right."  My  mother  turned  her  face  aside  and 
smiled  and  said,  "Well,  I  think  the  postman  had  no  trouble  in 
delivering  to  that  address." 

Very  sincerely, 

Grace  Bedell  Billings. 


BOOK  II 


Copyright,  1894,  by  H.  W.  Fay  and  used  by  his  courtesy. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  IN  1861 
Photograph  by  C.   S.   Germon 


THE  LIFE  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


CHAPTER  I 


THE   FIRST   INAUGURAL 


In  the  first  weeks  following  his  election,  Lincoln  lived  much 
as  he  had  lived  in  the  interval  between  his  nomination  and  elec- 
tion. He  had  already  deserted  the  office  and  left  his  law  prac- 
tise to  Herndon,  practically  from  the  time  of  his  nomination, 
and  occupied  an  office  temporarily  assigned  him  in  the  state 
capitol  building,  which,  it  must  be  remembered,  stood  in  the 
center  of  the  town,  and  not  as  now  at  one  side.  About  a  month 
after  his  election,  it  had  become  apparent  that  he  must  adopt 
some  schedule,  or  at  least  an  approach  to  one.  The  Journal  each 
day  announced  his  program  for  the  day  following,  and  the  hours 
at  which  he  would  receive  callers.  That  he  did  not  adhere  to 
this  plan  very  rigidly  is  certainly  true ;  but  in  the  last  two 
months  he  was  compelled  to  reserve  for  himself  some  time  to 
devote  to  preparation  for  his  impending  responsibilities.  Every 
day  these  grew  more  serious. 

Late  in  January  he  began  his  work  on  his  inaugural  ad- 
dress. Across  the  street  from  the  state-house,  in  an  upper  room, 
dingy,  dusty  and  at  the  back  of  the  building  on  whose  ground 
floor  was  a  store,  Lincoln  hid  himself  away  from  intruders  and 
began  serious  work  upon  this  paper  whose  content  might  wreck 
or  reunite  the  L  nion. 

Lincoln  owned  very  few  books.     He  had  a  modest  law-library, 

I 


2  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  there  were  a  few  gilded  volumes  on  the  center-table  in  his 
parlor;  but  a  library  he  can  not  be  said  to  have  had.  Herndon, 
on  the  contrary,  was  a  buyer  of  books  and  a  great  reader. 
When  Lincoln  was  ready  to  prepare  his  address,  he  gave  to 
Herndon  a  list  of  the  books  he  wanted  to  use.  Herndon  pro- 
cured them  for  him.  He  asked  for  a  copy  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  and  copies  of  Clay's  speech  on  the  Com- 
promise of  1850,  and  Jackson's  proclamation  against  Nullifica- 
tion. Later  he  asked  for  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne.  These, 
according  to  Herndon,  were  the  only  books  which  he  had  with 
him  in  the  dingy  back  room  where,  locked  away  from  the  visi- 
tors then  thronging  Springfield,  he  prepared  his  address.  We 
know  how  he  wrote,  pronouncing  each  word  as  he  wrote  it 
down,  and  we  can  imagine  with  what  painstaking  care  he  did 
his  work.  When  the  address  was  finished,  and  just  before  he 
left  for  Washington,  he  took  the  manuscript  to  the  office  of  the 
Journal,  had  it  set  in  pica  type,  and  a  very  few  copies  struck  off 
for  his  own  use.  We  have  already  reminded  ourselves  how 
nearly  he  lost  his  copy  at  Harrisburg,  and  it  would  appear  from 
this  fact  that  his  duplicates,  if  he  had  any  with  him,  were  in  the 
same  carpet-bag  with  the  original,  on  which  he  had  been  mak- 
ing, and  was  still  to  make,  corrections  and  changes. 

Lincoln  carefully  guarded  the  text  of  his  inaugural  address 
from  any  premature  publication.  At  one  time  he  appears  to  have 
believed  that  that  message  could  be  made  at  once  so  firm  and  so 
conciliatory  that  it  would  be  received  alike  by  North  and  South, 
as  speaking  the  final  and  unifying  word.  He  was  not,  however, 
quite  as  silent  as  is  commonly  supposed.  There  is  good  reason 
to  believe  that  some  addresses  in  Congress  delivered  by  Illinois 
members  incorporated  ideas  of  the  president-elect.  It  is  practi- 
cally certain  that  the  Illinois  State  Journal  gave  forth  editorial 
utterances  which  had  Lincoln's  approval,  and  some  of  them 
may  have  come  from  his  own  pen.  How  firm  Lincoln  deemed  it 
wise  to  be  is  shown  in  an  editorial  which  appeared  in  that  paper 
on  January  22,  1861,  entitled  The  Right  of  Coercion  and  Mak- 


THE  FIRST  INAUGURAL  3 

ing  War  on  the  States.     This  contained  four  definite  proposi- 
tions: 

1.  No  state  has  a  right  to  secede. 

2.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  president  to  enforce  the  laws. 

3.  The  first  Republican  president  will  discharge  that  duty 
fearlessly  and  faithfully. 

4.  He  will  confine  himself  to  the  enforcement  of  those  laws 
which  affect  the  interests  of  the  country  at  large — the  collection 
of  revenue  and  protection  of  national  property — but  will  not  in- 
vade a  state  to  secure  a  repeal  of  unconstitutional  acts  of  its 
Legislature ;  he  will  merely  resist  encroachments  upon  federal 
authority. 

This  appeared  to  some  of  Lincoln's  friends  as  definite  and  as 
kindly  a  statement  as  could  have  been  formulated,  but  it  did  not 
meet  with  universal  approval.  James  Gordon  Bennett  com- 
mented upon  this  utterance  in  a  leading  editorial  in  the  New 
York  Herald  of  Monday,  January  twenty-eighth: 

The  great  difficulty  to  any  proposition  of  compromise  from 
the  Republican  party  is  not  located  at  Washington,  but  at  the 
little  village  of  Springfield,  Illinois.  The  President-elect  is  this 
difficulty.  The  magnates,  the  managers  and  the  Wide-Awakes 
of  the  Republican  camp  look  upon  Air.  Lincoln  now  as  their 
fountain  of  authority,  power  and  spoils.  .  .  .  The  Union  is 
dissolved.  Within  a  month  there  will  be  an  organized  Southern 
Confederacy;  and  then,  as  the  attempt  to  enforce  the  Federal 
laws  within  its  boundary  will  be  the  inauguration  of  a  general 
war,  the  question  recurs,  not  how  to  save  the  Union — for  the 
Union  is  gone — but  how  can  we  preserve  the  relations  of  peace? 
We  answer,  in  the  recognition  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  for 
the  sake  of  peace. 

Just  before  he  left  Springfield,  Lincoln  authorized  another  ut- 
terance in  the  columns  of  the  State  Journal.  The  phraseology  is 
more  rhetorical  than  Lincoln  at  this  time  was  accustomed  to 
employ,  and  we  can  hardly  assume  that  it  is  wholly  the  product 
of  his  pen ;  still  less  can  we  believe  that  it  was  published  with- 
out his  full  knowledge  and  approval : 


4  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  seceding  states  are  in  rebellion  against  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  government  to  put  down  the 
rebellion.  Away  with  compromises.  We  should  not  talk  of 
compromise  while  the  flag  of  the  traitors  floats  over  an  Ameri- 
can fort  and  the  flag  of  our  country  trails  in  the  dust.  Let  us 
never  talk  about  compromise.  Let  the  stolen  forts,  arsenals  and 
navy  yards  be  restored  to  their  rightful  owners — tear  down  your 
rattlesnake  and  pelican  flag  and  run  up  the  ever  glorious  Stars 
and  Stripes,  disperse  your  traitorous  mobs  and  let  every  man 
return  to  his  duty.* 

Except  for  the  heated  rhetoric,  Lincoln  was  in  this  frame  of 
mind  when  he  prepared  his  inaugural  address. 

Lincoln  had  the  benefit  of  much  advice  from  the  press  of  the 
country  while  this  speech  was  in  preparation.  On  the  Saturday 
night  before  the  Monday  morning  of  Lincoln's  leaving  Spring- 
field, Honorable  O.  H.  Browning  spent  an  hour  with  him,  their 
first  long  interview  since  the  election.  Lincoln  two  days  previously 
had  invited  Browning  to  accompany  him  to  Washington.  Brown- 
ing had  declined  on  account  of  certain  business  which  he  could 
not  well  neglect,  but  did  accompany  Lincoln  as  far  as  Indian- 
apolis, and  was,  perhaps,  the  very  first  man  to  whom  Lincoln 
submitted  his  manuscript  for  criticism.  Browning  recorded  in 
his  diary  on  that  Saturday  night  that  he  found  Lincoln  firmer 
than  he  expected,  wholly  opposed  to  the  Crittenden  Compro- 
mise, and  determined  to  preserve  the  Union  from  disruption. 
He  and  Browning  were  in  entire  agreement  in  these  matters.  It 
is  worth  while  to  remember  this,  because  Lincoln  was  compelled 
to  change  his  attitude  toward  some  questions  before  he  delivered 
the  address. 

William  the  Conqueror  stumbled  and  fell  as  he  stepped  out 
of  the  boat  that  had  conveyed  him  across  the  English  Channel. 
His    superstitious    followers    looked    on    aghast ;    the    accident 

*My  own  conjecture  is  that  Herndon  wrote  this  editorial.  The  style  cer- 
tainly is  not  that  of  Lincoln,  but  Lincoln  surely  knew  of  it  and  approved  its 
sentiments. 


THE  FIRST  INAUGURAL  5 

seemed  to  them  a  portent  of  disaster.  But  William  rose  with  a 
handful  of  earth  in  each  hand :  "Thus  do  I  grasp  England,"  he 
shouted.  His  followers  were  happy;  he  had  changed  the  omen 
of  defeat  to  one  of  victory.  No  such  good  fortune  came  to 
Abraham  Lincoln  to  retrieve  the  unhappy  impression  made  by 
his  secret  arrival  in  the  city  of  Washington.  His  friends  re- 
gretted what  appeared  to  have  been  the  necessity  for  it,  and 
his  critics  made  merry  over  his  care  to  protect  himself  from 
danger  while  leaving  his  family  on  the  imperiled  train.  No  one 
could  pretend  that  he  had  entered  the  capital  with  his  best  foot 
foremost. 

Sunday  morning,  February  24,  1861,  the  reunited  Lincoln 
family  sat  down  to  breakfast  together  in  the  Willard  Hotel.  It 
was  interesting  to  look  out  of  the  windows  of  the  extemporized 
presidential  suite  at  Willard's,  a  suite  located  on  the  second 
floor,  on  the  Pennsylvania  Avenue  side,  immediately  above  the 
main  entrance,  and  see  the  throng  that  passed  and  repassed  along 
the  main  artery  of  the  nation's  capital.  But  Mrs.  Lincoln  was 
more  than  ready  to  get  to  housekeeping  again,  and  the  whole 
family  felt  dislocated  and  in  lack  of  a  habitation. 

On  Sunday  morning,  February  twenty-fourth,  Lincoln  walked 
with  Seward  to  the  latter's  customary  place  of  worship,  Doctor 
Pyne's  Episcopal  Church.  Doctor  Pyne  read  the  usual  prayers 
for  the  president  of  the  United  States,  and  interpolated  a  brief 
but  earnest  petition  for  the  incoming  administration.  After  the 
service,  Seward  introduced  Lincoln  to  a  number  of  persons 
present  at  the  service,  and  to  others  whom  he  met  on  the  way 
back  to  the  Willard.  Mrs.  Lincoln  remained  in  the  hotel.  Sew- 
ard spent  the  rest  of  the  day  in  a  careful  reading  of  Lincoln's 
proposed  inaugural,  and  that  evening  he  returned  the  manu- 
script to  Lincoln  with  a  number  of  suggestions,  several  of 
which  Lincoln  adopted. 

On  that  afternoon  Lincoln  had  some  opportunity  to  look  over 
the  newspapers,  to  consider  their  comment  on  the  speeches  he 
had  made  on  his  way  to  the  inaugural,  and  in  general  to  review 


6  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  situation  in  the  light  of  his  increasing  experience.  He  had 
started  out  by  affirming  that  as  yet  "nobody  was  hurt,"  and 
that  "the  crisis  was  artificial."  It  had  become  apparent  that 
somebody  was  likely  to  be  hurt  before  long,  and  the  manner  of 
his  entry  into  Washington  had  given  evidence  that  he  himself 
might  possibly  be  among  those  who  were  injured.  It  was  no 
longer  possible  to  treat  the  crisis  as  artificial;  it  was  real  and 
imminent.  In  conversation  with  prominent  men  in  Washing- 
ton, Lincoln  admitted  that  he  was  more  troubled  about  the  out- 
look than  he  thought  it  was  discreet  to  show. 

Lincoln  received  several  calls  on  Sunday  afternoon,  but  he  had 
time  to  realize  how  much  his  journey  had  wearied  him,  and  to 
feel  the  chagrin  of  public  comment  on  his  manners  and  his  ut- 
terances. He  was  caricatured  as  a  buffoon ;  he  was  referred  to 
as  the  "Illinois  ape."  The  fact  that  he  wore  black  gloves  to  the 
opera  in  the  evening  of  his  sojourn  in  New  York,  and  hung  the 
enormous  pair  of  kid  covertures  over  the  red  velvet  box  front, 
had  not  escaped  attention. 

Even  that  Sabbath  day  was  not  free  from  the  intrusion  of 
office  seekers.  They  had  greatly  annoyed  Lincoln  before  he 
left  Springfield.  Lincoln  himself  was  no  stranger  to  the  busi- 
ness of  office  seeking,  and  he  knew,  or  thought  he  knew,  some- 
thing of  what  was  before  him  when  he  became  president.  But 
the  pressure  and  persistence  of  those  who  desired  office  went 
beyond  all  that  he  could  have  imagined.  It  left  him  no  rest  that 
day  nor  any  clay  for  months  thereafter. 

Eight  days  elapsed  between  Lincoln's  arrival  in  Washington 
and  his  inaugural.  There  were  certain  official  duties  to  be  per- 
formed. He  made  a  formal  visit  to  the  White  House,  where  he 
was  politely  received  by  Mr.  Buchanan  and  his  Cabinet.  He 
visited  the  two  Houses  of  Congress,  where  friends  of  the  new 
administration  welcomed  him  heartily,  and  where  his  enemies 
received  him  with  ominous  silence.  He  visited  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  and  Chief  Justice  Taney  and  his 
associates    accorded    him    courteous    recognition.      He    received 


THE  FIRST  INAUGURAL  7 

calls  from  two  men  who  had  been  candidates  against  him,  Breck- 
enridge  and  Douglas. 

The  mayor  of  Washington  and  other  officials  called  upon  the 
president-elect.  In  some  respects  the  most  notable  of  all  these 
visits  was  one  from  a  deputation  headed  by  an  ex-president  of 
the  nation.  The  Peace  Conference  completed  its  work  on  Wed- 
nesday, February  twenty-seventh.  By  formal  resolution  this 
body  sent  a  delegation  to  call  upon  the  president-elect,  and  placed 
at  its  head  its  chairman  and  most  distinguished  member,  ex- 
President  John  Tyler. 

Thus  a  week  went  by  and  another  Sunday  came.  That  day 
brought  to  Lincoln,  not  an  invitation  to  walk  to  church  with 
Seward,  but  a  letter  withdrawing  Seward's  acceptance  of  Lin- 
coln's invitation  to  head  his  Cabinet. 

This  declination  of  Seward  was  doubtless  prompted  by  his 
jealousy  of  Chase,  and  by  the  hearing  of  some  rumor  that  led 
Seward  to  believe  that  Chase  would  have  a  larger  influence  in  the 
Cabinet  than  would  be  comfortable  for  Seward : 

Washington,  March  2,   1861. 
My  dear  Sir : 

Circumstances  which  have  occurred  since  I  expressed  to  you 
in  December  last  my  willingness  to  accept  the  office  of  Secretary 
of  State  seem  to  me  to  render  it  my  duty  to  ask  leave  to  with- 
draw that  consent. 

Tendering  to  you  my  best  wishes  for  the  success  of  your  Ad- 
ministration, with  my  sincere  and  grateful  acknowledgments  of 
all  your  acts  of  kindness  and  confidence  toward  me,  I  remain, 
very  respectfully  and  sincerely, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

William  H.  Seward. 
The  Hon.  Abraham  Lincoln,  President-elect. 

Lincoln  was  much  disturbed,  and  spent  Sunday  in  thoughtful 
consideration  of  the  matter.  Early  in  the  morning  of  the  in- 
auguration he  sent  to  Seward  this  note,  which  was  dated,  as  a 


8  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

matter  of  form,  from  the  White  House,  though  actually  written 
at  Willard's : 

Executive  Mansion,  March  4,  1861. 
My  dear  Sir: 

Your  note  of  the  2nd  instant,  asking  to  withdraw  your  accept- 
ance of  my  invitation  to  take  charge  of  the  State  Department, 
was  duly  received.  It  is  the  subject  of  the  most  painful  solici- 
tude with  me ;  and  I  feel  constrained  to  beg  that  you  will  coun- 
termand the  withdrawal.  The  public  interest,  I  think,  demands 
that  you  should ;  and  my  personal  feelings  are  deeply  enlisted  in 
the  same  direction.  Please  consider  and  answer  by  9  o'clock 
a.  m.  tomorrow. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  Lincoln. 
Hon.  William-  H.  Seward. 

On  Monday  night  Lincoln  and  Seward  had  a  long  and  confi- 
dential conference.  Lincoln  could  not  afford,  as  he  said  to  Nic- 
olay,  "to  let  Seward  take  the  first  trick."  Moreover,  Seward 
had  already  been,  for  several  months,  virtually  the  spokesman 
of  the  administration.  This  conference  brought  about  an  adjust- 
ment of  the  situation ;  and  next  morning  Seward  sent  to  the 
president  the  following  short  and  satisfactory  note,  and  the  first 
internal  crisis  of  the  new  administration  was  passed : 

March  5,  1861. 
My  dear  Sir: 

Deferring  to  your  opinions  and  wishes  as  expressed  in  your 
letter  of  yesterday,  and  in  our  conversation  of  last  evening,  I 
withdraw  my  letter  to  you  of  the  2d  instant,  and  remain,  with 
great  respect  and  esteem, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

William  H.  Seward. 
The  President  of  the  United  States. 

There  was  hot  debate  in  both  Houses  of  Congress  in  its  clos- 
ing hours  concerning  the  Report  of  the  Peace  Conference  and 
its  recommendations  for  a  constitutional  amendment.  The  hours 
of  that   Congress   were  numbered,   but  just  before   its   session 


THE  FIRST  INAUGURAL  9 

ended,  a  proposed  constitutional  amendment,  numbered  Thir- 
teen, was  agreed  to  by  more  than  two-thirds  of  both  Houses  of 
Congress.  To  that  proposed  Amendment  Lincoln  made  refer- 
ence in  one  paragraph  of  his  inaugural  address : 

I  understand  a  proposed  amendment  to  the  Constitution — 
which  amendment,  however,  I  have  not  seen — has  passed  Con- 
gress, to  the  effect  that  the  Federal  Government  shall  never  in- 
terfere with  the  domestic  institutions  of  the  State-,  including 
that  of  persons  held  to  service.  To  avoid  misconstruction  of 
what  I  have  said.  I  depart  from  my  purpose  not  to  speak  of 
particular  amendments  so  far  as  to  say.  that,  holding  such  a  pro- 
vision to  now  be  implied  constitutional  law,  I  have  no  objection 
to  its  being  made  express  and  irrevocable. 

It  was  well,  indeed,  if  this  was  what  he  meant,  that  he  should 
have  said  this  ''to  avoid  misconstruction"  of  other  portions  of 
the  address ;  for  it  fitted  ill  with  the  remainder  of  the  message. 
Lincoln,  in  Springfield,  in  December,  i860,  and  again  on  Febru- 
ary 9.  1861,  had  refused  the  Crittenden  Compromise:  Lincoln, 
on  the  steps  of  the  capitol,  on  March  4,  1861,  accepted  this  ap- 
proach to  the  essential  principle  of  that  compromise!  One  fact 
doubtless  gave  him  comfort :  the  proposed  amendment  did  not 
touch  the  question  of  the  extension  of  slavery. 

How  can  we  account  for  this  change  in  Lincoln? 

First,  and  most  evident,  Lincoln  recognized  the  proposed 
amendment  as  virtually  a  part  of  the  Constitution,  which  made  it 
a  very  different  thing  from  what  it  was  when  Crittenden  had 
presented  it.  Both  Houses  of  Congress  had  adopted  it  by  the 
necessary  two-thirds  vote,  and  the  approval  of  the  states  was  an 
apparent  certainty.  AYhether  he  liked  it  or  not,  the  thing  ap- 
peared to  have  been  done. 

In  the  next  place,  Lincoln  had  come  to  a  much  deeper  realiza- 
tion of  the  gravity  of  the  situation.  He  could  no  longer  regard 
the  crisis  as  "artificial"  nor  comfort  himself  nor  attempt  to  com- 
fort his  countrymen  with  the  information  that  no  one  as  yet  had 
been  hurt.     Cautious  as  he  had  intended  his  inaugural  addres-  to 


io  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

be,  all  the  important  changes  which  Seward  had  suggested  had 
been  in  the  line  of  greater  caution,  and  Seward  was  the  man 
who  had  proclaimed  the  "irrepressible  conflict."  It  was  a  time 
for  prudent  utterance.  Lincoln  was  not  responsible  for  the  new 
so-called  Thirteenth  Amendment,  but  if  it  became  a  part  of  the 
Constitution,  that  was  what  he  was  swearing  to  support,  and  he 
wished  no  doubt  to  be  entertained  that  he  would  keep  his  word. 
It  might  almost  be  regarded  as  a  grim  joke  of  providence  or 
fate,  that  the  swift  outbreak  of  war  left  the  proposed  Thirteenth 
Amendment  to  oblivion.  The  adoption  which  Lincoln  and  the 
Congress  regarded  as  certain  did  not  occur.  Only  two  of  the 
states  took  action  with  regard  to  it.  When,  later,  a  Thirteenth 
Amendment  was  really  adopted,  and  that  by  means  which  Lin- 
coln himself  devised,  it  was  a  very  different  thing  from  the  one 
Lincoln  wrote  about  in  a  hastily  interpolated  paragraph  in  his 
inaugural  address.* 

Washington  was  filled  to  overflowing  to  witness  the  inaugu- 
ration of  the  first  Republican  president.  Every  bed  in  the  hotels 
was  filled  to  its  capacity,  and  hotel  beds  in  those  days  were 
elastic,  and  many  people  slept  upon  the  floors.  Very  early  in  the 
morning  the  city  began  to  get  itself  into  condition  for  the  in- 
augural ceremonies.  How  anxious  General  Scott  was,  and  how 
fearful  that  some  tragedy  might  interrupt  the  inaugural  pro- 
ceedings, was  shown  by  the  fact  that  soldiers  were  stationed 
along  the  whole  line  of  march,  and  riflemen  were  on  the  house- 
tops on  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  The  president's  carriage  was  sur- 
rounded by  an  armed  guard. 

Pennsylvania  Avenue  still  lacks  the  dignity  which  ought  to 
characterize  the  most  important  official  thoroughfare  in  Amer- 


*How  much  the  country  hoped,  and  how  vainly,  from  this  proposed 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  may  be  inferred  from  a  cartoon  in  Harper's 
Weekly  for  April  13,  1861.  It  represents  Columbia,  seated,  and  wearing  the 
Liberty  Cap,  handing  to  Lincoln  the  amended  Constitution.  At  the  feet  of 
the  goddess  is  the  American  eagle,  with  the  olive  branch  and  no  arrows  in 
its  claw.  Lincoln  has  on  the  floor  behind  him  his  hat,  containing  the  Chi- 
cago platform.  With  downcast  look,  and  half-extended  hand,  he  accepts 
the  amendment. 


THE  FIRST  INAUGURAL  n 

ica.  But  it  was  far  worse  then.  It  was  lined  on  each  side  by 
irregular  two-story  buildings,  and  the  roadway  itself  was  rough. 
The  carriage  containing  the  president  and  the  president-elect 
made  its  way  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  almost  hidden  from 
view  by  the  guard.  Some  observers  commended  General  Scott 
for  his  protection  of  the  president-elect,  and  others  sharply  criti- 
cized him  for  precautions  which  they  deemed  not  only  wholly  un- 
necessary, but  in  themselves  an  incitement  to  violence. 

Shortly  before  noon,  President  Buchanan  drove  from  the 
White  House  to  Willard's  Hotel.  He  was  a  large,  heavy  man, 
rather  awkward  in  his  movements.  His  hair  was  gray  and  thin, 
cut  shorter  than  was  the  fashion  of  the  time.  His  face  was  full, 
but  seamed  with  wrinkles.  His  head,  which  was  curiously  in- 
clined toward  the  left  shoulder,  was  surmounted  by  a  low- 
crowned,  broad-brimmed  silk  hat.  He  wore  an  old-fashioned 
standing  collar,  forced  up  to  his  ears  by  a  white  cravat  so  huge 
that  it  resembled  a  poultice.  He  was  dressed  in  black  through- 
out, and  his  swallow-tailed  coat  was  not  cut  in  the  latest  style. 

He  dismounted  from  the  open  barouche  of  which,  except  for 
the  driver,  he  was  the  only  occupant,  entered  the  front  door  of 
the  Willard,  and  soon  returned,  arm  in  arm  with  Mr.  Lincoln. 
A  large  and  curious  crowd  watched  while  the  two  men  entered 
the  barouche,  sat  down  side  by  side,  and  moved  down  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  near  the  head  of  a  rather  disorderly  and  not 
very  impressive  procession. 

The  capitol  building  was  not  completed.  Work  upon  it  con- 
tinued practically  every  day  during  the  Civil  War.  When  Bu- 
chanan and  Lincoln  reached  the  north  side  of  the  capitol,  they 
had  to  pass  through  a  long  board  tunnel  which  had  been  con- 
structed for  the  protection  of  the  president-elect. 

The  crowd  was  not  so  large  as  had  usually  attended  inaugural 
proceedings,  many  staying  away  on  account  of  anticipated  dis- 
turbance or  through  lack  of  sympathy. 

A  square  platform  had  been  built  out  from  the  steps  of  the 


12  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

eastern  portico,  with  benches  on  three  sides  for  distinguished 
spectators. 

There  was  no  delay;  General  Scott  had  insisted  on  prompt- 
ness. The  president-elect  came  forward,  dressed  in  new 
tall  hat,  new  black  clothes,  new  black  boots,  and  new  black  whis- 
kers. He  carried  a  new  black  cane,  ebony,  surmounted  by  a 
gold  head  of  unusually  large  size.  He  hardly  knew  what  to 
do  in  his  painfully  new  clothes,  and  was  especially  troubled  as 
to  where  to  deposit  his  shiny  new  hat.  As  Lincoln  rose  to  de- 
liver his  address,  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  occupied  a  seat  at  the 
end  of  the  benches  on  the  right  of  the  president,  rose  and  took 
the  president's  hat,  and  held  it  until  it  was  time  for  Lincoln  to 
replace  it  on  his  head — an  act  of  courtesy  which  was  much  com- 
mented on  at  the  time,  and  which  must  not  be  omitted  from 
the  picture  of  the  inauguration. 

Chief  Justice  Taney,  a  cadaverous  figure  in  black  robe,  stood 
and  administered  the  oath  of  office. 

No  man  listened  to  the  address  of  the  president  with  keener 
interest,  or,  on  the  whole  with  more  complete  approval,  than 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.  He  leaned  forward,  taking  in  every  word, 
and  nodding  his  head  in  conspicuous  approval  of  the  more  im- 
portant passages. 

Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  a  politician,  and  knew  well  the  tricks 
of  his  trade.  He  was  accused  of  insincerity,  and  he  may  have 
been  insincere  at  times.  Ambitious  he  certainly  was,  and  not 
always  unselfishly  so.  He  has  suffered  at  the  hands  of  those 
authors  who  have  thought  it  necessary  to  disparage  him  in  order 
to  make  Lincoln  seem  the  greater.  This  is  as  unnecessary  as  it 
is  unfair.  Certainly  the  conduct  of  Douglas  on  the  day  of  the 
inauguration  and  in  the  anxious  days  that  followed  it  is  worthy 
of  all  praise.  Of  it  mention  will  be  made  again  in  connection 
with  the  death  of  this  notable  statesman.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
in  the  early  days  of  his  clouded  administration,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln had  no  truer  friend,  and  that  no  voice  was  raised  in  more 
eloquent  devotion  to  the  Union  than  that  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 


THE  FIRST  INAUGURAL  13 

In  a  clear,  thin,  high  voice,  that  carried  to  the  outskirts  of  the 
vast  assembly  that  gathered  on  the  unkempt  capitol  lawn,  the 
new  president  read  the  words  of  his  inaugural  address : 

Fellow  Citizens  of  the  United  States :  In  compliance  with  a 
custom  as  old  as  the  government  itself,  I  appear  before  you  to 
address  you  briefly,  and  to  take  in  your  presence  the  oath  pre- 
scribed by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  be  taken 
by  the  President  "before  he  enters  upon  the  execution  of  his 
office."  .    .    . 

Apprehension  seems  to  exist,  among  the  people  of  the  South- 
ern states,  that  by  the  accession  of  a  Republican  administration 
their  property  and  their  peace  and  personal  security  are  to  be 
endangered.  There  has  never  been  any  real  cause  for  such  appre- 
hension. Indeed,  the  most  ample  evidence  to  the  contrary  has 
all  the  while  existed  and  been  open  to  their  inspection.  It  is 
found  in  nearly  all  the  published  speeches  of  him  who  now  ad- 
dresses you.  I  do  but  quote  from  one  of  those  speeches  when  I 
declare  that  "I  have  no  purpose,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  inter- 
fere with  the  institution  of  slavery,  in  the  States  where  it  now 
exists.  I  believe  I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so,  and  I  have  no 
inclination  to  do  so."  Those  who  nominated  and  elected  me 
did  so  with  a  full  knowledge  that  I  had  made  this  and  many 
similar  declarations,  and  have  never  recanted  them.   .    .    . 

I  now  reiterate  those  sentiments,  and  in  doing  so  I  only  press 
upon  the  public  attention  the  most  conclusive  evidence  of  which 
the  case  is  susceptible,  that  the  property,  peace,  and  security  of 
no  section  are  to  be  in  anywise  endangered  by  the  now  incoming 
administration.  .  .  . 

I  hold  that  in  contemplation  of  universal  law,  and  of  the  Con- 
stitution, the  Union  of  the  States  is  perpetual.  Perpetuity  is 
implied,  if  not  expressed,  in  the  fundamental  law  of  all  national 
governments.  .  .  . 

I  therefore  consider  that,  in  view  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
laws,  the  Union  is  unbroken,  and  to  the  extent  of  my  ability  I 
shall  take  care,  as  the  Constitution  itself  expressly  enjoins  upon 
me,  that  the  laws  of  the  Union  be  faithfully  executed  in  all  the 
states.  .  .  . 

This  clear  and  emphatic  declaration  left  no  doubt  of  the  posi- 
tion of  the  new  president ;  and  it  produced  a  visible  sensation ; 


14  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  Mr.  Arnold  states  that  there  were  "sober  but  hearty  cheers.'' 
The  president  continued: 

In  doing  this  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  nor  violence;  and 
there  shall  be  none,  unless  it  is  forced  upon  the  national  author- 
ity. The  power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold,  and  occupy, 
and  possess  the  property  and  places  belonging  to  the  govern- 
ment, and  to  collect  the  duties  and  imposts;  but  beyond  what 
may  be  necessary  for  these  objects  there  will  be  no  invasion,  no 
using  of  force  against  or  among  the  people  anywhere.  ... 

Physically  speaking,  we  cannot  separate.  We  cannot  remove 
our  respective  sections  from  each  other,  nor  build  an  impassable 
wall  between  them.  A  husband  and  wife  may  be  divorced,  and 
go  out  of  the  presence,  and  beyond  the  reach  of  each  other,  but 
the  different  parts  of  the  country  cannot  do  this.  .  .  . 

This  country  with  its  institutions,  belongs  to  the  people  who 
inhabit  it.  Whenever  they  shall  grow  weary  of  the  existing 
government,  they  can  exercise  the  constitutional  right  of  amend- 
ing, or  their  revolutionary  right  to  dismember  or  overthrow 
it.  .    .    . 

My  countrymen,  one  and  all,  think  calmly  and  well  upon  this 
whole  subject.  Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by  taking  time. 
If  there  be  an  object  to  hurry  any  of  you  in  hot  haste  to  a  step 
which  you  would  never  take  deliberately,  that  object  will  not  be 
frustrated  by  taking  time;  but  no  good  object  can  be  frustrated 
by  it.  Such  of  you  as  are  now  dissatisfied,  still  have  the  old  Con- 
stitution unimpaired,  and  on  the  sensitive  point,  the  laws  of  your 
own  framing  under  it.  The  new  administration  will  have  no 
immediate  power,  if  it  would,  to  change  either.  If  it  were  ad- 
mitted that  you  who  are  dissatisfied  hold  the  right  side  in  dis- 
pute, there  still  is  no  single  good  reason  for  precipitate  action. 
Intelligence,  patriotism,  Christianity,  and  a  firm  reliance  on 
Him,  who  has  never  yet  forsaken  this  favored  land,  are  still 
competent  to  adjust,  in  the  best  way,  all  our  present  diffi- 
culties. .  .  . 

The  day  was  bleak  and  windy,  and  the  inaugural  service  par- 
took of  its  chill.  Chief  Justice  Taney  was  old  and  feeble,  and 
his  words  were  scarcely  audible.  The  retiring  President  Bu- 
chanan was  visibly  uncomfortable.  General  Scott  was  old  and 
anxious.     Lincoln  was  pale  and  nervous.     Every  one  was  glad 


THE  FIRST  INAUGURAL  15 

when  the  formal  service  was  over  and  Abraham  Lincoln  rode 
back  along  Pennsylvania  Avenue  with  ex-President  Buchanan 
and  arrived  at  the  White  House  without  getting  shot. 

Lincoln's  inaugural  was  addressed  particularly  to  the  South. 
He  had  used  a  similar  form  of  direct  address  on  his  visit  to  Cin- 
cinnati in  1856,  saying  that  Kentucky  was  almost  within  hear- 
ing, and  he  therefore  spoke  directly  to  the  Kentuckians  remind- 
ing them  that  no  act  of  theirs  could  move  Kentucky  away  from 
the  borders  of  Ohio  and  Illinois.  So  in  his  inaugural  address 
he  spoke  directly  to  the  people  of  the  states  that  had  already 
withdrawn  from  the  Union,  and  those  that  were  on  the  verge  of 
withdrawal. 

His  address  excited  less  discussion  in  the  South  than  might 
have  been  expected.  Secession  was  then  considered  an  accom- 
plished fact,  and  the  inauguration  address  containing  the  flat 
declaration  of  the  president,  that  secession  ordinances  were  void, 
was  considered  only  as  emphasizing  the  hopelessness  of  the  sit- 
uation. Although  the  tone  of  the  address  was  nothing  if  not 
pacific,  it  was  accepted  in  the  Cotton  States  as  a  certain  indica- 
tion that  now  there  must  be  war. 

Comment  in  the  North  was  not  wholly  favorable.  The  liter- 
ary form  of  the  address  was  criticized  by  many.  The  Atlas  and 
Argus  of  Albany  characterized  it  as  "weak,  rambling,  loose- 
jointed,  and  inviting  civil  war." 

Other  northern  papers  treated  it  as  a  commonplace  produc- 
tion. 

Some  newspapers  spoke  rather  well  of  it,  commenting  on  its 
directness,  its  simplicity  and  its  kindliness.  Foremost  among 
these  was  the  New  York  Tribune. 

It  is  marked  by  no  feeble  expression.  "He  who  runs  may 
read"  it;  and  to  twenty  millions  of  people  it  will  carry  tidings, 
good  or  not,  as  the  case  may  be,  that  the  federal  Government  of 
the  United  States  is  still  in  existence,  with  a  Man  at  the  head  of 
it. 


16  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  Boston  Transcript  also  gave  to  the  address  some  guarded 
words  of  commendation : 

The  style  of  the  address  is  as  characteristic  as  its  temper.  It 
has  not  one  fawning  expression  in  the  whole  course  of  its  firm 
and  explicit  statements.  The  language  is  level  to  the  popular 
mind — the  plain,  homespun  language  of  a  man  accustomed  to 
talk  with  "the  folks"  and  "the  neighbors" ;  the  language  of  a 
man  of  vital  common-sense,  whose  words  exactly  fit  his  facts 
and  thoughts. 

The  New  York  Herald  made  the  following  comment: 

It  would  have  been  almost  as  instructive  if  President  Lincoln 
had  contented  himself  with  telling  his  audience  yesterday  a 
funny  story  and  letting  them  go.  .  .  .  The  inaugural  is  not  a 
crude  performance ;  it  abounds  in  traits  of  craft  and  cunning. 
It  bears  marks  of  indecision,  and  yet  of  strong  coercion  pro- 
clivities, with  serious  doubt  whether  the  government  will  be  able 
to  gratify  them.  It  is  neither  candid  nor  statesmanlike,  nor  does 
it  possess  any  essential  of  dignity  or  patriotism.  It  would  have 
caused  a  Washington  to  mourn,  and  would  have  inspired  Jef- 
ferson, Madison,  or  Jackson  with  contempt.  .  .  .  With  regard  to 
the  ultimate  projects  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  public  is  no  wiser  than 
before.  It  is  sincerely  to  be  trusted  that  he  is  not  ignorant  of 
them  himself. 

The  same  newspaper  a  few  days  previous  had  quoted  the  in- 
augural of  Jefferson  Davis  with  interest  and  appreciation.  It 
did  not  in  so  many  words  commend  the  subject-matter  of  that 
address,  portions  of  which  Davis  himself  afterward  virtually 
apologized  for,  but  said  that  it  was  "an  address  that  indicates 
the  man  of  experience,  and  a  cultivated  mind  of  high  order." 

In  the  evening  occurred  that  dreary  event,  the  inauguration 
ball.  Mr.  Lincoln  now  and  then  attended  a  formal  ball  at 
Springfield,  where  he  enjoyed  sitting  with  the  men  and  telling 
stories  while  other  people  danced.  Mrs.  Lincoln  enjoyed  those 
occasions,  and  looked  forward  to  the  inauguration  ball  as  a  great 
event  in  her  life.  High  society  in  Washington  looked  in  at  the 
ball  and  reckoned  the  number  of  the  missing;  the  tawdry  ball- 
room was  not  more  than  half  full,  and  those  who  constituted  the 


LINCOLN  AXD  HIS  SECRETARIES 
John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay 


THE  FIRST  INAUGURAL  17 

attendants  were  many  of  them  of  the  lesser  luminaries  of  Wash- 
ington society.  But  Mrs.  Lincoln  did  not  miss  anybody.  She 
was  attired  in  a  new  blue  gown,  and  wore  a  large  blue  feather  in 
her  hair.  It  was  her  coming-out  party,  and  she  made  the  most 
of  her  opportunity.  If  there  were  those  present  who  thought  her 
dress  unbecoming,  she  happily  was  unaware  of  the  fact.  What- 
ever joy  she  had  in  the  occasion  she  richly  deserved,  for  she  had 
clone  her  full  share  toward  making  Abraham  Lincoln  president 
of  the  Linked  States.  Sorrows  enough  were  in  store  for  her ;  it 
would  be  gratifying  if  we  could  know  that  that  event  brought 
her  unclouded  joy.  As  for  her  husband,  he  looked  tired  out 
and  ill  at  ease.  In  one  respect,  however,  he  was  above  criticism ; 
he  wore  a  pair  of  new  white  kid  gloves,  and  in  them  his  hands 
seemed  larger  and  more  clumsy  than  ever. 

Henry  Adams,  in  pursuit  of  that  education  which  he  was 
never  to  acquire,  but  still  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  discovery 
that  all  was  vanity,  attended  the  inaugural  ball,  being  then  a 
young  man  and  his  father's  private  secretary.  Of  Washington 
in  general  and  of  Lincoln  in  particular  he  wrote : 

The  mass  of  ignorance  in  Washington  was  lighted  up  by  no 
ray  of  knowledge.  Society,  from  top  to  bottom,  broke  down. 
From  this  law  there  was  no  exception,  unless,  perhaps  that  of 
old  General  Winfield  Scott,  who  happened  to  be  the  only  mili- 
tary figure  that  looked  equal  to  the  crisis.  Xo  one  else  either 
looked  it,  or  was  it,  or  could  be  it,  by  nature  or  training.  Had 
young  Adams  been  told  that  his  life  was  to  hang  on  the  correct- 
ness of  his  estimate  of  the  new  President,  he  would  have  been 
lost.  He  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  but  once ;  at  the  melancholy  function 
called  an  Inaugural  Ball.  Of  course  he  looked  anxiously  for  a 
sign  of  character.  He  saw  a  long,  awkward  figure ;  a  plain, 
plowed  face ;  a  mind,  absent  in  part,  and  in  part  evidently  wor- 
ried by  white  kid  gloves;  features  that  expressed  neither  self- 
satisfaction,  nor  any  other  familiar  Americanism,  but  rather  the 
same  painful  sense  of  being  educated  and  of  needing  education 
that  tormented  a  private  secretary :  above  all  a  lack  of  apparent 
force.  Any  private  secretary  in  the  least  fit  for  his  business 
would  have  thought,  as  Adams  did,  that  no  man  living  needed 


18  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

so  much  education  as  the  new  President,  but  that  all  the  educa- 
tion he  could  get  would  not  be  enough.* 

His  father,  Honorable  Charles  Francis  Adams,  would  have 
agreed  with  this  estimate  of  the  character  and  ability  of  Lincoln. 
Speaking  in  1873  before  the  two  Houses  of  the  Legislature  of 
New  York  in  honor  of  William  H.  Seward,  then  deceased, 
Adams  said : 

Let  me  not  be  understood  as  desiring  to  say  a  word  in  a  spirit 
of  derogation  from  the  memory  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  after- 
ward proved  himself  before  the  world  a  pure,  brave,  capable  and 
honest  man,  faithful  to  his  arduous  task,  and  laying  down  his 
life  at  the  last  for  his  country's  safety.  At  the  same  time,  it  is 
the  duty  of  history,  in  dealing-  with  all  human  actions,  to  do 
strict  justice  in  discriminating  between  persons,  and  by  no  means 
to  award  to  one  honors  that  clearly  belong  to  another.  I  must 
then  affirm,  without  hesitation  that,  in  the  history  of  our  Gov- 
ernment down  to  this  hour,  no  experiment  so  rash  has  ever  been 
made  as  that  of  elevating  to  the  head  of  affairs  a  man  with  so 
little  previous  preparation  for  his  task  as  Mr.  Lincoln. f 

Mrs.  Lincoln  returned  from  the  inauguration  ball  to  the 
White  House,  tired  but  triumphant.  If  notable  people  had  been 
absent,  she  had  not  known  Washington  well  enough  to  miss 
them.  Many  pleasing  attentions  had  been  shown  to  her,  and  she 
enjoyed  her  social  success.  No  one  at  this  day  can  wish  her 
other  than  the  full  of  such  satisfaction  as  the  occasion  brought 
to  her,  or  be  sorry  for  even  that  lack  of  knowledge  which  merci- 
fully veiled  from  her  eyes  some  part  of  the  hollowness  of  the 
event.  Her  husband,  relieved  that  the  affair  was  over,  drew  off 
his  tight  white  kid  gloves,  hung  up  his  new  swallow-tail  coat, 
and  looked  around  to  discover  whether  the  White  House  pos- 
sessed a  boot-jack,  and  a  place  where  a  very  weary  man  could 
secure  a  few  hours  of  sleep. 


*The  Education  of  Henry  Adams,  pp.  106-7. 

f  The  Life  and  Character  of  William  Henry  Seward,  pp.  48-9. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE    CABINET 


Ox  the  night  of  November  6,  i860,  Abraham  Lincoln  sat  up 
and  waited  for  the  election  returns.  By  two  o'clock  on  the  fol- 
lowing morning  it  was  certain  that  he  was  elected.  He  then 
went  to  bed,  but  did  not  sleep.  He  later  told  Gideon  Welles 
that  as  he  lay  awake  that  night  he  constructed  the  framework 
of  his  Cabinet.  In  the  days  that  followed,  he  asked  advice  from 
many  people,  and  he  seemed  to  make  many  changes ;  he  himself 
was  in  some  measure  of  uncertainty  concerning  a  number  of  the 
members;  but  when  he  announced  his  nominations  on  the  day 
following  his  inauguration,  the  men  he  named  were  the  same 
ones  whom  he  had  tentatively  selected  on  that  wakeful  night. 

This  was  an  achievement  both  more  and  less  difficult  than  at 
first  it  might  appear.  Lincoln  had  long  known  that  he  was 
practically  certain  to  be  elected,  and  he  must  have  given  much 
thought  to  the  selection  of  his  ministers.  Furthermore,  some 
promises  had  been  made  prior  to  his  nomination,  and  while  he 
had  sent  word  to  his  friends  in  the  convention  that  he  would  not 
be  bound  by  such  promises,  he  knew  that  it  was  altogether  ex- 
pedient for  him  to  make  them  good.  Still  further,  he  knew  the 
incongruous  elements  which  had  gone  into  the  making  of  the 
Republican  Party,  and  which  were  expecting  representation  in 
the  Cabinet.  Hence,  although  some  measure  of  uncertainty  ex- 
isted almost  to  the  hour  of  the  inauguration,  and  there  was 
danger  that  the  slate  would  be  broken,  and  perhaps  at  the  top, 
Lincoln  thought  through  the  problem  as  he  lay  in  his  bed  in 

19 


20  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Springfield,  his  conclusions  of  that  night  were  essentially  the 
conclusions  that  remained  after  all  the  uncertainty  and  ques- 
tioning. 

In  no  single  instance  were  Lincoln's  selections  determined  by 
what  might  have  been  called  his  personal  preferences.  Not  one 
of  the  seven  men  chosen  could  have  been  called  his  near  friend; 
nor  is  there  any  reason  to  believe  that  he  ever  asked  himself  who 
were  the  men  who  were  likely  to  be  personally  congenial.  The 
considerations  that  appear  to  have  influenced  him  were,  first  an 
honest  attempt  to  secure  the  best  available  men;  secondly,  an 
effort  to  harmonize  the  various  and  discordant  elements  in  the 
Republican  Party ;  and  thirdly,  a  desire  to  see  that  different  sec- 
tions of  the  country  were  represented. 

The  first  conspicuous  fact  about  Lincoln's  Cabinet  was  the 
number  of  selections  he  made  from  among  those  men  who  had 
been  his  rivals  in  the  convention.  On  the  first  ballot,  twelve 
men  received  votes  for  the  presidential  nomination:  William  H. 
Seward,  Abraham  Lincoln,  Simon  Cameron,  Salmon  P.  Chase, 
Edward  Bates,  William  L.  Dayton,  John  McLean,  Jacob  Colla- 
mer,  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  Charles  Sumner,  John  C.  Fremont  and 
John  M.  Reed.  The  votes  for  Fremont  were  a  sentimental  re- 
minder of  1856,  and  had  no  real  significance.  Charles  Sumner 
and  Benjamin  F.  Wade  were  not  candidates,  but  were  outstand- 
ing leaders  certain  to  receive  recognition  before  the  real  voting 
began.  Most  of  the  others  were  "favorite  sons"  whose  states 
desired  to  give  them  a  complimentary  vote,  but  had  no  expecta- 
tion of  gaining  for  them  any  considerable  following.  Lincoln 
chose  as  members  of  his  Cabinet  practically  all  the  candidates 
who  were  seriously  considered  in  the  convention. 

Seward  and  Chase  and  Bates  and  Cameron  would  appear  to 
have  been  Lincoln's  first  selections.  The  mutual  hostility  of  the 
Seward  and  Chase  elements  in  the  party  made  Lincoln  slow  in 
offering  a  place  to  the  latter,  and  Cameron's  foes  in  Pennsyl- 
vania so  nearly  equaled  in  number  those  of  his  friends  that  Lin- 
coln regretted  that  he  was  practically  committed  to  Cameron, 


THE  CABINET  21 

but  these  three  men  stood  foremost  in  Lincoln's  list.  As  for  Ed- 
ward Bates,  he  had  been  Greeley's  candidate,  and  was  a  com- 
petent and  reliable  man;  but  the  fight  in  Missouri  practically 
compelled  Lincoln  to  find  an  additional  man  from  that  state, 
and  he  was  not  wholly  sorry  to  select  two  members  from  slave- 
holding  soil. 

It  was  no  new  thing  in  American  politics  for  a  president  to 
head  his  Cabinet  with  his  principal  rival  within  his  own  party. 
Indeed,  there  was  a  rather  long  and  interesting  line  of  estab- 
lished precedents  for  such  a  course.  James  Madison  had  ap- 
pointed as  secretary  of  state  his  opponent,  James  Monroe;  Mon- 
roe passed  on  the  compliment  to  his  rival,  John  Quincy  Adams, 
and  profited  ever  afterward  by  having  Adams'  policy  christened 
with  his  own  name,  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  John  Quincy  Adams 
in  his  turn  appointed  Henry  Clay,  and  William  Henry  Harri- 
son would  have  continued  him  in  that  office,  but  Clay,  who  is 
alleged  to  have  said  that  he  would  rather  be  right  than  be  presi- 
dent, could  have  said  with  even  more  of  truthfulness  that  he 
would  rather  be  president  than  forever  to  be  secretary  of  state 
to  the  men  who  defeated  him.  James  K.  Polk  appointed  James 
Buchanan,  and  Buchanan  appointed  General  Lewis  Cass.  But 
no  president  had  ever  made  up  the  bone  and  sinew  of  his  Cabi- 
net of  men  each  of  whom  believed  that  he  ought  to  have  been 
seated  in  the  presidential  chair  instead  of  the  man  who  was 
there.  And  further,  of  no  previous  president  had  it  seemed  pos- 
sible to  say  with  so  much  of  confidence  what  could  be  said,  and 
was  said,  of  the  superior  fitness  of  these  several  men  to  that  of 
the  president  himself. 

.  Furthermore,  of  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  four  were  chosen  from 
that- faction  of  the  new  party  that  either  had  been  Democratic 
cr  were  supposed  to  represent  that  wing  of  the  combination. 
\Yhigs,  Anti-slavery  Democrats,  Free-soilers,  Know-Nothings 
and  abolitionists,  Lincoln  had  to  think  of  them  all  in  making  up 
his  Cabinet.  In  the  judgment  of  many,  he  thought  too  much  of 
the  Democrats,  for  Lincoln  himself  had  been  nothing  if  not  a 


22  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Whig.  Chase,  Cameron,  Welles  and  Blair  all  represented  the 
Democratic  wing  of  the  new  party— a  majority  of  four  against 
three.  To  those  who  reminded  him  of  this  fact,  Lincoln  said, 
"You  seem  to  forget  that  I  am  to  be  there."  They  did  seem  to 
forget  that  fact ;  but  it  was  a  fact  not  to  be  forgotten. 

These  were  the  seven  men  whom  Lincoln  nominated,  and  who 
constituted  his  first  Cabinet :  William  H.  Seward,  of  New  York, 
Secretary  of  State ;  Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio,  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury;  Simon  Cameron,  of  Pennsylvania,  Secretary  of  War; 
Gideon  Welles,  of  Connecticut,  Secretary  of  the  Navy ;  Caleb  B. 
Smith,  Secretary  of  the  Interior;  Edward  Bates,  of  Missouri, 
Attorney  General;  and  Montgomery  Blair,  of  Missouri,  Post- 
master-General. 

Not  a  few  of  Lincoln's  advisers  were  startled  by  his  selections. 
They  believed  that  such  a  Cabinet  was  certain  to  lack  harmony. 
There  was  good  ground  for  this  fear.  More  than  one  of  these 
men  accepted  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  political  accident,  and  regarded 
the  election  as  a  mistake  to  be  corrected  in  1864.  At  least  one 
of  them  began  immediately  to  lay  his  plans  to  serve  the  country 
as  its  president  as  soon  as  Mr.  Lincoln  should  have  completed 
his  one  and  only  term. 

These  facts  were  not  unknown  to  Lincoln.  If  ever  a  president 
rose  above  petty  fear  of  suffering  by  reason  of  his  appearance 
among  strong  men,  it  was  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  held  that  the 
times  were  too  grave  for  considerations  of  personal  vanity.  He 
knew  that  each  one  of  these  men  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  an 
important  element  in  the  party  which  had  elected  him,  and  that 
each  one  had  important  relations  to  a  particular  section  or  group, 
and  that  each  one  strengthened  the  Cabinet  and  would  strengthen 
the  administration.  Moreover,  he  recognized  the  ability  of  these 
men,  and  earnestly  desired  to  compensate  for  his  own  limitations 
by  the  utilization  of  their  strong  qualities.  Not  always  has  an 
American  president  chosen  for  his  Cabinet  men  whom  he  knew 
to  be  so  likely  to  oppose  him.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  himself  so 
magnanimous  a  man  that  he  believed  he  could  trust  his  associates 
to  be  magnanimous.  The  experiment  was  a  trying  one,  but  it 
was  successful. 


-■ 


LINCOLN  AXD  HIS  CABINET 
From  a  contemporary  steel  engraving 


THE  CABINET  23 

It  will  be  well  for  the  reader  to  be  introduced  to  the  seven  men 
who  constituted  Lincoln's  first  Cabinet. 

On  the  day  that  the  Republican  Convention  assembled  in  Chi- 
cago, William  H.  Seward  was  fifty-nine  years  old.  What  cele- 
bration of  the  event  occurred  on  that  day  within  his  own  family 
is  not  known;  the  real  celebration  was  set  for  the  second  day 
thereafter.  For  Seward  had  no  doubt  what  wTas  to  be  his  birth- 
day present.  Upon  his  lawn  assembled  a  large  company  of  his 
neighbors  and  political  friends,  awaiting  the  happy  moment 
when  they  might  congratulate  him  on  his  nomination  as  presi- 
dent. A  cannon,  loaded,  stood  at  the  gate,  ready  to  announce 
the  nomination  of  William  H.  Seward. 

On  that  day,  William  H.  Seward  mingled  with  his  guests, 
hospitable,  friendly,  confident,  appreciative.  He  recognized  the 
honor  that  was  presently  to  come  to  him  as  an  honor  that  was 
his  due.  For  thirty  years  he  had  been  in  politics,  and  he  was  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  finest  types  of  American  manhood  in  politi- 
cal life.  To  be  sure,  he  was  short  in  stature,  and  his  gestures 
were  not  graceful,  and  his  scholarship  was  versatile  rather  than 
profound,  but  he  was  a  man  of  character,  ability,  learning  and 
culture.  Although  he  sometimes  used  an  oath  in  a  moment  of 
exasperation,  so  that  Lincoln  could  ask  another  man,  "Are  you 
an  Episcopalian?  You  swear  like  Seward,"  he  was  a  truly  re- 
ligious man,  and  a  man  who  for  righteousness'  sake  was  capable 
of  suffering.  He  had  labored  long  and  arduously  for  the  crea- 
tion of  the  Republican  Party.  He  had  brought  to  its  organiza- 
tion his  prestige  as  having  been  twice  governor  of  Xew  York 
and  the  still  further  honor  of  a  distinguished  career  in  the  United 
States  Senate..  He  combined  dignity  with  urbanity,  and  learning 
with  a  practical  knowledge  of  the  leadership  of  men. 

As  for  his  nomination,  who  could  doubt  that  that  was  to  come 
to  him  for  the  asking?  His  affairs  were  in  the  hands  of  Thur- 
low  Weed,  the  most  adroit  politician  in  Xew  York  State,  and 
with  an  organized  force  that  left  little  doubt  of  the  result.  So 
the  cannon  stood,  loaded,  and  ready  to  fire  as  soon  as  the  news 
should  come  of  Seward's  nomination. 


24  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  first  ballot  showed  him  strongly  in  the  lead.  The  second 
followed,  and  Seward  was  still  leading,  though  he  had  gained 
but  little  and  Abraham  Lincoln's  vote  had  risen  alarmingly.  "I 
shall  be  nominated  on  the  next  ballot,"  said  Mr.  Seward  smiling- 
ly. So  it  would  have  appeared;  for  he  had  184K  votes,  Lincoln 
181,  and  the  99^  scattering  votes  would  seek  a  permanent  align- 
ment on  the  third  ballot,  and  who  could  doubt  where  the  greater 
half  of  them  would  go? 

The  third  ballot  came  swiftly,  and  a  telegram  showing  the  re- 
sult was  handed  to  Seward.  He  turned  ashen  pale.  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  been  nominated.  Seward  was,  as  he  said  to  his 
wife,  "a  leader  deposed  by  my  own  party  in  the  organization  for 
decisive  battle." 

Alas  for  the  brazen-throated  messenger  that  had  been  bor- 
rowed and  brought  to  the  village  of  Auburn  for  that  day !  The 
load  was  drawn  unfired;  and  as  the  cannon  was  hauled  away, 
it  was  as  if  the  funeral  of  a  mighty  leader  were  being  celebrated, 
and  his  body  carried  to  its  burial  on  a  gun-carriage. 

There  was  joy  that  night  in  Springfield,  Illinois;  but  there 
was  deep  sorrow  in  Auburn,  New  York. 

Seward's  disappointment  was  hardly  greater  than  that  of  his 
followers.  Returning  delegates,  filled  with  enthusiasm  which 
they  had  gathered  in  Chicago,  found  their  constituents  very 
glum.  "We  sent  you  to  Chicago  to  nominate  a  statesman,"  they 
said,  "and  you  have  given  us  a  railsplitter."* 

Many  years  afterward  Richard  Grant  White  wrote  in  the 
North  American  Review: 

Mr.  Seward  saw  the  crown  of  his  life  petulantly  snatched  from 
him  and  given  to — no  matter  whom,  if  not  to  him — but  to  one 
"who  had  done  nothing  to  merit  it,  and  who  was  so  unknown  to 

^Honorable  Addison  G.  Procter,  a  native  of  Massachusetts  but  a  delegate 
from  Kansas,  went  east  after  the  convention  and  made  a  visit  to  his  old  home. 
He  was  full  of  enthusiasm  when  he  left  Chicago,  but  his  ardor  was  much 
dampened  as  he  went  eastward.  Arriving  at  his  old  home  at  Gloucester  he 
endeavored  to  work  up  a  ratification  meeting,  but  found  no  favorable  senti- 
ment.   The  sentence  above  is  quoted  from  answers  made  to  him. 


THE  CABINET  25 

a  majority  of  his  countryment,  that  his  identity  had  to  be  ex- 
plained to  them.* 

Charles  Francis  Adams,  in  his  address  on  Seward  before  the 
New  York  Legislature,  said : 

The  veteran  champion  of  the  reforming  policy  was  set  aside 
in  favor  of  a  gentleman  as  little  known  by  anything  he  had  ever 
done  as  the  most  sanguine  friend  of  such  a  selection  could  desire. 
The  fact  is  beyond  contradiction  that  no  person,  ever  so  nom- 
inated with  any  reasonable  probability  of  success,  had  had  so 
little  of  public  service  to  show  for  his  reward. 

The  Republican  Central  Committee  of  New  York  wrote  to 
Seward  on  the  day  following  the  nomination  of  Lincoln : 

The  result  of  the  Chicago  Convention  has  been  more  than  a 
surprise  to  the  Republicans  of  New  York.  That  you  who  have 
been  the  earliest  defender  of  Republican  principles — the  acknowl- 
edged head  and  leader  of  the  party,  who  have  given  directions 
to  its  movements  and  form  and  substance  to  its  acts — that  3-ou 
should  have  been  put  aside  on  the  narrow  ground  of  expediency, 
we  can  hardly  realize  or  believe.  Whatever  the  decision  of  this, 
or  a  hundred  other  conventions,  we  recognize  in  you  the  real 
leader  of  the  Republican  party. 

Lincoln  recognized  that  Seward  had  a  standing  in  the  party 
and  the  nation  which  he  himself  did  not  possess.  Lincoln  never 
forgot  that  he  had  been  nominated  by  a  convention  two-thirds 
of  whose  members  preferred  other  candidates.  Lincoln  knew 
that  but  for  Seward's  break  with  Horace  Greeley,  and  Greeley's 
quarrel  with  Thurlow  Weed,  Lincoln  would  not  have  been  nom- 
inated. 

It  deserves  to  be  recorded  to  the  everlasting  honor  of  William 
H.  Seward,  that  his  loyalty  in  that  crisis  gave  to  the  Lincoln 
nomination  its  first  assurance  of  the  united  support  of  the  whole 
party.     Seward's  reply  to  the  letter  already  quoted  from  the  Re- 


*North  American  Review  for  1877,  page  226. 
20 


26  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

publican  Central  Committee  of  his  own  state,  contained  a  hearty 
endorsement  of  the  platform  and  a  loyal  support  to  the  candidate. 
Seward  said : 

I  find  in  the  resolutions  of  the  convention  a  platform  as  satis- 
factory to  me  as  if  it  had  been  framed  with  my  own  hands ;  and 
in  the  candidates  adopted  by  it,  eminent  and  able  Republicans 
with  whom  I  have  cordially  cooperated  in  maintaining  the  prin- 
ciples embodied  in  that  excellent  creed. 

Seward  then  took  the  stump  on  behalf  of  Lincoln.  His  ad- 
dresses contained  no  half-hearted  platitudes.  His  support  was 
unqualified.  He  did  not  damn  his  successful  rival  with  faint 
praise.  He  gave  to  Lincoln  and  the  party  his  good  faith  and  his 
utmost  effort. 

After  the  election,  Seward  was  in  Washington  and  Lincoln 
was  in  Springfield.  Lincoln  was  maintaining  his  policy  of  dig- 
nified silence.  The  Illinois  State  Journal  expressed  his  opinions 
now  and  then  through  an  editorial  which  he  had  approved  or 
possibly  written.  Orville  H.  Browning  or  Lyman  Trumbull  or 
Elihu  B.  Washburne  now  and  then  spoke  a  word  which  was  un- 
derstood to  be  authoritative.  But  William  H.  Seward  was  really 
the  accredited  voice  of  the  incoming  administration.  As  one  of 
the  senators  from  New  York,  and  a  man  most  prominent  in  the 
leadership  of  the  Republican  Party  and  one  certain  to  be  the 
leading  member  of  the  new  Cabinet,  he  spoke  for  the  Republican 
Party  as  no  other  man  could  speak.  In  the  whole  history  of 
American  political  life  no  other  man  has  occupied  a  position 
quite  like  that  of  Seward  in  the  last  two  months  of  i860  and  the 
first  two  months  of  186 1.  He  was,  and  he  knew  himself  to  be, 
the  leader  in  the  Senate  of  those  who  stood  for  loyalty  and  the 
hope  of  a  united  country.  He  was  not  unconscious  of  his  im- 
portance. His  letters  to  his  wife  in  this  period  show  how  fully 
he  felt  himself  to  be  the  sole  hope  of  the  new  administration  and 
of  the  nation.  When  on  December  28,  i860,  he  wrote  to  her 
telling  her  that  he  had  accepted  Lincoln's  invitation  to  be  secre- 


THE  CABINET  27 

tary  of  state,   he  added :   "It  is  inevitable.     I  will  try   to  save 
freedom  in  my  country." 
In  other  letters  he  said : 

I  have  assumed  a  sort  of  dictatorship  for  defense,  and  am 
laboring  day  and  night  with  the  cities  and  States. 

I  am  trying  to  get  home ;  but  as  yet  I  see  no  chance.  It  seems 
to  me  that  if  I  am  absent  only  three  days,  this  administration, 
the  Congress,  and  the  District  would  fall  into  consternation  and 
despair.     I  am  the  only  hopeful,  calm,  conciliatory  person  here. 

These  read  like  boastful  words,  but  they  were  very  nearly  true. 
There  were  not  many  men  in  Washington  at  that  time  who  were 
hopeful,  calm  and  conciliatory,  and  among  those  who  had  that 
temperament  and  conviction  there  was  no  other  who  could  speak 
for  the  administration  as  Seward  was  believed  to  speak.  A  few 
days  after  the  inauguration  Seward  wrote  again,  giving  his  wife 
his  feeling  in  accepting  the  secretaryship : 

The  President  is  determined  that  he  will  have  a  compound 
Cabinet;  and  that  it  shall  be  peaceful  and  even  permanent.  I 
was  at  one  time  on  the  point  of  refusing — nay,  I  did  refuse,  for 
a  time,  to  hazard  myself  in  the  experiment.  But  a  distracted 
country  appeared  before  me ;  and  I  withdrew  from  that  position. 
I  believe  I  can  endure  as  much  as  any  one ;  and  it  may  be  that  I 
can  endure  enough  to  make  the  experiment  successful. 

It  is  certain  that  Mr.  Seward  overrated  himself,  and  yet  more 
certain  that  he  underrated  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  at  this  time  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  Springfield  and  the 
man  in  the  White  House  was  an  impotent  and  senile  temporizer, 
and  it  was  of  incalculable  worth  to  the  nation  to  have  a  man  of 
Seward's  undoubted  strength  in  Washington  and  in  a  position 
where  he  could  speak  strong  but  conciliatory  words. 

If  ever  a  president  had  reason  to  anticipate  uncomfortable 
experiences  in  choosing  as  his  chief  adviser  a  man  who  believed 
himself,  and  was  believed  to  be  superior  in  education,  wisdom, 


28  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

experience  and  political  sagacity  to  the  president,  that  president 
was  Abraham  Lincoln.  His  motive  in  selecting  Seward  is  de- 
serving of  all  praise.  On  the  other  hand,  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  Seward  in  accepting  the  position  understood  fullv  that 
he  was  preparing  for  himself  very  much  of  discomfort  and 
anxiety.  It  was  not  the  president  alone  in  association  with 
whom  Seward  anticipated  unhappiness ;  he  was  bitterly  opposed 
to  Salmon  P.  Chase,  and  both  he  and  Chase  believed  that  if 
either  one  was  selected  for  a  place  in  the  Cabinet,  the  other 
would  not  be  chosen. 

The  American  secretary  of  state  is  not  an  English  prime  min- 
ister. That  officer  in  England  forms  the  Cabinet  and  defines 
the  policy  of  the  administration.  Seward  was  compelled  to 
realize,  and  that  very  quickly,  that  he  had  no  such  power.  Three 
of  the  Cabinet  members  were  men  to  whom  he  was  bitterly 
hostile.  Nevertheless,  Seward  accepted  his  uncomfortable 
honor. 

He  began  his  duties  as  secretary  of  state  with  unabated  confi- 
dence that  the  salvation  of  the  nation  depended  upon  his  wis- 
dom. He  did  not  fail  to  let  the  president  know  how  much 
greater  man  he  was  than  he  believed  the  president  to  be. 
On  April  i,  1861,  he  handed  the  president  a  letter  whose  content 
was  well  in  keeping  with  the  character  of  the  author : 

SOME    THOUGHTS    FOR    THE    PRESIDENT^    CONSIDERATION, 
APRIL    I,    1 86 1 

First.  We  are  at  the  end  of  a  month's  administration,  and  yet 
without  a  policy,  either  domestic  or  foreign. 

Second.  This,  however,  is  not  culpable,  and  it  has  even  been 
unavoidable.  The  presence  of  the  Senate,  with  the  need  to  meet 
applications  for  patronage,  have  prevented  attention  to  other  and 
more  grave  matters. 

Third.  But  further  delay  to  adopt  and  prosecute  our  policies 
for  both  domestic  and  foreign  affairs  would  not  only  bring 
scandal  on  the  administration,  but  danger  upon  the  country. 

Fourth.  To  do  this  we  must  dismiss  the  applicants  for  office. 
But  how  ?    I  suggest  that  we  make  the  local  appointments  forth- 


THE  CABINET  29 

with,  leaving  foreign  or  general  ones  for  ulterior  and  occasional 
action. 

Fifth.  The  policy  at  home.  1  am  aware  that  my  views  are 
singular,  and  perhaps  not  sufficiently  explained.  My  system  is 
built  upon  this  idea  as  a  ruling  one,  namely,  that  we  must 

CHANGE  THE  QUESTION  BEFORE  THE  PUBLIC  FROM  ONE  UPON 
SLAVERY,  OR  ABOUT  SLAVERY,  for  a  question  Upon  UNION  OR  DIS- 
UNION : 

In  other  words,  from  what  would  be  regarded  as  a  party  ques- 
tion, to  one  of  patriotism  or  union. 

The  occupation  or  evacuation  of  Fort  Sumter,  although  not 
in  fact  a  slavery  or  a  party  question,  is  so  regarded.  Witness  the 
temper  manifested  by  the  Republicans  in  the  free  States,  and 
even  by  the  Union  men  in  the  South. 

I  would  therefore  terminate  it  as  a  safe  means  for  changing 
the  issue.  I  deem  it  fortunate  that  the  last  administration  cre- 
ated the  necessity. 

For  the  rest,  I  would  simultaneously  defend  and  re-enforce 
all  the  ports  in  the  Gulf,  and  have  the  navy  recalled  from  for- 
eign stations  to  be  prepared  for  a  blockade.  Put  the  island  of 
Key  West  under  martial  law. 

This  will  raise  distinctly  the  question  of  union  or  disunion.  I 
would  maintain  every  fort  and  possession  in  the  South. 


FOR    FOREIGN    NATIONS 

I  would  demand  explanations  from  Spain  and  France,  cate- 
gorically, at  once. 

I  would  seek  explanations  from  Great  Britain  and  Russia,  and 
send  agents  into  Canada,  Mexico,  and  Central  America  to  rouse 
a  vigorous  continental  spirit  of  independence  on  this  continent 
against  European  intervention. 

And,  if  satisfactory  explanations  are  not  received  from  Spain 
and  France, 

Would  convene  Congress  and  declare  war  against  them. 

But  whatever  policy  we  adopt,  there  must  be  an  energetic 
prosecution  of  it. 

For  this  purpose  it  must  be  somebody's  business  to  pursue  and 
direct  it  incessantly. 

Either  the  President  must  do  it  himself,  and  be  all  the  while 
active  in  it,  or 


30  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Devolve  it  on  some  member  of  his  cabinet.     Once  adopted, 
debates  on  it  must  end,  and  all  agree  and  abide. 
It  is  not  in  my  especial  province; 
But  I  neither  seek  to  evade  nor  assume  responsibility. 

To  this  amazing  letter,  Lincoln  replied : 

Executive  Mansion,  April  i,  1861 
Hon.  W.  H.  Seward. 

My  dear  sir:  Since  parting  with  you,  I  have  been  consider- 
ing your  paper  dated  this  day,  and  entitled  "Some  Thoughts  for 
the  President's  Consideration."  The  first  proposition  in  it  is, 
"First,  We  are  at  the  end  of  a  month's  administration,  and  yet 
without  a  policy,  either  domestic  or  foreign." 

At  the  beginning  of  that  month,  in  the  inaugural,  I  said: 
"The  power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold,  occupy,  and 
possess  the  property  and  places  belonging  to  the  government, 
and  to  collect  the  duties  and  imposts."  This  had  your  distinct 
approval  at  the  time ;  and  taken  in  connection  with  the  order  1 
immediately  gave  General  Scott,  directing  him  to  employ  every 
means  in  his  power  to  strengthen  and  hold  the  forts,  comprises 
the  exact  domestic  policy  you  now  urge,  with  the  single  excep- 
tion that  it  does  not  propose  to  abandon  Fort  Sumter. 

Again,  I  do  not  perceive  how  the  re-enforcement  of  Fort 
Sumter  would  be  done  on  a  slavery  or  a  party  issue,  while  that 
of  Fort  Pickens  would  be  on  a  more  national  and  patriotic  one. 

The  news  received  yesterday  in  regard  to  St.  Domingo  cer- 
tainly brings  a  new  item  within  the  range  of  our  foreign  policy ; 
but  up  to  that  time  we  have  been  preparing  circulars  and  in- 
structions to  ministers  and  the  like,  all  in  perfect  harmony, 
without  even  a  suggestion  that  we  had  no  foreign  policy. 

Upon  your  closing  proposition — that  "whatever  policy  we 
adopt,  there  must  be  an  energetic  prosecution  of  it. 

"For  this  purpose  it  must  be  somebody's  business  to  pursue 
and  direct  it  incessantly. 

"Either  the  President  must  do  it  himself,  and  be  all  the  while 
active  in  it,  or 

"Devolve  it  on  some  member  of  his  cabinet.  Once  adopted, 
debates  on  it  must  end,  and  all  agree  and  abide" — I  remark  that 
if  this  must  be  done,  I  must  do  it.  When  a  general  line  of  policy 
is  adopted,  I  apprehend  there  is  no  danger  of  its  being  changed 


THE  CABINET  31 

without  good  reason,  or  continuing  to  be  a  subject  of  unneces- 
sary debate ;  still,  upon  points  arising  in  its  progress  I  wish,  and 
suppose  I  am  entitled  to  have,  the  advice  of  all  the  cabinet. 

Your  obedient  servant, 
A.  Lincoln. 

Seward's  letter  was  not  more  remarkable  for  its  incivility  to 
the  president  than  it  was  for  its  bad  statesmanship.  It  proposed 
a  course  of  action  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  Government 
which  would  surely  have  involved  us  in  war  with  one  or  more 
European  nations.  After  its  discourtesy  toward  President  Lin- 
coln, the  most  notable  fact  was  its  calm  assumption  of  superior- 
ity. Lincoln  showed  in  this  trying  situation  a  promptness  of  ac- 
tion, a  firmness  of  decision  and  a  fine  magnanimity  which  must 
ever  redound  to  his  honor.  He  answered  the  letter  on  the  very 
day  on  which  it  was  received.  He  calmly  and  definitively  in- 
formed his  subordinate  that  he  himself  was,  and  intended  to  be, 
the  president;  and  then  he  pocketed  Mr.  Seward's  communica- 
tion and  told  of  it  to  no  one. 

The  finest  traits  in  Lincoln's  character  were  his  integrity  and 
his  magnanimity.  Not  until  Lincoln  and  Seward  were  both 
dead,  and  many  years  had  passed,  did  the  world  know  of  this 
correspondence. 

The  other  members  of  the  Cabinet  criticized  Seward's  curiosi- 
ty concerning  their  departments,  and  his  reticence  about  his  own. 
Secretary  Welles  records,  about  October  1,  1861,  an  incident  in 
which  the  president  and  members  of  the  Cabinet,  meeting  Gen- 
erals Scott  and  McClellan  in  the  office  of  the  general,  undertook 
to  learn  about  forces  in  and  about  Washington,  but  Scott  could 
not,  and  McClellan  did  not,  tell.  But  Seward  produced  a  slip 
of  paper  from  which  he  read  a  list  of  the  several  commands,  and 
McClellan,  in  answer  to  a  question,  said  that  the  information 
given  by  Seward  was  essentially  correct.  General  Scott  was 
highly  displeased.     Said  he  : 

This  is  a  remarkable  state  of  things.     I  am  in  command  of 


32  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  armies  of  the  United  States,  but  have  been  wholly  unable 
to  get  any  reports,  any  statement  of  the  actual  forces ;  but  'here 
is  the  Secretary  of  State,  a  civilian,  for  whom  I  have  great  re- 
spect, but  who  is  not  a  military  man,  nor  conversant  with  mili- 
tary affairs,  and  this  civilian  is  possessed  of  facts  which  are 
withheld  from  me!* 

Seward  was  a  thorn  in  Lincoln's  flesh  during  the  early  months 
of  his  administration.  But  Lincoln  proved  to  be  the  master  of 
the  situation,  and  Seward  came  to  recognize  that  fact.  The 
greatness  of  Lincoln  made  a  greater  man  of  Seward,  and  his 
wisdom  became  one  of  the  valuable  assets  of  Lincoln's  admin- 
istration. A  president  less  great  than  Lincoln  would  have  lost 
the  valuable  counsel  of  his  able  and  loyal  secretary  of  state.  The 
relation  which  began  unhappily  on  both  sides,  grew  into  one  of 
intimate  and  happy  companionship. 

For  secretary  of  treasury  Lincoln  chose  Salmon  P.  Chase,  of 
Ohio.  Chase,  although  of  Democratic  antecedents,  was  an  out- 
standing abolitionist.  His  had  been  the  determining  influence 
in  the  Free-soil  convention  at  Buffalo  in  1848,  whose  platform 
he  wrote.  As  governor  of  the  state  of  Ohio  he  had  stood  nobly 
for  the  furtherence  of  the  cause  of  freedom.  In  the  United 
States  Senate  he  and  Charles  Sumner  had  opposed  Douglas's 
scheme  for  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  He  had 
been  attorney  for  the  slave  in  practically  every  notable  case  that 
was  litigated  in  the  Ohio  courts,  and,  like  Lincoln,  he  had  argued 
at  least  one  of  his  cases  on  the  ground  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787. 

It  has  come  to  be  popular  to  treat  Chase  as  the  Judas  of  Lin- 
coln's administration.!  Chase's  distrust  and  ambition  during 
the  whole  of  Lincoln's  first  term  is  well  known.    In  John  Hay's 


*Diary  of  Gideon  Welles,  i,  p.  241. 

fit  is  well  known  that  in  John  Drinkwater's  play,  Abraham  Lincoln,  the 
character  Burnet  Hook,  while  not  intended  literally  to  follow  the  course  of 
Chase's  opposition  to  Lincoln's  plans,  was  drawn  with  Chase  rather  definitely 
in  mind.  I  asked  Mr.  Drinkwater,  "In  your  character  of  Burnet  Hook  were 
you  thinking  of  Salmon  P.  Chase?"  and  he  answered,  "More  or  less;  I  think 
so;  yes." 


THE  CABINET  33 

diary,  printed  but  not  published,  is  the  following  entry  which 
shows  how  nobly  Lincoln  met  such  embarrassment  as  he  suf- 
fered at  the  hands  of  Chase : 

October  18,  1863. 
On  presenting  myself  to  the  President  this  morning,  I  gave 
him  my  impression  of  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Chase,  in  trying  to  get 
under  in  the  way  he  was  doing,  instancing  what  D —  of  New 
York  had  related.  He  said,  "It  was  very  bad  taste,  but  that  he 
had  determined  to  shut  his  eyes  to  all  these  performances;  that 
Chase  made  a  good  Secretary,  and  that  he  would  keep  him  where 
he  is  : —  if  he  becomes  President,  all  right !  I  hope  we  may  never 
have  a  worse- man.  I  have  all  along  clearly  seen  his  plan  of 
strengthening  himself.  Whenever  he  sees  that  an  important  mat- 
ter is  troubling  me,  if  I  am  compelled  to  decide  it  any  way  to 
give  offense  to  a  man  of  some  influence,  he  always  ranges  him- 
self in  opposition  to  me,  and  persuades  the  victim  that  he,  Chase, 
would  have  arranged  it  very  differently.  ...  I  am  entirely  in- 
different as  to  his  failure  or  success  in  these  schemes  so  long  as 
he  does  his  duty  as  the  head  of  the  Treasury  Department."* 

Lincoln  was  tall,  gaunt  and  awkward.  Seward  was  short  of 
stature  and  not  graceful  in  his  movements.  Salmon  P.  Chase 
was  tall  and  of  commanding  appearance.  He  had  a  head  almost 
as  massive  and  imposing  as  that  of  Daniel  Webster.  He  was 
gifted,  beyond  any  leader  in  the  Republican  Party,  as  the  author- 
ity of  party  platforms  and  political  proclamations.  He  was  not 
a  popular  orator,  but  had  marked  gifts  as  a  reasoner.  His  ap- 
peal was  to  sound  judgment  and  clear  thinking.  He  had  a  good 
college  education,  and  was  the  master  of  three  modern  languages. 
He  had  excellent  legal  training,  and  beside  all  this  he  had  sacri- 
ficial devotion  to  the  cause  of  freedom.     He  had  been  the  un- 


*Copies  of  this  diary  are  in  the  Library  of  Congress  and  the  Library  of 
the  Chicago  Historical  Society,  and  have  been  used  by  me.  Proper  names 
are  omitted,  initials  only  being  used.  Henry  Adams  made  a  key  of  which 
these  libraries  have  copies,  and  its  use  is  permitted  guardedly.  The  Mas- 
sachusetts Historical  Society  has  an  even  more  precious  document,  a  pho- 
tostatic copy  of  the  original  of  Hay's  Diary,  which  was  made  for  Thayer's 
Life  of  John  Hay.  Its  use  is  allowed  only  by  special  permission,  which  per- 
mission I  gratefully  acknowledge. 


34  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

compromising  foe  of  slavery,  long  before  Lincoln  had  uttered 
himself  plainly  on  that  subject. 

It  was  inevitable  that  Chase  should  believe  himself,  not  only 
the  superior  of  Lincoln,  but  also  the  superior  of  Seward.  He  did 
not  covet  a  place  in  the  Cabinet,  but,  if  he  had  any  place,  he  never 
doubted  but  that  he  should  have  been  secretary  of  state.  It 
grieved  and  humiliated  him  when  Lincoln  sent  for  him  and 
asked  if  he  would  accept  the  position  of  secretary  of  the  treasury, 
but  added  that  Lincoln,  while  making  this  inquiry,  was  not  yet 
ready  to  offer  him  the  position.  Chase  knew  the  reason  for  Lin- 
coln's hesitation.  Lincoln  told  him  plainly  that  he  had  already 
offered  the  position  of  secretary  of  state  to  Seward.  Plainly, 
Lincoln  did  not  intend  to  make  Chase  secretary  of  the  treasury 
if  by  so  doing  he  was  to  lose  Seward  as  secretary  of  state.  Chase 
said  frankly  that  if  Lincoln  offered  him  any  place  in  the  Cabinet, 
it  should  have  been  the  first  place,  and  that  if  Lincoln  offered 
him  any  other  position,  it  should,  at  least,  have  come  as  prompt- 
ly and  unreservedly,  as  Lincoln's  offer  to  Seward.  Humiliated, 
and  resentful,  Chase  accepted  the  subordinate  position.  But  not 
for  one  moment  did  he  suppose  that  he  was  other  than  the  chief 
figure  in  the  administration. 

What  Chase  thought  of  Lincoln  may  be  inferred  from  a  record 
which  he  made  in  his  diary  after  he  had  been  in  the  Cabinet  for 
a  year  and  a  half.  Chase  asked  Major  General  David  Hunter 
his  opinion  of  Lincoln.  It  was  something  which  he  ought  not 
to  have  done,  but  he  did  it  and  he  recorded  the  answer  in  his 
diary  with  manifest  marks  of  approval.  This  is  the  description 
of  Lincoln  which  General  Hunter  gave,  and  which  Chase  re- 
corded with  evident  agreement: 

A  man  irresolute,  but  of  honest  intentions ;  born  a  poor  white 
in  a  slave  state,  and,  of  course,  among  aristocrats ;  kind  in  spirit 
and  not  envious,  and  anxious  for  approval,  especially  of  those  to 
whom  he  has  been  accustomed  to  look  up — hence  solicitous  of 
support  of  the  slave  owners  in  the  border  states,  and  unwilling 
to  offend  them;  without  the  large  mind  necessary  to  grasp  great 


THE  CABINET  35 

questions,  uncertain  of  himself,  and  in  many  things  ready  to  lean 
too  much  on  others. 

Chase  could  have  forgiven  Lincoln  for  his  weakness  in  lean- 
ing on  others,  if  Chase  himself  had  more  frequently  been  the 
man  on  whom  Lincoln  leaned. 

While  Lincoln's  deference  to  Seward  made  him  cautious  about 
too  much  reliance  upon  Chase,  and  Chase's  own  temperament 
offered  its  further  bar  to  intimacy,  there  was  a  very  real  sense  in 
which  Lincoln's  reliance  upon  Chase  was  great.  Chase  was  not 
primarily  a  financier,  but  he  was  conscientious  and  thorough, 
and  he  mastered  the  work  of  his  office  in  a  way  that  made  him 
indispensable  to  the  country.  Any  war  of  considerable  length 
and  importance  depreciates  the  currency  of  a  country,  and  causes 
the  disappearance  of  silver  and  gold  coin.  Gold,  which  became 
abundant  after  the  discovery  of  the  rich  deposits  in  California, 
disappeared  from  circulation  in  1861,  and  there  came  a  time 
when  it  required  $2.85^  in  paper  money  to  buy  one  dollar  in 
gold.  Silver  also  went  into  hiding.  The  silver  quarters,  dimes, 
half-dimes  and  three  cent  pieces,  which  had  been  abundant,  dis- 
appeared from  circulation.  Change  had  to  be  made  in  postage 
stamps.  As  these  were  certain  to  stick  together  when  carried  in 
the  pocket,  ungummed  stamps  were  issued  to  be  used  as  a  circu- 
lating medium.  These  in  time  gave  place  to  the  "shin-plasters," 
paper  money  on  sheets  measuring  two  to  three  inches,  and  issued 
in  denominations  of  five,  ten,  twenty-five  and  fifty  cents.  Later 
there  issued  three  cent  and  fifteen  cent  "shin-plasters."  These 
solved  for  many  years  the  problem  of  fractional  currency.  But 
there  was  need  for  something  other  than  this,  that  of  national 
bank  notes  to  supply  the  demand  for  a  medium  of  exchange  in 
larger  units.  Salmon  P.  Chase  became  "the  father  of  the  green- 
back," a  direct  promise  to  pay  on  the  part  of  the  United  States, 
and  a  legal  tender  except  for  duties  and  taxes  to  the  United 
States  Government,  which  still  had  to  be  paid  in  coin. 

In  a  very  important  sense  the  greenback  saved  the  country. 


36  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Although  Chase  was  not  primarily  a  financier,  he  was  a  man  of 
recognized  ability  and  of  undoubted  integrity.  The  moneyed 
interests  of  the  country  believed  in  him.  While  his  presence  in 
the  Cabinet  gave  much  discomfort  to  some  of  his  associates  and 
to  Abraham  Lincoln,  Chase  grew  to  be  an  invaluable  man. 

Seward  and  Chase  were  easily  the  leaders  in  Lincoln's  Cabi- 
net as  it  was  first  organized.  Subsequently,  they  were  compelled 
to  share  their  responsibility  with  the  new  secretary  of  war,  Ed- 
win M.  Stanton,  who  comes  later  into  this  narrative.  The  re- 
maining members  of  the  original  Cabinet  call  for  less  extended 
consideration. 

Simon  Cameron,  of  Pennsylvania,  was  thrust  upon  Lincoln's 
administration  by  the  support  of  the  Pennsylvania  delegation 
which  secured  Lincoln's  nomination  in  Chicago  in  i860.  Cam- 
eron accepted  the  position  of  secretary  of  war,  and  his  appoint- 
ment proved  acceptable  to  his  political  friends.  Cameron  is  be- 
lieved to  have  been  personally  honest,  but  some  of  his  friends 
were  not  so ;  and  he  was  in  bad  repute  with  a  large  section  of  his 
own  party  in  his  own  state.  Lincoln  did  not  retain  him  long. 
Cameron  was  furnished  with  a  post  sufficiently  far  beyond  the 
ocean  to  remove  him  from  overmastering  temptation  to  serve  his 
friends  in  the  matter  of  fat  army  contracts. 

Besides  Seward,  Chase  and  Cameron,  a  fourth  member  of 
Lincoln's  Cabinet  had  been  his  opponent  in  the  Chicago  conven- 
tion. Edward  Bates,  whom  Lincoln  appointed  attorney  general, 
was  a  fine,  dignified,  gentlemanly  and  scholarly  lawyer  of  the 
old  school.  In  1847  ne  nad  presided  over  the  River  and  Har- 
bor Convention  in  Chicago.  There  Lincoln  first  met  him,  and 
there  Greeley  also  first  came  to  know  him.  Bates  was  Greeley's 
first  choice  as  a  compromise  candidate  for  the  presidency 
against  Seward,  and  he  believed  that  Bates'  residence  in  Mis- 
souri would  make  him  strong  in  the  border  states.  Though  a 
former  rival  of  Lincoln,  Bates  proved  a  loyal  member  of  the 
Cabinet  and  an  efficient  supporter  of  Lincoln's  administration. 


THE  CABINET  37 

For  secretary  of  the  navy,  Lincoln  appointed  Gideon  Welles, 
a  leading  editor  of  New  England.  Though  inexperienced  in 
naval  matters,  he  conducted  his  department  with  no  little  ability. 
He  was  one  of  Lincoln's  most  loyal  supporters,  as  subsequently 
he  was  a  staunch  defender  of  Andrew  Johnson. 

The  diary  of  Gideon  Welles  is  the  most  intimate  document 
we  possess  in  the  inner  workings  of  the  government  in  Lin- 
coln's administration,  and  shows  us  plainly  the  antagonisms 
which  existed  in  the  Cabinet  and  near  it.  Welles  himself  had 
his  own  very  marked  prejudices.  He  was  a  Democrat,  and  had 
no  love  for  Seward.  Stephen  A.  Douglas  distrusted  Seward, 
and  communicated  his  added  distrust  to  Welles  in  the  short  pe- 
riod in  which  Douglas  was  in  Washington  after  the  beginning  of 
Lincoln's  administration.  Welles  came  to  cherish  a  deep  hos- 
tility toward  Stanton,  and  he  hated  General  Halleck,  but  his  pet 
aversion  was  Senator  John  P.  Hale,  of  Xew  Hampshire,  chair- 
man of  the  Senate  Committee  on  the  Xavy.  Wrelles  found  that 
the  War  Department  was  inclined  to  think  the  Navy  Department 
little  more  than  a  subordinate  branch  of  its  own  sphere  of  influ- 
ence, and  one  to  be  ignored  or  denounced  as  occasion  might  seem 
to  justify. 

Caleb  B.  Smith,  whom  Lincoln  appointed  secretary  of  the  in- 
terior, was  a  prominent  Indiana  politician.  Lincoln  had  known 
him  since  they  had  served  together  in  Congress  in  1847  an(l 
1848.  He  was  a  fair  representative  of  the  sentiment  of  Indi- 
ana, and,  while  one  of  the  less  conspicuous  members  of  the  Cabi- 
net, was  a  faithful  one. 

Montgomery  Blair,  who  accepted  the  office  of  postmaster  gen- 
eral, represented  a  famous  Missouri  family.  His  father,  Francis 
P.  Blair,  Sr.,  had  been  a  prominent  editor  during  Jackson's  ad- 
ministration, and  was  one  of  the  ablest  men  associated  with 
Jackson.  He  was  a  friend  of  Martin  Van  Buren  and  Thomas 
Hart  Benton.    He  was  a  strong  opponent  of  slavery,  and  a  fear- 


38  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

less  man.  His  wise  counsels  and  his  trenchant  pen  had  done 
much  in  building  up  the  party  which  had  now  come  to  power. 
His  two  sons,  Montgomery  and  Francis  P.,  Jr.,  had  opposed 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  had  done  much  to  hold  Missouri 
in  the  Union.  While  the  Blair  family  was  cordially  hated  by 
one  faction  in  Missouri,  it  had  the  unfaltering  loyalty  of  another 
and  influential  faction.  Lincoln  strengthened  his  Cabinet  by  the 
inclusion  in  it  of  a  member  of  this  distinguished  family,  but  did 
not  promote  the  Cabinet's  comfort  thereby. 

Such  was  the  official  family  which  Abraham  Lincoln  gath- 
ered around  him  at  the  beginning  of  his  administration.  It  is 
little  wonder  that  his  selections  caused  his  friends  grave  solici- 
tude. If  Chase  accepted  with  bad  grace  a  position  subordinate 
\o  Seward,  Seward's  friends  with  equally  bad  grace  insisted  that 
Chase  should  have  had  no  place  whatever  in  the  Cabinet.  But 
Lincoln  was  able  to  hold  both  these  men  and  all  the  others, 
through  an  ability  of  leadership  which,  at  the  outset,  few  men 
understood,  and  which  the  Cabinet  itself  came  slowly  and  re- 
luctantly to  recognize. 

On  the  night  of  the  inaugural  ball,  Stephen  Fiske,  then  Wash- 
ington correspondent  of  the  New  York  Herald,  asked  Mr.  Lin- 
coln if  he  had  any  message  to  send  to  James  Gordon  Bennett, 
editor  of  that  paper.  Bennett  was  frankly  antagonistic  to  Lin- 
coln and  his  administration.  "Yes,"  answered  Lincoln,  "you 
may  tell  him  that  Thurlow  Weed  has  found  out  that  Seward  was 
not  nominated  at  Chicago." 

Not  for  some  time  did  the  correspondent  understand  that  this 
was  one  of  Lincoln's  jokes.  It  was  a  very  serious  joke;  it  was 
Lincoln's  declaration  that  he  was  master  of  the  situation.  Thur- 
low Weed,  who  had  been  endeavoring  to  crowd  Chase  out  of  the 
Cabinet,  and  Seward,  who  had  declined  a  secretaryship  on  the 
very  eve  of  the  nomination,  had  both  discovered  that  Weed 
bad  not  succeeded  either  in  the  nomination  or  in  the  control  of 
the  executive. 


THE  CABINET  39 

While  Lincoln  suffered  from  both  Seward  and  Chase,  he 
valued  them  highly.  At  one  time  when  they  resigned  simultane- 
ously, Lincoln  very  skilfully  played  each  against  the  other.  Re- 
membering his  boyhood  experiences  in  carrying  loads  on  horse- 
back, he  said,  "Now  I  can  ride  ahead;  I  have  a  pumpkin  in  each 
end  of  my  sack." 

The  late  lamented  P.  T.  Barnum  had  in  his  menagerie  a  cage 
which  was  the  most  popular  among  those  who  frequented  his 
show,  containing  a  "happy  family."  It  was  composed  of  ani- 
mals of  diverse  disposition  which  had  been  taught  to  live  to- 
gether. Lincoln's  Cabinet  was  something  after  this  sort.  It 
was  not  the  ingenuity  of  the  showman  that  devised  Lincoln's 
"happy  family,"  but  the  skill  of  a  leader  who  gathered  about 
him  men  of  ability  and  character,  with  little  regard  for  their  lik- 
ing for  him  or  one  another,  but  each  of  whom  he  judged  to  be 
capable  of  rendering  to  the  country  a  service.  It  was  his  genius 
and  patience  and  unselfishness  which  taught  these  men  to  live 
and  work  together,  not  always  comfortably,  but  on  the  whole 
effectively. 


CHAPTER  III 


INSIDE    THE    WHITE    HOUSE 


It  has  already  been  recorded  in  this  narrative  that  at  the  close 
of  the  inauguration  services  Mr.  Buchanan  rode  back  with  the 
president  along  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  saw  him  safely  across  the 
White  House  threshold,  bade  him  a  dignified  farewell  and  took 
his  departure.  Other  carriages  promptly  dropped  the  remaining 
members  of  the  president's  family  at  the  White  House  door. 
There  stood  "Old  Edward"  who  had  served  as  doorkeeper 
through  many  administrations.  With  becoming  dignity  he 
opened  the  door  and  in  walked  Abraham  Lincoln.  Mrs.  Lincoln 
and  family  followed  promptly. 

Seventeen  persons  sat  down  to  dinner  in  the  White  House  that 
day,  and  they  were  ready  for  it.  An  unpublished  account  of  the 
dinner  exists  in  the  handwriting  of  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Todd  Grims- 
ley,  Mrs.  Lincoln's  cousin.  Viewing  the  arrangements  with 
feminine  eye,  she  pronounced  them  perfect.  Miss  Harriet  Lane, 
President  Buchanan's  niece  and  housekeeper,  had  organized  a 
good  group  of  servants,  with  chef  and  butler,  and  the  White 
House  was  in  thorough  order.  The  dinner  which  Miss  Lane  had 
caused  to  be  prepared  was  all  that  could  have  been  desired.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  the  boys  and  Mrs.  Lincoln's  relatives  and 
the  few  personal  friends  who  joined  them  ate  with  hearty  ap- 
petite. Then  the  party  separated,  the  women  scattering  to  the 
rooms  assigned,  and  preparing  for  the  inauguration  ball.  Willie 
and  Tad  inspected  the  house  from  the  top  floor  to  the  basement, 
and  within  a  few  hours  had  interviewed  every  servant  and 
watchman  about  the  building;. 


40 


INSIDE  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  41 

A  more  careful  inspection  of  the  executive  mansion  by  the 
women  of  the  party  revealed  the  public  rooms  in  good  condition, 
but  the  family  apartments  more  or  less  shabby.  The  furniture 
was  as  unattractive  as  that  in  the  home  at  Springfield,  and  lacked 
the  simple  comfort  which  that  home  had  possessed. 

It  might  have  been  hoped  that  the  few  remaining  hours  of 
Lincoln's  first  day  in  the  White  House  would  have  been  free 
from  the  encroachments  of  office-seekers.  But  not  only  the 
president,  but  every  member  of  the  family,  male  or  female,  suf- 
fered that  intrusion.  Every  member  of  the  family  had  visits  that 
afternoon  from  total  strangers,  beseeching  him  or  her  to  use  his 
or  her  influence  with  the  president  on  behalf  of  some  applicant 
for.  office.     Mrs.  Grimsley  says : 

The  day  was  not  half  spent  before  the  house  was  full  of  office- 
seekers.  Halls,  corridors,  offices  and  even  private  apartments 
were  invaded.  This  throng  continued  and  increased  for  weeks, 
intercepting  the  President  on  his  way  to  meals;  and,  strange  to 
say,  every  tenth  man  claimed  the  honor  of  having  raised  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  the  Presidency ;  until  he  was  fain  to  exclaim,  "Save 
me  from  my  friends !" 

The  ladies  of  the  family  were  not  exempt  from  marked  atten- 
tion and  flattery ;  but  they  soon  had  their  eyes  open  to  the  fact 
that  almost  every  stranger  that  approached  us  "hoped  we  would 
use  our  influence  with  the  President  in  his  behalf."  And  it  was 
a  hard  matter  to  persuade  them  that  they  would  stand  a  better 
chance  without  interference,  we,  to  quote  Mr.  Lincoln,  having  no 
influence  with  this  administration.* 

The  family  was  not  long  in  learning  that  one  of  the  occupants 
of  the  White  House  was  in  the  employ  of  the  press,  and  that 
even  their  most  unguarded  actions  and  utterances  were  liable  to 
appear  in  print.  What  they  spoke  to  each  other  in  the  ear  was 
shouted  from  the  housetop;  and  it  was  some  time  before  they 
understood  it.     A  new  order  of  journalism  then  known  as  "Jen- 


*Mr.  H.  E.  Barker,  of  Springfield,  permits  me  the  use  of  this  very  inter- 
esting manuscript. 


42  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

kinism"  was  in  vogue.  It  dealt  with  kitchen-gossip  and  back- 
door rumor;  and  its  representatives  were  securely  berthed  in  the 
White  House  from  the  day  of  Lincoln's  arrival. 

The  first  Sunday  in  the  White  House  the  family  attended  the 
New  York  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church,  the  Reverend  Doctor 
Phineas  D.  Gurley,  pastor,  and  this  continued  to  be  the  church 
home  of  the  president  and  his  family  throughout  their  stav  in 
Washington.  Robert  returned  to  Harvard,  but  Willie  and  Tad 
were  regular  members  of  the  New  York  Avenue  Sunday-school. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  believed  in  the  law  of  compensation  as 
applicable  to  all  human  life.  "The  President  pays  well  for  his 
White  House,"  said  the  learned  sage.  Lincoln  began  to  pay 
high  rental  from  the  moment  of  his  occupancy.  Brief,  indeed, 
was  the  period  which  the  Lincoln  family  and  their  immediate 
guests  had  for  the  curious  and  happy  inspection  of  their  new 
home.  Andrew  Jackson  is  credited  with  the  doctrine  that  "to 
the  victors  belong  the  spoils,"  but  it  was  accepted  as  a  good 
political  doctrine  in  Lincoln's  time.  The  changes  at  the  begin- 
ning of  Lincoln's  administration  were  greater  than  at  the  be- 
ginning of  Jackson's  regime.* 

The  first  social  clash  was  between  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  Mr. 
Seward.  The  latter  indicated  that  he  thought  it  proper  for  the 
secretary  of  state  to  give  the  first  official  reception  of  the  new 
administration.  He  failed  to  reckon  with  the  ambition  of  Mrs. 
Lincoln.  The  first  official  reception  was  given  on  Friday  eve- 
ning, March  eighth,  at  the  White  House.  It  was  a  jam.  Long 
before  it  wTas  over  the  president  and  his  official  family  were 
weary,  and  it  was  a  relief  when  the  Marine  Band  played  Yankee 
Doodle  as  a  signal  that  it  was  to  end. 

The  first  state  dinner,  given  March  twenty-eighth,  wTas  not  a 
very  gay  affair.  Few  of  the  Cabinet  ladies  were  in  Washington. 
Secretary  Seward's  home  was  presided  over  by  his  daughter-in- 

*Claude  G.  Bowers  says  of  Jackson's  political  changes,  "There  was  no 
such  massacre  as  followed  the  election  of  Lincoln."  Party  Battles  of  the 
Jackson  Period,  p.  72 


INSIDE  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  43 

law ;  Secretary  Chase's  brilliant  daughter,  Kate,  afterward  the 
wife  of  Governor  Sprague,  of  Rhode  Island,  was  not  yet  in 
Washington,  and  some  of  the  other  Cabinet  members  had  not 
yet  brought  their  families.  The  men  were  stiff  and  formal  and 
unused  to  one  another. 

The  first  diplomatic  reception  was  distinctly  cold.  The  foreign 
legations  were  not  out  in  full  force,  nor  did  they  come  in  a  body 
as  their  custom  had  been,  nor  were  they  any  too  cordial.  Lord 
Lyons  of  England  was  dignified  and  distant,  and  the  French 
minister,  Mercier,  stayed  away  altogether. 

Washington  was  in  a  state  of  social  disintegration.  The  old- 
est, proudest  families  were  daily  departing;  and  among  those 
who  remained  there  was  an  atmosphere  of  suspicion  and  uncer- 
tainty. No  one  knew  whom  to  trust.  Xo  one  knew  who  next 
would  be  missing.  Some  of  Airs.  Lincoln's  relatives  called  for 
a  none  too  cordial  farewell  before  they  left  Washington  to  join 
the  Confederacy.  Deserted,  misrepresented,  and  thrust  into  a 
situation  for  which  she  had  no  adequate  training,  it  is  little  won- 
der that  Airs.  Lincoln  was  not  always  at  her  best. 

Among  the  residents  of  the  White  House  in  those  early  days 
was  John  Hay.  He  kept  a  diary  portions  of  which  have  been 
printed  but  not  published,  and  in  which  as  printed  important 
names  are  thinly  disguised  by  the  use  of  initials.  His  pet  names 
for  Lincoln  were  the  "Chief,"  the  "Ancient,"  the  "Tycoon." 
He  describes  the  president  sitting  in  most  undignified  attire, 
loafing  and  lounging  in  his  hours  of  ease,  and  sometimes  rising 
in  the  night  to  walk  around  the  offices  and  hunt  up  a  paper, 
wearing  a  costume  consisting  only  of  a  shirt,  or  in  colder  weath- 
er of  an  overcoat  slipped  on  over  his  shirt.  He  tells  of  Lincoln's 
rising  from  bed  and  coming  in  at  night  where  his  secretaries 
were  still  sitting  up,  and  reading  with  great  gusto  to  them  an 
Smusing  paragraph.  His  descriptions  bear  upon  their  faces  the 
indisputable  evidence  of  accuracy.  But  while  Hay  exhibits 
these  intimate  snapshots  of  the  president  at  close  range,  it  is  in- 
teresting to  note  how  his  reverence  for  Lincoln  grew,  and  his 


44  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

appreciation  of  Lincoln's  real  greatness   was  unmarred  by  his 
sense  of  the  ludicrous  in  much  that  Lincoln  said  and  did. 

In  1866,  Mr.  Hay,  then  a  member  of  the  United  States  Lega- 
tion in  Paris,  wrote  this  account  of  Lincoln's  life  in  the  White 
House  :* 

Lincoln  went  to  bed  ordinarily  from  ten  to  eleven  o'clock,  un- 
less he  happened  to  be  kept  up  by  important  news,  in  which  case 
he  would  frequently  remain  at  the  War  Department  until  one  or 
two.  He  rose  early.  When  he  lived  in  the  country  at  the  Sol- 
diers' Home  he  would  be  up  and  dressed,  eat  his  breakfast 
(which  was  extremely  frugal,  an  egg,  a  piece  of  toast,  coffee, 
etc.),  and  ride  into  Washington,  all  before  eight  o'clock.  In  the 
winter,  at  the  White  House,  he  was  not  quite  so  early.  He  did 
not  sleep  well,  but  spent  a  good  while  in  bed.  Tad  usually  slept 
with  him.  He  would  lie  around  the  office  until  he  fell  asleep, 
and  Lincoln  would  shoulder  him  and  take  him  off  to  bed.  He 
pretended  to  begin  business  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  but  in 
reality  the  ante-rooms  and  halls  were  full  long  before  that  hour 
— people  anxious  to  get  the  first  axe  ground.  He  was  extreme- 
ly unmethodical ;  it  was  a  four  years  struggle  on  Nicolay's  part 
and  mine  to  get  him  to  adopt  some  systematic  rules.  He  would 
break  through  every  regulation  as  fast  as  it  was  made.  Any- 
thing that  kept  the  people  away  from  him  he  disapproved,  al- 
though they  nearly  annoyed  the  life  out  of  him  by  unreasonable 
complaints  and  requests.  He  wrote  very  few  letters  and  did  not 
read  one  in  fifty  that  he  received.  At  first  we  tried  to  bring 
them  to  his  notice,  but  at  last  he  gave  the  whole  thing  over  to 
me,  and  signed,  without  reading  them,  the  letters  I  wrote  in  his 
name.  He  wrote  perhaps  half  a  dozen  a  week  himself — not 
more. 

Nicolay  received  Members  of  Congress  and  other  visitors  who 
had  business  with  the  Executive  Office,  communicated  to  the 
Senate  and  House  the  messages  of  the  President,  and  exercised 
a  general  supervision  over  the  business.  I  opened  and  read  the 
letters,  answered  them,  looked  over  the  newspapers,  supervised 
the  clerks  who  kept  the  records,  and  in  Nicolay's  absence  did  his 
work  also.  When  the  President  had  any  rather  delicate  matter 
to  manage  at  a  distance  from  Washington,  he  rarely  wrote,  but 


*Herndon's  Lincoln,  iii,  pp.  514-517. 


INSIDE  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  45 

sent  Nicolay  or  me.  The  house  remained  full  of  people  nearly 
all  day.  At  noon  the  President  took  a  little  lunch,  a  biscuit,  a 
glass  of  milk  in  winter,  some  fruit  or  grapes  in  summer.  He 
dined  between  five  and  six,  and  we  went  off  to  our  dinner  also. 
Before  dinner  was  over,  members  and  senators  would  come  back 
and  take  up  the  whole  evening.  Sometimes,  though  rarely,  he 
shut  himself  up  and  would  see  no  one.  Sometimes  he  would  run 
away  to  a  lecture,  or  concert,  or  theater  for  the  sake  of  a  little 
rest.  He  was  very  abstemious,  ate  less  than  any  man  I  know. 
He  drank  nothing  but  water,  not  from  principle,  but  because  he 
did  not  like  wine  or  spirits.  Once,  in  rather  dark  days  early  in 
the  war,  a  temperance  committee  came  to  him  and  said  that  the 
reason  we  did  not  win  was  because  our  army  drank  so  much 
whiskey  as  to  bring  the  curse  of  the  Lord  upon  them.  He  said 
it  was  rather  unfair  on  the  part  of  the  aforesaid  curse,  as  the 
other  side  drank  more  and  worse  whiskey  than  ours  did.  He 
read  very  little.  He  scarcely  ever  looked  into  a  newspaper  un- 
less I  called  his  attention  to  an  article  on  some  special  subject. 
He  frequently  said,  "I  know  more  about  it  than  any  of  them." 
It  is  absurd  to  call  him  a  modest  man.  No  great  man  was  ever 
modest.  It  was  his  intellectual  arrogance  and  unconscious  as- 
sumption of  superiority  that  men  like  Chase  and  Sumner  never 
could  forgive.  I  believe  that  Lincoln  is  well  understood  by  the 
people ;  but  there  is  a  patent-leather,  kid-glove  set  who  know  no 
more  of  him  than  an  owl  does  of  a  comet  blazing  into  his  blink- 
ing eyes.  Their  estimates  of  him  are  in  many  cases  disgraceful 
exhibitions  of  ignorance  and  prejudice.  Their  effeminate  na- 
tures shrink  instinctively  from  the  contact  of  a  great  reality  like 
Lincoln's  character.  I  consider  Lincoln  republicanism  incarnate, 
with  all  its  faults  and  all  its  virtues.  As,  in  spite  of  some  rude- 
ness, republicanism  is  the  sole  hope  of  a  sick  world,  so  Lincoln 
with  all  his  foibles,  is  the  greatest  character  since  Christ'. 

A  feeling  of  danger  was  in  the  air  when  Lincoln  and  his  fam- 
ily first  became  the  inhabitants  of  the  White  House.  General 
Scott  insisted  on  placing  guards  about  the  house,  much  to  Lin- 
coln's dissatisfaction.  One  night  soon  after  their  arrival  the 
whole  family  except  the  servants  was  taken  ill.  Physicians  were 
hastily  summoned,  and  there  was  for  a  time  a  belief  that  the 
president  and  his  family  had  been  poisoned.     It  proved,  how- 


46  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ever,  that  the  family  had  indulged  too  freely  in  a  dish  which 
they  were   enjoying  for  the  first  time,   "Potomac  shad." 

On  May  26,  1861,  a  funeral  was  held  in  the  East  Room  of 
the  White  House.  Colonel  Elmer  Ellsworth,  who  was  virtu- 
ally a  resident  of  Lincoln's  household,  a  young  man  whom  Lin- 
coln had  known  and  loved  in  Springfield  and  who  had  come 
east  on  the  same  train  with  Lincoln,  had  fallen  a  martyr  to  his 
rash  zeal  in  hauling  down  a  Confederate  flag  in  Alexandria. 

On  June  third,  the  White  House  was  draped  in  mourning  for 
the  second  time  in  three  months.  This  was  for  the  death  of 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.  He  had  been  Lincoln's  rival  in  politics  for 
years,  and  also  in  early  days  his  rival  in  love,  but  the  two  men 
entertained  a  genuine  respect  for  each  other.  Douglas  was  be- 
lieved to  have  brought  on  his  last  illness  by  his  overwork  in 
his  endeavor  to  hold  his  former  associates  in  the  Democratic 
Party  to  loyalty  for  the  Union.  He  had  gone  west  on  a  speak- 
ing campaign  and  Lincoln  trusted  his  good  faith  and  regarded 
him  with  genuine  personal  affection.  Lincoln  had  supplanted 
him  in  love  and  in  politics,  and  Douglas  had  risen  above  all  petty 
considerations  to  support  Lincoln  and  the  Union.  Lincoln  re- 
garded his  death  as  a  deep  personal  sorrow,  and  draped  the 
White  House  in  his  memory. 

The  death  of  'Colonel  Edward  D.  Baker,  at  the  Battle  of  Ball's 
Bluff,  October  twenty-first,  was  felt  at  the  White  House  as  an- 
other intimate  and  personal  sorrow. 

Not  many  days  after  the  Lincoln  family  had  established  itself 
in  the  White  House,  Lincoln  gathered  at  breakfast  a  group  of 
his  old  Illinois  friends,  including  Judge  David  Davis,  Colonel 
Lamon,  Major  Wallace  and  other  friends.  Mrs.  Grimsley  re- 
corded an  incident  of  this  breakfast  which  is  worth  preserving  as 
a  side-light  on  the  relations  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  his  wife. 
One  of  the  lawyers  told  of  a  hotel  at  Tremont,  in  Tazewell 
County,  where  the  lawyers  were  accustomed  to  stop  during  court 
week,  whose  landlady  was  particularly  partial  to  Lincoln  and  to 
Major  Stuart.   Stuart  was  a  handsome  man  in  comfortable  flesh, 


INSIDE  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  47 

and  Lincoln,  then,  as  always,  shrunken  and  cadaverous.  The 
landlady  said,  "Air.  Stuart,  how  fine  and  pert  you  do  look!  But 
Mr.  Lincoln,  whatever  have  you  been  doing?  You  do  look  pow- 
erful weak."  Lincoln  mournfully  replied,  "Nothing  out  of  the 
common,  ma'am,  but  did  you  ever  see  Stuart's  wife,  or  did  you 
ever  see  mine  ?  Whoever  marries  into  the  Todd  family  gets  the 
worst  of  it." 

Major  Wallace  also  had  married  into  the  Todd  family,  being 
a  brother-in-law  of  Lincoln,  and  was  the  only  portly  man  at  the 
table.  This  story,  told  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
and  of  Mrs.  Grimsley  who  was  also  a  Todd,  brought  on  a  gener- 
al and  merry  discussion  of  the  alleged  domestic  sorrows  of  the 
men  who  had  married  into  the  Todd  family,  all  of  whom  as  it 
appeared  were  none  the  worse  but  rather  the  better  for  it. 

The  significance  of  a  trivial  incident  such  as  this,  lies  in  the 
fact  that  such  a  story  could  be  told  at  the  Lincoln  table  and  be 
enjoyed  by  both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln.  Their  friends  could  not 
have  indulged  in  that  degree  of  familiarity  if  they  had  not  known 
that  it  would  not  give  offense. 

The  elevation  of  Lincoln  to  power  did  not  wean  him  from  his 
old  friendships.  During  the  days  when  he  was  bearing  heavy 
burdens  in  the  presidential  office,  it  was  a  joy  to  him  to  welcome 
some  old  comrade  of  former  days  from  Illinois.  Honorable 
Isaac  N.  Arnold,  who  was  in  Washington  during  this  period, 
and  a  habitual  visitor  to  the  White  House,  thus  speaks  of  Lin- 
coln's attachment  to  his  old  friends : 

There  was  something  very  beautiful  and  touching  in  the  at- 
tachment and  fidelity  of  these  his  old  Illinois  comrades  to  Lin- 
coln. They  had  all  been  pioneers,  frontiersmen,  circuit-riders 
together.  They  wrere  never  so  happy  as  when  talking  over  old 
times,  and  recalling  the  rough  experiences  of  their  early  lives. 
Had  they  met  in  Washington  in  calm  and  peaceful  weather,  on 
sunny  days,  they  would  have  kept  up  their  party  differences  as 
they  did  at  home,  but  coming  together  in  the  midst  of  the  fierce 
storms  of  civil  war,  and  in  the  hour  of  supreme  peril,  they  stood 


48  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

together  like  a  band  of  brothers.  Not  one  of  them  would  see  an 
old  comrade  in  difficulty  or  danger,  and  not  help  him  out.  The 
memory  of  these  old  Illinois  lawyers  and  statesmen :  Baker,  Mc- 
Dougall,  Trumbull,  Lovejoy,  Washburne,  Browning,  and  others, 
recalls  a  passage  in  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne.  Speaking  of 
Massachusetts  and  South  Carolina,  the  great  New  England  or- 
ator said :  "Shoulder  to  shoulder  they  went  through  the  Revolu- 
tion together;  hand  in  hand  they  stood  around  the  administra- 
tion of  Washington,  and  felt  his  own  great  arm  lean  on  them 
for  support." 

So,  in  the  far  more  difficult  administration  of  Lincoln,  these 
old  comrades  of  his,  Baker,  McDougalh  Trumbull,  Browning, 
Lovejoy,  and  the  others,  whatever  their  former  differences,  stood 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  and  hand  in  hand,  around  the  administra- 
tion of  Lincoln  ;  his  strong  arm  leaned  on  them  for  support,  and 
that  support  was  given  vigorously  and  with  unwavering  loy- 
alty.* 

The  narrative  of  Mrs.  Grimsley  records  the  extreme  anxiety 
of  the  White  House  family  when  battles  went  against  the  Union 
cause.  She  also  states  that  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  General 
Scott  advised  the  president  to  take  his  family  to  Philadelphia  for 
a  few  weeks,  believing  the  capital  itself  to  be  in  danger.  Lincoln 
positively  refused  to  go,  but  told  Mrs.  Lincoln  of  General  Scott's 
advice  and  suggested  that  she  should  go  and  take  the  boys.  This 
she  emphatically  refused  to  do.  If  her  husband  was  in  peril  she 
would  remain  with  him  and  share  that  peril. 

The  president  had  occasion  to  remind  his  wife's  cousin  at  least 
once  of  her  need  to  be  cautious  on  account  of  her  southern  rela- 
tives. Mrs.  Grimsley  announced  her  intention  of  accompanying 
a  party  of  friends  to  Mount  Vernon,  along  the  road  unguarded 
against  Confederate  incursion. 

"Mr.  Lincoln  rose  from  his  chair,  looked  at  me  silently  an 
instant,  as  was  his  wont,  then  said  gently,  as  was  his  habit  in 
speaking  to  women,  'Cousin  Lizzie,  have  you  taken  leave  of  your 
senses?     Can  you  compute  the  amount  of  trouble  in  which  you 

*Arnold:  Life  of  Lincoln,  pp.  240-241. 


INSIDE  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  49 

would  involve  General  Scott  and  myself  if  a  member  of  my  fam- 
ily should  be  captured  ?  And  the  enemy  would  be  only  too  glad 
to  get  you  in  their  clutches,  particularly  your  cousin  David 
Todd,  now  in  charge  of  the  Rebel  prison  in  Richmond.'  ' 

Lincoln's  family  knew  of  the  burden  which  he  bore  in  the 
matter  of  men  condemned  to  death.  Lincoln  gave  orders  to  his 
doorkeeper  that  no  one  who  came  to  intercede  on  behalf  of  a 
condemned  person  should  be  turned  away  until  the  president  had 
given  the  matter  a  personal  investigation.  He  said  to  his  family, 
"It  makes  me  feel  rested  after  a  hard  day's  work,  if  I  can  find 
some  good  excuse  to  save  a  man's  life." 

Lincoln  looked  with  little  favor  upon  the  efforts  made  by  in- 
numerable people  to  secure  office  by  appealing  to  Mrs.  Lincoln 
or  to  other  occupants  of  the  White  House.  Colonel  H.  C.Huide- 
koper,  who  was  in  Harvard  during  the  early  part  of  the  war,  and 
who  knew  Robert  Lincoln  while  a  student  there,  tells  of  a  fight 
for  the  Cambridge  post-office  in  which  the  friends  of  a  particu- 
lar candidate  succeeded  in  interesting  more  or  less  the  president's 
son  Robert.  At  the  earnest  solicitation  of  these  friends  Robert 
wrote  a  letter  to  his  father,  who  replied : 

"If  you  do  not  attend  to  your  studies  and  let  matters  such  as 
you  write  about  alone,  I  will  take  you  away  from  college." 

Robert  very  wisely  preserved  this  letter  and  made  good  use  of 
it.  When  after  that  any  one  attempted  to  secure  his  influence 
in  favor  of  any  candidate  Robert  produced  the  letter  and  it 
proved  to  be  an  effective  protection. 

Mrs.  Lincoln,  also,  found  occasion  to  protect  herself  against 
the  importunity  of  office-seekers.  She  instructed  the  president's 
secretaries  to  open  her  mail  as  well  as  that  of  the  president,  in 
order  to  give  her  some  measure  of  relief  from  distressing  and 
often  non-meritorious  appeals.  It  is  pathetic  to  remember  also 
another  reason  why  she  came  to  desire  her  mail  to  be  opened. 
She  wanted  the  president's  secretaries  to  be  able  to  testify  that 


50  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

she  had  no  secret  correspondence,  through  her  relatives  or  other- 
wise, with  any  one  in  rebellion  against  her  country.  The  presi- 
dent's secretaries,  who  had  thus  thrust  upon  them  the  duty  of 
reading  Mrs.  Lincoln's  correspondence,  were  of  those  who  bore 
strongest  testimony  to  her  loyalty  to  her  husband  and  the  Union. 

The  editors  of  the  country  did  not  leave  Mr.  Lincoln  lacking 
in  instruction.  They  wrote  long  editorials  for  his  guidance, 
and  sent  marked  copies  of  the  papers  to  the  White  House. 
The  president,  always  deeply  interested  in  public  opinion,  at  first 
endeavored  to  read  all  these  editorials.  Finding  this  a  physical 
impossibility,  he  directed  that  they  should  be  read  and  briefed 
and  arranged  for  his  perusal.  After  about  two  weeks,  however, 
he  discovered  that  even  this  was  impossible.  And  he  gave  up 
all  attempt  to  keep  up  with  the  newspapers  except  a  few  of  the 
dailies  of  different  political  faiths  in  the  more  important  cities. 

One  of  the  president's  perplexities  grew  out  of  the  demand 
tor  appointments  of  chaplains.  Not  a  few  ministers,  weary  of 
the  more  or  less  monotonous  and  exacting  demands  of  their 
parishes,  and  others  who  had  no  pulpits  and  perhaps  did  not  de- 
serve them,  were  very  eager  to  look  after  the  spiritual  welfare  of 
the  soldiers,  some  of  them  being  especially  desirous  of  being  at- 
tached to  the  more  or  less  permanent  posts  and  cantonments.  Mr. 
Stoddard  says  that  Lincoln  had  very  little  respect  for  these 
"loose-footed  ministers."  He  had  very  little  inclination  to  dis- 
turb himself  in  the  effort  to  provide  office  or  emolument  for 
these  men  who  were  "anxious  for  the  rank  and  pay  of  religious 
majors  without  the  toil  and  exposure  and  peril  of  keeping  com- 
pany with  a  regiment  in  the  field." 

Nevertheless,  Lincoln  sometimes  found  himself  under  the 
pressure  of  influential  friends  on  behalf  of  some  of  these  men. 
In  the  case  of  one  such  man  he  sent  to  Stanton  the  papers  of 
recommendation  endorsed,  "Appoint  this  man  chaplain."  Stan- 
ton returned  them  with  the  endorsement,  "He  is  not  a  preacher." 
A  few  days  later  Lincoln  returned  the  papers,  with  the  endorse- 
ment, "He  is  now."     Stanton  replied,  "There  is  no  vacancy/5 


INSIDE  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  51 

Lincoln  concluded  "Appoint  him  anyway."  And  so,  presum- 
ably, he  was  appointed. 

Mrs.  Grimsley  affirmed  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  the  other 
women  of  the  White  House  never  made  but  one  attempt,  and 
that  a  successful  one,  to  influence  the  president  concerning  a 
political  appointment.  Their  former  pastor,  the  Reverend  James 
Smith,  had  grown  old  and  had  retired  from  the  active  ministry. 
His  son  had  been  United  States  Consul  at  Dundee,  Scotland, 
and  had  died  there.  Mrs.  Lincoln  earnestly  desired  that  Doctor 
Smith  be  permitted  to  succeed  his  son.  He  was  abundantly 
competent  to  care  for  the  not  very  arduous  duties  of  the  con- 
sulate, and  the  salary,  while  small,  was  enough  to  assure  him 
of  a  support.  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  her  cousins  vowed  that  if  Lin- 
coln would  grant  them  this  one  favor,  they  would  never  again 
ask  him  to  appoint  any  friend  of  theirs  to  any  office.  It  was 
not  very  difficult  for  them  to  secure  the  granting  of  their  re- 
quest. Lincoln  honored  Doctor  Smith,  and  quite  probably 
would  have  done  the  very  thing  they  asked  even  if  they  had  not 
requested  it.  But  he  received  the  delegation  with  all  proper  dig- 
nity, and  after  having  made  his  protest  against  being  coerced  in 
matters  of  this  character  by  members  of  his  own  household,  he 
Aery  cheerfully  made  the  appointment. 

Notwithstanding  wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  there  was  some- 
thing of  home  life  in  the  White  House.  The  Lincoln  boys  were 
constantly  making  new  friends  and  new  discoveries,  and  their 
daily  chatter  and  gossip  kept  things  alive,  and  Lincoln  was 
not  always  sad  or  cast  down.  His  ability  to  be  natural  and  even 
mirthful  when  things  were  at  their  worst  was  a  quality  of  sav- 
ing value.  Sometimes  the  boys  were  sick,  and  Lincoln  was  anx- 
ious and  Mrs.  Lincoln  almost  hysterical.  She  was  too  nervous 
and  excitable  a  mother  to  be  a  good  nurse,  but  she  loved  her 
children  devotedly. 

Once,  Lincoln  was  sick.  The  Lincoln  boys,  visiting  the  sol- 
diers, encountered  small-pox,  and  the  president  himself  had  a 
mild  attack  of  it.     They  called  it  varioloid,  and  the  White  House 


52  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

was  not  quarantined.  If  the  infectious  nature  of  the  president's 
illness  kept  any  office-seeker  away,  the  fact  is  not  of  record. 
''Come  in,"  said  Lincoln  cheerfully,  "I  have  something  now  that 
I  can  give  everybody,," 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  HOUSE  DIVIDED 


If  wars  must  be  it  ought  at  least  to  be  clear  precisely  what  the 
fighting  is  about.  The  bewilderment  of  the  little  boy  in  South- 
er's poem,  and  the  inability  of  his  grandfather  to  explain  the 
situation  intelligibly,  has  been  shared  by  historians  since  time 
began.     Little  Peterkin  asks  : 

"Pray  tell  us  all  about  the  war, 

And  what  they  fought  each  other  for?" 

The  historian  is  hard  put  to  it  to  answer  this  wholly  reason- 
able, but  always  disconcerting  inquiry: 

"It  was  the  English,"  Caspar  cried, 

"Who  put  the  French  to  rout, 
But  what  they  fought  each  other  for, 

I  could  not  well  make  out. 
But  everybody  said,"  quoth  he: 
"That  'twas  a  famous  victory." 

It  is  not  easy  even  yet  to  reach  entire  agreement  concerning 
the  cause  of  America's  Civil  War. 

A  very  simple  answer  from  the  southern  point  of  view  is  that 
the  United  States  was  not  organized  as  a  nation,  but  a  confed- 
eracy ;  that  the  states  united  in  creating  it  by  voluntary  consent, 
and  that  some  of  them  at  the  time  expressly  reserved  the  power 
and  full  right  of  withdrawal.  Jefferson  Davis,  in  his  History  of 
the  Confederate  States,  reminded  his  readers  that  not  only  Vir- 

53 


54  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ginia,  but  New  York  and  Rhode  Island,  in  ratifying  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  expressly  reserved  the  right  of  se- 
cession.* 

Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Vice-President  of  the  Confederacy, 
wrote  a  history  in  two  volumes  of  what  he  called  The  War  Be- 
tzveen  the  States.  Stephens  had  been  so  earnest  a  defender  of 
the  Union  that  Lincoln  at  one  time  had  serious  thought  of  in- 
viting him  to  be  a  member  of  his  Cabinet,  remembering  his  great 
admiration  for  Stephens,  when  Lincoln  himself  was  a  member 
of  Congress. 

Stephens,  whose  book  was  published  in  1868,  dedicated  it  "To 
all  true  friends  of  the  Union  under  the  Constitution."  He  be- 
lieved, however,  that  that  Constitution  provided  only  for  a  fed- 
eration based  upon  the  common  consent  of  the  states  uniting, 
and  that  any  state  could  terminate  its  own  union  with  the  other 
states  whenever  it  chose. 

The  doctrine  of  the  right  of  secession  was  not  confined  to  the 
South.  Extreme  abolitionists,  like  William  Lloyd  Garrison  and 
Wendell  Phillips,  insistently  denounced  the  Union,  and  believed 
that  the  free  states  had  a  right  to  secede  from  the  states  that 
held  slaves.  It  would  thus  be  a  grave  mistake  to  assume  that 
all  believers  in  secession  were  also  believers  in  slavery.  This  is 
an  assumption  upon  which  many  authors  have  mistakenly  in- 
sisted. 

Andrew  Jackson  firmly  believed  that  no  state  had  a  right  to 
nullify  an  act  of  the  general  government,  or  to  withdraw  from 
the  Lmion.  Jackson  died  regretting  that  he  had  never  been 
able  to  shoot  Henry  Clay  or  to  hang  Calhoun. t 

It  has  been  said  with  good  reason  that  the  federal  idea,  that  of 
the  union  of  sovereign  states  in.  the  more  inclusive  unity  of  a 
nation  is  the  greatest  contribution  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  to 


*Mr.  Davis  devotes  a  short  chapter  to  this  subject  and  earnestly  endeavors 
to  refute  the  application  of  any  such  terms  as  rebellion  or  treason  as  applied 
to  the  secession  of  the  slave  states.     See  his  History,  pp.  50,  52. 

tClaude  G.  Bowers'  Party  Battles  of  the  Jackson  Period,  p.  480. 


THE  HOUSE  DIVIDED  55 

the  science  and  practise  of  government.*  At  the  time  of  the 
signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  the  idea  of  a  gov- 
ernment in  which  the  powers  of  a  state  were  to  be  divided  be- 
tween the  component  units  and  the  general  authority  of  the  na- 
tion, was  practically  unknown.  The  men  who  established  the 
American  colonies  stood  in  fear  of  a  strong  government,  and 
held  in  general  to  the  theory  that  that  government  was  best 
which  governed  least.  The  progress  of  the  Revolutionary  War 
demonstrated  the  necessity  for  a  stronger  government  than  the 
Articles  of  Federation  provided  for.  The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  was  construed  from  the  beginning  as  a  grant  of 
power  to,  and  not  as  a  limitation  upon  powers  inherent  in,  a 
federal  state. 

After  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  proposals  of  nullifi- 
cation or  secession  based  upon  doctrine  of  States' Rights,  were 
evoked  perhaps  as  frequently  in  the  North  as  in  the  South.  The 
Whisky  Rebellion  in  Pennsylvania  in  1795,  and  the  Hartford 
Convention  in  New  England  in  18 14,  were  based  upon  as  radical 
a  conception  of  state  sovereignty  as  the  Kentucky  Resolutions 
of  1799,  of  which  Thomas  Jefferson  subsequently  acknowledged 
himself  to  be  the  author.  In  1825  the  state  of  Georgia  forcibly 
prevented  the  execution  of  federal  laws  and  Alabama  pursued 
a  similar  course  in  1832.  In  that  same  year  the  state  of  South 
Carolina,  led  by  John  C.  Calhoun,  set  forth  in  its  baldest  form 
the  theory  of  the  right  of  a  state  to  nullify  the  acts  of  the 
general  government. 

On  the  other  hand  fourteen  northern  states  in  the  decade  be- 
fore the  Civil  War  took  action  to  prevent  the  enforcement  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  law  in  acts  known  as  Personal  Liberty  laws, 
which  made  it  a  crime  to  enforce  within  the  state  a  particular 
statute  of  the  nation. 

The   Civil   War   settled,    and   we   hope    forever,    the   question 


*See  an  interesting  and  valuable  article  by  Honorable  Marvin  B.  Rosen- 
berry,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Wisconsin,  in  the  North  American  Review 
for  August,  1923.     I  summarize  here  some  of  the  conclusions  of  that  article. 


56  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

whether  the  United  States  was  one  nation  or  several  nations;  but 
the  process  by  which  the  federal  idea  came  to  national  recogni- 
tion did  not  end  with  the  surrender  of  Lee's  Army  at  Appo- 
mattox. That  process  has  been  continuous  and  is  not  yet  at  an 
end. 

Daniel  Webster  held  to  the  basic  unity  of  the  United  States 
as  something  in  its  very  nature  indissoluble.  Lincoln  fully  ac- 
cepted Webster's  position.  He  believed  that  the  Union  could 
not  be  broken  up  by  the  act  of  any  single  state,  nor  by  any 
group  of  states  acting  without  the  consent  of  all  the  rest. 

Thus  it  might  seem  that  the  question  concerning  the  origin  of 
the  war  was  a  very  easy  one  to  answer.  The  South  believed, 
and  very  many  men  in  the  North  admitted,  the  right  of  a  state 
to  secede.  The  South  asserted  that  right ;  the  North  opposed  it 
with  force  and  arms.  The  North  won  the  war,  and  that  settled 
the  question  so  far  as  war  can  ever  settle  a  question  of  this 
character. 

This,  however,  is  far  from  being  a  satisfactory  solution  of 
the  problem.  Admitting  that  the  South  believed  that  individual 
states  had  a  right  to  secede,  why  did  they  care  to  exercise  that 
right?  Surely,  the  fact  that  the  political  parties  then  in  the 
majority  in  those  states  had  been  defeated  in  an  honest  election 
was  not  an  adequate  reason  for  the  disruption  of  the  Union. 

Alexander  H.  Stephens'  love  for  the  Union  has  already  been 
mentioned.  In  1861  he  spoke  concerning  the  Constitution  of 
the  Confederate  States  of  America,  and  said: 

The  new  Constitution  has  put  at  rest  forever  all  the  agitating 
questions  relating  to  our  peculiar  institution,  African  slavery. 
This  was  the  immediate  cause  of  the  late  rupture,  and  present 
revolution.  The  prevailing  ideas  entertained  by  Jefferson,  and 
most  of  the  leading  statesmen  at  the  time  of  the  old  constitution 
were  that  the  enslavement  of  the  African  was  wrong  in  prin- 
ciple, socially,  morally,  and  politically.  Our  new  government  is 
founded  upon  exactly  the  opposite  idea ;  its  foundations  are  laid, 
its  corner  stone  rests,  upon  the  great  truth  that  the  negro  is  not 


THE  HOUSE  DIVIDED  57 

the  equal  of  the  white  man  ;  that  slavery — subordination  to  the 
white  man — is  his  natural  and  normal  condition.  This,  our  new 
government,  is  the  first  in  the  history  of  the  world  based  upon 
this  great  physical,  philosophical,  and  moral  truth. 

Abraham  Lincoln  declared  at  Gettysburg  that  the  nation 
which  began  with  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  con- 
ceived in  liberty  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men 
were  equal.  He  and  Alexander  H.  Stephens  would  have  agreed 
that  the  war  was  fought  to  determine  whether  that  affirmation 
was  correct. 

For  a  very  long  time  the  leaders  who  believed  in  the  moral 
righteousness  and  political  expediency  of  slavery  had  been  ap- 
prehensive that  their  power  was  destined  to  fail.  The  westward 
expansion  of  the  country,  though  maintained  for  a  considerable 
time  with  a  balance  of  power  secured  by  the  admission  of  one 
free  state  for  each  slave  state,  could  not  permanently  establish 
that  ratio.  The  success  of  the  Mexican  AYar  in  securing  new 
territory  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  was  destined  to  be 
more  than  offset  by  the  entrance  of  California  and  Kansas  into 
the  Union  as  free  states,  and  the  opening  of  newr  free  territories 
in  the  West  and  Northwest.  How  to  hold  for  slavery  an  ade- 
quate part  of  the  new  area  of  the  nation,  was  a  perplexing  politi- 
cal question.  On  this  the  Democratic  Party  itself  was  divided. 
Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  the  man  who  elected  Abraham  Lin- 
coln president.  He  who  protested  against  Lincoln's  declaration 
that  a  house  divided  against  itself  could  not  stand,  was  himself 
living  in  a  divided  house,  the  Democratic  Party,  and  his  foes 
were  they  of  his  own  household. 

The  census  of  i860  showed  a  total  population  in  the  United 
States  of  31,453.790.  Of  this  the  slave  states  had  12,315,372, 
and  the  free  states  19,128,418.  A  large  part  of  the  population 
of  the  slave  states,  however,  was  in  the  border  states,  some  of 
which  did  not  secede.  The  seceded  states  stretched  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  extreme  western  point  of  Texas,  and  from  the 

Gulf  of  Mexico  north  nearly  to  the  old  dividing  line  of  36°  30', 

21 


58  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

with  Virginia  lying  north  of  that  line  and  carrying  the  north- 
ern boundary  of  the  Confederacy  to  the  very  gates  of  the  capi- 
tal city.  A  comparison  of  the  census  of  i860  with  that  of 
1850  showed  an  increase  of  more  than  one-third  in  population, 
with  a  growing  proportion  of  that  increase  in  the  free  states. 
The  United  States  at  that  time  led  all  nations  in  agriculture, 
the  cotton  crops  being  one  of  the  country's  most  important  pro- 
ducts and  one  of  the  leading  exports.  Manufacturers  were  in- 
creasing. Railroads  had  been  extended  until  there  was  a  total 
mileage  of  30,000  in  i860,  against  7,500  in  1850. 

This  increase  was  very  largely  in  the  North.  South  of  the 
border  states  there  was  no  large  city  except  New  Orleans. 
There  were  hardly  any  manufacturing  establishments  of  any 
importance  south  of  Maryland. 

Politically,  the  North  and  the  anti-slavery  cause  had  made 
large  and  permanent  gain.  Minnesota  and  Oregon  had  entered 
the  Union  as  free  states,  and  Kansas,  no  longer  bleeding  and 
no  longer  halting  between  two  opinions,  had  taken  her  place  in 
the  sisterhood  as  a  free  state.  The  control  of  the  Senate  had 
been  hopelessly  lost  to  the  slave  states  before  the  first  of  them 
seceded. 

The  two  sections  seriously  misunderstood  each  other.  The 
South  believed  that  the  North  was  so  engrossed  in  money  mak- 
ing that  it  would  not  fight,  or  if  it  did,  would  fight  ineffectively. 
There  was  a  popular  delusion  that  one  southern  man  could  whip 
seven  Yankees.  In  the  North  it  was  believed  that  the  South  was 
given  to  bluster,  but  that  the  southern  states  would  not  fight,  or 
if  they  did,  would  quickly  be  subdued.  Each  section  had  to  learn 
that  the  other  was  fully  capable  of  heroic  fighting.  When  the 
two  armies  met  each  other  in  the  field,  each  had  to  face  a  brave 
antagonist.  Both  armies  were  American,  and  neither  could 
count  upon  the  cowardice  or  irresolution  of  the  other. 

For  some  time  it  was  uncertain  just  how  many  states  would 
join  the  Confederacy.  The  first  group  of  states  to  secede  was 
South    Carolina,    Mississippi,    Florida,    Alabama,    Georgia    and 


THE  HOUSE  DIVIDED  59 

Louisiana.  These  were  the  states  represented  in  the  Constitu- 
tional Convention  at  Montgomery,  Alabama,  on  February  4, 
1861.  On  February  twenty-third,  Texas  joined  the  ranks  of  se- 
ceding states.  Arkansas  followed  May  sixth,  North  Carolina 
May  twentieth,  Virginia  May  twenty-third,  and  Tennessee  June 
eighth.  In  no  case  was  this  action  ratified  by  a  free  popular  vote. 
Virginia  and  Tennessee  were  in  possession  of  the  Confederate 
troops  when  the  vote  was  taken  in  those  states,  and  no  vote  of 
the  electorate  was  taken  in  the  others.  Kentucky,  Maryland  and 
Missouri,  important  border  states  containing  many  secessionists, 
remained  in  the  Union.  The  eastern  end  of  Tennessee  remained 
loyal,  and  the  western  end  of  Virginia,  denying  the  right  of  a 
state  to  secede,  itself  seceded  from  secession  and  entered  the 
Union  as  the  state  of  West  Virginia. 

Soon  after  the  inauguration  of  Lincoln,  William  H.  Seward, 
Secretary  of  State,  refused  to  recognize  a  delegation  sent  from 
the  Confederate  Congress  to  treat  with  the  Federal  Government 
for  an  amicable  separation.  Lincoln,  whom  many  believed  to  be 
an  irresolute  man  without  strength  of  will,  had  come  to  the 
White  House  with  his  mind  fully  made  up  on  two  important 
matters.  One  was  that  there  should  be  no  compromise  based 
upon  any  plan  that  admitted  the  further  extension  of  slavery. 
The  other  was  that  no  state  was  to  be  permitted  to  take  itself 
out  of  the  L'nion.  In  the  interregum  between  his  election  and 
inauguration  Lincoln  had  carefully  thought  this  out  in  all  its  pos- 
sible bearings.  He  was  not  yet  president,  and  had  no  right  to 
give  any  military  or  political  orders,  but  on  both  these  points  he 
communicated  his  desires  and  inflexible  purpose  in  letters  whose 
contents  reached  both  Congress  and  the  army.  Two  letters, 
the  originals  of  which  are  in  the  Washburne  manuscripts  of  the 
Chicago  Historical  Society,  show  with  what  convictions  and 
purposes  Lincoln  came  to  the  presidential  chair.  On  December 
13,  i860,  he  wrote  to  his  confidential  friend,  Elihu  B.  Wash- 
burne : 


6o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Confidential 

Springfield,  III.,  Dec.  13,  i860. 
Hon.  E.  B.  Washburne — My  Dear  Sir :  Your  long  letter 
received.  Prevent  as  far  as  possible,  any  of  our  friends  from 
demoralizing  themselves  and  our  cause,  by  entertaining  propo- 
sitions for  compromise  of  any  sort  on  the  slavery  extension. 
There  is  no  possible  compromise  upon  it,  but  which  puts  us 
under  again,  and  leaves  us  all  our  work  to  do  over  again. 
Whether  it  be  a  Missouri  line,  or  Eli  Thayer's  Popular  Sover- 
eignty, it  is  all  the  same.  Let  either  be  done,  and  immediately 
filibustering,  and  extending  slavery  recommences.  On  that 
point  hold  firm,  as  with  a  chain  of  steel.  Yours  as  ever, 

A.  Lincoln. 

Again,  on  the  twenty-first  of  December,  he  wrote  as  follows : 

Confidential 
Springfield,  III.,  Dec.  21,  i860. 
Hon.  E.  B.  Washburne — My  Dear  Sir :  Last  night  I  re- 
ceived your  letter,  giving  an  account  of  your  interview  with  Gen- 
eral Scott,  and  for  which  I  thank  you.  Please  present  my  re- 
spects to  the  General,  and  tell  him  confidentially,  I  shall  be 
obliged  to  him  to  be  as  well  prepared  as  he  can  to  either  hold,  or 
retake,  the  forts,  as  the  case  may  require,  at  and  after  the  in- 
auguration. 

Yours  as  ever, 
A.  Lincoln. 

When  Lincoln  came  to  the  presidency,  the  government  was 
crippled  not  only  by  the  impotence  of  Buchanan,  but  by  par- 
ticipation in  the  government  until  the  very  eve  of  his  inaugura- 
tion of  men  already  committed  to  the  Confederacy.  Honorable 
Isaac  N.  Arnold,  who  spoke  out  of  personal  knowledge,  says : 

There  was  a  meeting  held  at  the  capital  on  the  night  of  Janu- 
ary 5th,  [1861],  at  which  Jefferson  Davis,  Senators  Toombs, 
Iverson,  Slidell,  Benjamin,  Wigfall,  and  other  leading  conspira- 
tors were  present.  They  resolved  in  secret  conclave  to  precipi- 
tate secession  and  disunion  as  soon  as  possible,  and  at  the  same 
time  resolved  that  senators  and  members  of  the  House  should 
remain  in  their  seats  at  the  Capitol  as  long  as  possible,  to  watch 


THE  HOUSE  DIVIDED  61 

and  control  the  action  of  the  Executive,  and  thwart  and  de- 
feat any  hostile  measures  proposed. 

In  accordance  with  concerted  plans,  some  of  the  senators  and 
members,  as  the  states  they  represented  passed  ordinances  of  se- 
cession, retired  from  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives. 
Some  went  forth,  breathing  war  and  vengeance,  others  express- 
ing deep-  feeling  and  regret.  Nearly  all  were  careful  to  draw 
their  pay,  stationery,  and  documents,  and  their  mileage  home 
from  the  treasury  of  the  government  which  they  went  forth 
avowedly  to  overthrow.  There  were  two  honorable  exceptions 
among  the  representatives  from  the  Gulf  states — Mr.  Bouligny, 
representative  from  New  Orleans,  and  Andrew  J.  Hamilton, 
from  Texas.     They  remained  true  to  the  Union.* 

Men  like  Jefferson  Davis,  who  were  already  chosen  to  offices 
under  the  Confederate  Government,  had  withdrawn  before  the 
inauguration  of  Lincoln,  but  not  a  few  of  those  who  later  fought 
against  the  Federal  Government  retained  their  seats  in  Congress 
until  their  terms  expired  on  March  4,  1861.  Not  only  their 
votes  but  their  active  influence  in  Washington  did  much  to  de- 
moralize the  government. 

Not  all  of  the  division  was  between  the  North  and  South.  The 
loyal  element  in  the  South  was  much  larger  than  is  commonly 
known.  On  the  other  hand,  a  very  large  section  of  the  North 
was  opposed  to  the  employment  of  forcible  measures  to  retain 
within  the  Union  any  state  that  desired  to  go  out  of  it.  Even 
Horace  Greeley  declared  that  when  any  state  or  group  of  states 
desired  to  go  out  of  the  Union  he  would  oppose  all  coercive 
measures  to  keep  them  in.  Greeley  changed  his  mind  about  this 
as  he  did  about  some  other  matters.  Greeley  with  all  his  incon- 
sistencies, was  loyal  to  the  government,  though  sorely  perplexed 
as  to  the  best  way  for  the  government  to  function  in  that  trying 
emergency. 

There  was  a  strong  element  in  the  North  which  sympathized 
actively  with  the  South.  Of  its  distribution  and  influence  we 
shall  take  note  hereafter. 


*Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  177. 


62  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Of  Lincoln's  living  predecessors  in  office,  Millard  Fillmore, 
then  living  at  an  advanced  age  in  quiet  retirement  in  New  York 
State,  was  the  only  one  who  could  be  said  to  sympathize  with 
Lincoln.  Buchanan's  course  has  already  been  noted.  John 
Tyler  died  January  18,  1862,  a  member  of  the  Confederate 
Congress.  Franklin  Pierce,  though  a  northern  man,  wrote  on 
January  6,  i860,  to  Jefferson  Davis: 

If  through  the  madness  of  Northern  Abolitionists,  that  dire 
calamity  (disruption  of  the  Union),  must  come,  the  fighting  will 
not  be  along  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  merely.  It  will  be  within 
our  own  borders,  in  our  own  streets,  between  the  two  classes  of 
citizens  to  whom  I  have  referred.  Those  who  defy  law  and 
scout  constitutional  obligation,  will,  if  we  ever  reach  the  arbi- 
tratement  of  arms,  find  occupation  enough  at  home. 

But  must  there  be  war  ?  Both  North  and  South  earnestly 
hoped  that  this  would  not  be  found  necessary;  yet  steadily  and 
inevitably,  day  by  day,  the  war  drew  nearer. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  South  would  have  realized  at  the  out- 
set the  hopelessness  of  a  war.  It  had  a  much  smaller  population, 
and  no  manufactures.  If  it  went  to  war,  and  the  war  continued 
until  the  issue  became  a  question  of  men  and  resources,  the  South 
was  doomed  to  defeat  before  a  single  gun  was  fired. 

On  the  other  hand  the  South  had  marked  advantages  in  case 
of  any  attempt  to  maintain  the  Union  by  force.  As  it  would 
presumably  act  on  the  defensive,  it  needed  fewer  men.  Its  slave 
population  was  available  for  the  support  of  the  army,  leaving 
its  white  men  free  for  military  service.  Many  of  the  ablest  of- 
ficers in  the  United  States  Army  were  southern  men ;  indeed, 
most  of  the  Confederate  generals  of  note  had  been  educated  at 
West  Point.  But  the  South  had  no  navy,  and  as  it  could  not 
look  to  the  North  for  manufactured  products,  it  would  have  to 
depend  for  them  upon  Europe. 

Hostilities  had  really  begun  before  Lincoln  was  inaugurated. 
Most  of  the  southern  forts  and  arsenals  had  been  surrendered. 


THE  HOUSE  DIVIDED  63 

Xorfolk  with  two  thousand  cannon  had  been  handed  over  to 
the  Confederates.  Harper's  Ferry  had  been  menaced  and 
abandoned.  Of  all  the  forts  in  all  the  seceded  states  only  Key 
West,  at  the  tip  of  Florida,  Fort  Pickens  at  Pensacola,  and  Fort 
Sumter  in  Charleston  Harbor,  South  Carolina,  remained  in 
possession  of  the  Federal  Government.  Of  these  the  most  con- 
spicuous was  Fort  Sumter,  then  garrisoned  by  a  small  force 
under  Major  Robert  Anderson.  Lincoln  came  to  the  presiden- 
tial chair  with  the  knowledge  that  he  must  soon  decide  whether 
to  permit  Fort  Sumter  to  be  captured  by  assault,  or  to  be 
starved  into  surrender,  or  whether  he  would  undertake  to  re- 
lieve its  beleaguered  garrison.  If  he  did  this,  he  knew  that  he 
must  assume  responsibility  for  being  charged  with  the  outbreak 
of  hostilities. 

On  the  morning  following  his  inauguration,  Lincoln  went  to 
his  office  in  the  White  House  and  found  a  letter  from  Mr.  Holt, 
who  was  still  acting  as  secretary  of  war,  informing  him  that 
Fort  Sumter  must  be  reenforced  or  else  abandoned.  Major 
Robert  Anderson  had  in  the  previous  week  taken  stock  of  his 
provision  and  sent  a  report  which  arrived  on  the  morning  of  the 
inauguration.  He  had  food  enough  to  last  him  about  four 
weeks,  or  possibly,  by  careful  conservation  of  rations,  for 
forty  days. 

On  Saturday  night,  March  ninth,  Lincoln  held  his  first  Cab- 
inet meeting.  On  that  day  Lincoln  had  submitted  to  General 
Scott  the  question  whether  Fort  Sumter  ought  to  be  relieved  or 
abandoned.  General  Scott  advised  the  evacuation  of  the  fort. 
On  March  fifteenth,  Lincoln  laid  the  whole  question  before  his 
Cabinet,  and  asked  for  a  written  answer  to  the  question : 

Assuming  it  to  be  possible  to  now  provision  Fort  Sumter, 
under  all  the  circumstances,  is  it  wise  to  attempt  it? 

Five  members  of  the  Cabinet  voted  in  the  negative ;  they  were 
Seward,  Cameron,  Welles,  Smith  and  Bates.  Seward  argued 
the  question  at  some  length.     To  attempt  to  provision  Sumter 


64  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

would  provoke  the  beginning  of  hostilities.  The  slave  states  still 
hesitating  between  the  Union  and  rebellion  would  be  driven  over 
to  the  side  of  the  South.  Sumter  was  practically  useless ;  it  was 
important  that  the  Union  be  saved  without  bloodshed  if  pos- 
sible. The  two  who  voted  in  favor  of  the  relief  of  Sumter  were 
Chase  and  Blair. 

The  first  state  dinner  at  the  White  House  occurred  on  the 
evening  of  March  twenty-eighth.  Just  before  the  party  broke  up, 
Lincoln  called  the  members  of  his  Cabinet  into  an  adjoining 
room  and  informed  them  that  General  Scott  had  advised  in  the 
interests  of  conciliation  that  both  Fort  Sumter  and  Fort  Pickens 
be  given  up. 

That  night  Abraham  Lincoln's  eyes  did  not  close  in  sleep. 

It  was  Lincoln  himself  who  finally  reached  the  determination 
to  relieve  Fort  Sumter  in  the  matter  of  provisions,  but  not  with 
arms  and  ammunition.  There  was  indeed  a  plan  that  the  un- 
armed vessel  carrying  the  provisions  should  be  followed  at  no 
great  distance  by  a  sufficient  naval  force  to  effect  an  entrance 
if  necessary.  This  plan,  through  a  complication  involving 
cross-purposes  between  Seward  and  Welles,  did  not  materialize ; 
but  Lincoln  determined  to  "send  bread  to  Anderson."  He  also 
caused  it  to  be  known  that  he  was  sending  bread  only,  and  not 
bullets.  On  April  sixth  Lincoln  ordered  the  provisioning  of 
Sumter.  Pacific  and  conciliatory  as  this  announcement  was  in- 
tended to  be,  it  did  not  satisfy  the  impatient  Confederate  author- 
ities. The  attempt  to  carry  food  to  Fort  Sumter  they  chose  to 
regard  as  an  invasion  of  the  South. 


CHAPTER  V 


ON    TO    RICHMOND 


The  Confederate  Government  was  closely  patterned  after  that 
of  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  This  was  occasion 
both  of  strength  and  weakness  in  the  new  organization.  It  was 
a  form  so  familiar  that  the  leaders  on  the  southern  side  were 
able  to  get  to  work  at  once  under  methods  of  administration 
with  which  they  were  familiar ;  but  it  carried  over  existing  rival- 
ries and  created  offices  which  it  was  not  always  easy  to  fill. 
Certain  southern  writers  maintain  that  the  South  suffered  be- 
cause it  had  to  have  a  president  and  had  no  available  man  except 
Jefferson  Davis,  while  possessing  many  men  who  thought  them- 
selves superior  to  him  in  fitness  for  the  position.  Jefferson 
Davis  left  the  United  States  Senate  nearly  two  months  before 
Lincoln's  inauguration.  He  was  elected  provisional  president 
of  the  Confederacy  February  9,  1861,  his  formal  election  to  the 
presidency  occurring  some  months  later.  His  inauguration  took 
place  February  eighteenth,  fifteen  days  before  that  of  Lincoln. 

For  several  weeks  after  their  inauguration  both  presidents 
pursued  a  waiting  policy.  Neither  Abraham  Lincoln  nor  Jef- 
ferson Davis  wished  to  take  the  initiative  in  what  threatened  to 
be  a  civil  war.  The  Confederate  Government  appointed  three 
commissioners  to  go  to  Washington  to  inform  President  Lin- 
coln that  seven  states  had  withdrawn  from  the  Union  and  be- 
come an  independent  nation,  and  to  arrange  for  an  adjustment, 
on  terms  of  amity  and  good-will,  all  questions  arising  out  of  the 
separation.  These  three  commissioners  were  John  Forsythe, 
Andre  B.  Roman  and  Martin  J.  Crawford. 

65 


66  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Crawford  arrived  in  Washington  the  day  before  Lincoln's  in- 
auguration, and  Forsythe  arrived  a  day  or  two  later.  These 
men,  believing  Seward  to  be  the  real  power  of  the  new  admin- 
istration, and  feeling  assured  of  Seward's  earnest  desire  that 
war  should  be  averted,  endeavored  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  the  new  secretary  of  state.  In  the  negotiations  between 
these  commissioners  and  the  secretary,  the  go-between  was 
judge  John  A.  Campbell,  an  associate  justice  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  whose  conduct  in  the  matter  is  not  above 
reproach.  To  him  Seward  confided  his  belief  that  Fort  Sum- 
ter would  not  be  reinforced,  and  that  if  hostilities  were  averted, 
the  fort  must  of  necessity  be  evacuated  before  many  weeks. 
This  opinion,  which  the  president  and  the  Cabinet  shared,  the 
commissioners  accepted  as  a  pledge  of  the  government.  Sew- 
ard was  incautious  in  making  this  statement,  but  there  is  no 
ground  for  the  charge  that  he  was  disloyal  to  Lincoln  or  un- 
true in  his  representations  to  Campbell  and  through  him  to  the 
commissioners.  As  we  know,  the  time  came  when  Lincoln  de- 
termined to  relieve  Sumter,  sending  provisions  but  not  arms. 
This  announcement  was  heralded  by  certain  Confederate  author- 
ities, and  is  still  proclaimed  by  superficial  critics,  as  a  violation 
of  agreement.  This  became  the  pretext  of  the  Confederates  for 
firing  upon  Sumter. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  tension  on  both  sides  had  been  in- 
creasing from  the  time  of  Lincoln's  inauguration.  It  would  not 
have  been  possible  much  longer  to  avert  some  act  of  hostility. 
Aristotle  taught  "The  causes  of  war  are  profound,  but  the  occa- 
sions of  war  are  slight."  Any  one  of  several  events  might  have 
brought  on  war.  The  firing  upon  Sumter,  however,  was  not  the 
act  of  a  mob,  it  was  the  authorized  act  of  the  Confederate  Gov- 
ernment. 

On  April  twelfth  the  batteries  which  had  been  erected  on  the 
shores  of  Charleston  Harbor  opened  fire  upon  Fort  Sumter. 
Major  Robert  Anderson  returned  the  fire.  The  fort,  after  thirty- 
four  hours  of  bombardment,   surrendered,  the  garrison  march- 


ON  TO  RICHMOND  67 

ing  out  with  the  honors  of  war.  It  can  not  quite  be  said  that 
Sumter  was  forced  to  surrender.  No  one  had  been  hurt,  and 
provisions  were  not  exhausted ;  but  an  honorable  defense  had 
been  made,  and  no  relief  was  expected. 

The  fall  of  Fort  Sumter  unified  the  North  and  also  unified 
the  South.  It  hastened  the  decision  of  Virginia  to  enter  the  Con- 
federacy, and  thus  forced  the  line  of  the  seceded  states  to  the 
bank  of  the  Potomac  opposite  Washington.  It  removed  from 
the  South  the  last  vestige  of  belief  that  the  North  was  not  in 
deadly  earnest. 

The  effect  upon  the  North  was  not  less  significant.  To  the 
special  session  of  Congress  convened  shortly  after,  Lincoln  thus 
defined  the  issue : 

The  assault  upon  and  reduction  of  Fort  Sumter  was  in  no 
sense  a  matter  of  self-defense  on  the  part  of  the  assailants.  They 
well  knew  that  the  garrison  in  the  fort  could  by  no  possibility 
commit  aggression  upon  them.  They  knew — they  were  ex- 
pressly notified — that  the  giving  of  bread  to  the  few  brave  and 
hungry  men  of  the  garrison  was  all  which  would  on  that  occa- 
sion be  attempted,  unless  themselves,  by  resisting  so  much, 
should  provoke  more.  They  knew  that  this  government  de- 
sired to  keep  the  garrison  in  the  fort,  not  to  assail  them,  but 
merely  to  maintain  visible  possession,  and  thus  to  preserve  the 
Union  from  actual  and  immediate  dissolution — trusting,  as  here- 
inbefore stated,  to  time,  discussion,  and  the  ballot-box  for  final 
adjustment;  and  they  assailed  and  reduced  the  fort  for  precisely 
the  reverse  object — to  drive  out  the  visible  authority  of  the  Fed- 
eral Union,  and  thus  force  it  to  immediate  dissolution.  .  .  . 

And  this  issue  embraces  more  than  the  fate  of  these  United 
States.  It  presents  to  the  whole  family  of  man  the  question 
whether  a  constitutional  republic  or  democracy — a  government 
of  the  people  by  the  same  people — can  or  can  not  maintain  its 
territorial  integrity  against  its  own  domestic  foes.  .  .  . 

So  viewing  the  issue,  no  choice  was  left  but  to  call  out  the 
war  power  of  the  government;  and  so  to  resist  force  employed 
for  its  destruction,  by  force  for  its  preservation. 


68  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Two  days  after  the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter  Lincoln  issued  a  call 
for  seventy-five  thousand  volunteers  to  serve  for  three  months, 
"to  maintain  the  honor,  the  integrity  and  the  existence  of  our 
national  Union."  The  response  was  immediate  and  hearty.  The 
number  of  men  who  volunteered  was  far  in  excess  of  the  number 
called  for.  The  men  who  responded  had  no  doubt  that  the  ninety 
days  of  their  enlistment  would  be  more  than  ample  to  put  down 
the  rebellion. 

Jefferson  Davis  answered  Lincoln's  call  for  troops  with  a 
desperate  effort  to  build  up  the  southern  navy  under  the  offer 
to  issue  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal  against  the  United 
States.  Lincoln  on  the  nineteenth  of  April,  proclaimed  a  partial, 
and  on  the  twenty-third,  a  general  blockade  of  southern  ports. 
The  Confederate  States,  assuming  to  be  an  independent  power, 
formally  declared  war  against  the  United  States. 

Meantime,  Washington  was  in  peril.  Confederate  troops 
mustered  and  drilled  within  plain  sight  of  the  city.  The  handful 
of  regular  troops  in  Washington  was  entirely  inadequate  for  the 
protection  of  the  nation's  capital.  The  first  regiments  of  those 
who  responded  to  Lincoln's  proclamation  were  hastened  by  the 
shortest  route  to  Washington.  The  route  lay  through  Baltimore. 

Eminent  military  authorities  assert  that  progress  in  the  manu- 
facture of  weapons  of  war  results  in  relative  security  of  life.  If 
two  men  fight  with  knives,  one  is  likely  to  be  killed  and  the  other 
badly  wounded  in  five  minutes ;  but  the  same  men  in  rifle-pits 
a  mile  apart  may  shoot  at  each  other  from  time  to  time  all 
winter  and  both  emerge  safe  in  the  spring.  The  bombardment 
of  Fort  Sumter  lasted  thirty-four  hours,  and  not  a  drop  of 
blood  was  shed  on  either  side.  That  was  something  for  which 
both  sides  were  thankful.  Both  governments  resolved  to  be  very 
careful  not  to  do  anything  which  should  cause  it  to  bear  the 
onus  of  shedding  the  first  blood ;  and  each  vainly  hoped  that  if 
bloodshed  could  be  postponed  a  little  longer,  actual  war  might 
be  averted. 

The    first   bloodshed   was   not   in   pitched   battle,    nor   was   it 


ON  TO  RICHMOND  69 

authorized  by  either  government.  It  was  an  attack  by  a  mob, 
on  April  nineteenth,  on  the  Sixth  Massachusetts  Regiment  pass- 
ing through  Baltimore  on  its  way  to  Washington.  To  their 
credit,  it  should  be  recorded  that  the  mayor  of  the  city  and  the 
marshal  of  the  police  force  faithfully  endeavored  to  quell  the  riot, 
but  were  unable  to  do  so.  The  soldiers  were  compelled  to  defend 
themselves,  and  they  returned  the  fire  of  the  rioters.  Four  sol- 
diers were  killed  and  thirty-six  were  wounded.  Of  the  mob 
twelve  were  killed  and  the  number  of  wounded  was  not  accu- 
rately reported.  It  could  not  longer  be  said,  however,  that  the 
conflict  was  bloodless.  The  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Lex- 
ington had  been  celebrated  by  the  first  shedding  of  blood  between 
the  North  and  South. 

Wild  rumors  filled  Washington  and  came  up  to  the  White 
House,  announcing  that  the  Rebels  were  marching  from  Balti- 
more and  about  to  take  Washington.  It  seemed  as  though  the 
nation's  capital  might  at  any  time  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
Confederates.  It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  consternation 
felt  at  Washington  after  this  fatal  incident. 

On  the  following  day  and  the  next,  delegations  from  Balti- 
more waited  upon  Lincoln  earnestly  beseeching  him  not  to  per- 
mit any  more  troops  to  pass  through  that  city.  Although  there 
was  only  one  railroad  at  that  time  connecting  Washington  with 
the  North,  and  that  railroad  passed  through  Baltimore,  Lincoln 
tactfully  considered  the  request.  For  a  few  days  the  troops 
sailed  down  Chesapeake  Bay  to  Annapolis,  and  thus  reached 
Washington  without  passing  through  Baltimore.  This  arrange- 
ment, however,  was  only  temporary.  In  a  few  days  Baltimore 
was  open  to  the  unrestricted  passage  of  Union  troops. 

The  days  that  followed  in  the  White  House  were  days  of 
extreme  depression.  Expected  reenforcements  from  Massa- 
chusetts and  Rhode  Island  did  not  arrive.  On  April  twenty- 
fourth  John  Hay  entered  in  his  diary : 

This  has  been  a  day  of  gloom  and  doubt.     Everybody  seems 


70  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

filled  with  a  vague  distrust  and  recklessness.  The  idea  seemed 
to  be  reached  by  Lincoln  when  chatting-  with  the  volunteers  this 
morning,  he  said,  "I  don't  believe  there  is  any  North!  The  Sev- 
enth Regiment  is  a  myth!  Rhode  Island  is  not  known  in  our 
geography  any  longer.  You  are  the  only  northern  realities." 
Seward's  messengers,  sent  out  by  the  dozen  do  not  return.  The 
Seventh  arid  Butler's  are  probably  still  at  Annapolis.  A  rumor 
this  evening  says  the  railroad  is  in  the  hands  of  the  government, 
and  the  sappers  and  miners  are  at  work  repairing  it. 

The  Seventh  New  York  Regiment  was  at  Annapolis,  hav- 
ing sailed  down  Chesapeake  Bay  to  avoid  Baltimore.  But  the 
railroad  between  Annapolis  and  Washington  had  been  put  out 
of  commission.  It  is  amazing  that  with  Annapolis  so  near  to 
Washington  there  should  have  been  any  lack  of  certainty  as 
to  the  presence  there  of  any  body  of  troops,  or  of  their  progress 
toward  Washington.  It  almost  passes  belief  that  Seward's  mes- 
sengers should  have  brought  back  no  tidings.  But  the  rumors 
which  were  current  on  the  twenty- fourth  proved  to  be  well 
founded.  The  next  day  brought  the  first  train  load  of  troops 
of  the  Seventh  New  York.  The  capital  began  to  have  some  faint 
measure  of  faith  in  its  own  security.  The  Seventh  New  York- 
drew  up  on  the  White  House  lawn,  weary  and  dirty  from  their 
labor  in  repairing  the  railroad,  and  Lincoln  personally  received 
them.  Indeed,  it  became  his  custom  to  receive  regiments  that 
came  for  the  relief  of  Washington.  The  next  day  General  Ben- 
jamin F.  Butler  arrived  with  fourteen  hundred  soldiers,  and 
Rhode  Island  justified  her  claim  to  a  place  on  the  map  by  the 
arrival  of  twelve  hundred  troops.  Within  a  few  days  the  total 
number  of  troops  in  Washington  is  said  to  have  been  seventeen 
thousand.     The  capital  was  defended. 

The  Confederate  Congress  held  only  a  brief  and  preliminary 
session  at  Montgomery,  Alabama.  Three  days  before  the  peo- 
ple of  Virginia  were  to  vote  upon  the  question  of  secession,  the 
capital  of  the  Confederates  was  removed  to  Richmond.  The 
Confederate  Congress  meeting  in  Montgomery,  adjourned  to 
meet   in   Richmond  on   July  20,    1861.     The   Federal   Congress 


ON  TO  RICHMOND  71 

had  been  called  by  Lincoln  to  meet  in  Washington  on  July 
fourth.  Immediately  there  went  up  a  cry  from  the  North  de- 
claring that  the  Rebel  Congress  ought  not  to  be  permitted  to 
meet.  Richmond  should  be  occupied  by  Federal  troops,  and  the 
meeting  of  this  disloyal  Congress  prevented.  The  demand  for 
an  advance  on  Richmond  began  even  before  the  fall  of  Sumter, 
and  grew  loud  and  strong  after  that  event. 

The  two  congresses  met,  the  Federal  Congress  in  Washington 
and  the  Confederate  in  Richmond.  These  two  cities  are  not  far 
apart.  The  ninety  days  of  the  first  troops  were  approaching  the 
expiration  of  the  period  of  their  enlistment.  Unless  an  advance 
was  made  soon,  the  seventy-five  thousand  would  go  back  to  their 
homes  and  leave  the  country  without  an  army. 

Ought  Abraham  Lincoln  soon  after  the  fall  of  Sumter 
to  have  ordered  General  Scott  to  occupy  Richmond?  Ought  he, 
as  soon  as  he  was  safely  seated  in  the  presidential  chair,  to  have 
sent  an  armed  expedition  to  the  relief  of  Fort  Sumter?  These 
are  among  the  questions  concerning  which  debate  will  be  per- 
petually permissible.  It  is  possible  that  the  calmer  judgment  of 
most  men  will  agree  that  on  the  whole  the  patient  policy  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  better  than  would  have  been  a  policy  more 
precipitate. 

At  the  time  of  the  fall  of  Sumter  the  total  strength  of  the 
LTiited  States  Army,  officers  and  men,  was  17,113.  Fully  a 
third  of  these  were  certain  to  withdraw  and  go  with  the  South. 
This  little  band  of  perhaps  ten  thousand  men  was  scattered  in 
distant  states,  doing  police  duty  on  the  frontier  and  keeping  up 
the  mere  skeleton  of  army  organization.  As  soon  as  the  first 
volunteers  began  to  arrive  in  response  to  Lincoln's  proclamation, 
the  cry  for  an  advance  on  Richmond  became  strong  throughout 
the  North.  General  Scott  opposed  an  immediate  advance,  be- 
lieving that  the  troops  had  as  yet  no  adequate  preparation  for  an 
active  campaign. 

History  furnishes  the  forum  for  a  perpetual  three-fold  debate. 
First,  there  is  always  room  for  discussion  concerning  what  actu- 


72  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ally  occurred.  Secondly,  there  is  always  room  for  difference  of 
opinion  concerning  the  causes  of  events ;  assuming  that  we  have 
established  with  reasonable  certainty  the  facts  as  they  took  place, 
we  are  then  at  liberty  to  discover  if  we  can,  who  was  respon- 
sible. Thirdly,  there  is  always  opportunity  to  discuss  what 
would  have  happened  if  something  had  or  had  not  occurred,  and 
if  somebody  had  done  something  other  than  he  did  or  is  believed 
to  have  done. 

There  is  no  room  to  question  the  loyalty  of  General  Scott. 
He  was  true  to  his  country  under  very  trying  conditions.  He 
loved  his  state,  Virginia,  and  it  broke  his  heart  to  contemplate 
the  necessity  of  bearing  arms  against  her.  Moreover,  he  had 
once  been  a  candidate  for  president,  and  he  did  not  wholly  for- 
get his  political  interests.  It  is  much  to  his  credit  that  he  stood 
unfalteringly  for  the  Union.  But  General  Scott  was  an  old  man. 
and  had  grown  cautious  to  the  point  of  timidity.  What  would 
have  happened  if  General  Scott  had  died  about  the  end  of  Bu- 
chanan's administration,  and  there  had  been  in  Washington  a 
man  in  middle  life  with  military  training  and  some  experience, 
who  could  have  taken  command  of  Lincoln's  75,000  men  en- 
listed for  ninety  days,  and  marched  them  straight  toward 
Richmond,  drilling  them  as  he  marched?  We  can  never  know 
the  answer  to  this  question,  but  it  is  easy  to  imagine  what  might 
have  happened  had  Andrew  Jackson  been  in  command  of  these 
volunteers  when  they  began  to  assemble  about  Washington  in 
April,  1 86 1. 

On  July  21,  1 86 1,  the  first  important  battle  in  the  campaign 
against  Richmond  was  fought  at  Bull  Run,  about  thirty  miles 
southwest  of  Washington.  Like  many  battles  that  followed,  this 
one  has  two  names.  The  North  called  it  the  Battle  of  Bull  Run, 
and  the  South  called  it  the  Battle  of  Manassas.  Contrary  to 
popular  impression,  the  battle  appears  to  have  been  well  planned. 
Reenforcements  for  the  Confederates  arrived,  however,  at  an 
opportune  moment,  and  the  Union  retreat  became  a  panic-strick- 
en race  for  the  Potomac. 


ON  TO  RICHMOND  73 

We  now  know  that  the  Confederates  were  heavy  losers,  and 
that  for  this  reason  they  did  not  follow  up  their  advantage.  Gen- 
eral Albert  Sidney  Johnston  said,  "The  Confederate  Army  was 
more  demoralized  by  victory  than  the  United  States  Army  by 
defeat."  But  no  one  in  Washington  had  the  comfort  of  this 
knowledge  when  the  panic-stricken  troops  that  had  gone  forth 
so  confidently,  so  boastfully,  returned  over  the  Long  Bridge  ex- 
hausted and  terrified. 

Foremost  among  those  who  had  cried  for  advance  upon  Rich- 
mond was  Horace  Greeley.  After  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  he 
came  in  for  severe  criticism  for  having  pushed  an  unprepared 
army  forward  to  certain  defeat.  Greeley  never  admitted  that  he 
deserved  this  criticism.     He  said  : 

The  war  cry,  "Forward  to  Richmond!"  did  not  originate  with 
me ;  but  it  is  just  what  should  have  been  uttered,  and  the  words 
should  have  been  translated  into  deeds.  Instead  of  energy,  vigor, 
promptness,  daring,  decision,  we  had  in  our  councils  weakness, 
irresolution,  hesitation,  delay;  and,  when  at  last  our  hastily  col- 
lected forces,  after  being  demoralized  by  weeks  o<f  idleness  and 
dissipation,  were  sent  forward,  they  advanced  on  separate  lines, 
under  different  commanders ;  this  enabling  the  enemy  to  concen- 
trate all  its  forces  in  Virginia  against  a  single  corps  of  ours,  de- 
feating and  stampeding  it  at  Bull  Run,  while  other  Union  volun- 
teers, aggregating  nearly  twice  its  strength,  lay  idle  and  useless 
near  Harper's  Ferry,  in  and  about  Washington,  and  at  Fortress 
]\  Jon  roe.  Thus  what  should  have  been  a  short,  sharp  struggle, 
was  expanded  into  a  long  desultory  one;  while  those  whose 
blundering  incapacity  or  lack  of  purpose  was  responsible  for 
those  ills,  united  in  throwing  the  blame  on  the  faithful  few  who 
had  counseled  justly,  but  whose  urgent  remonstrances  they  had 
never  heeded.* 

Whatever  Greeley  could  find  to  say  in  defense  of  his  "on-to- 
Richmond"  policy  before  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  no  possible 
justification  can  ever  be  suggested  for  his  letter  to  Lincoln  fol- 
lowing that  battle.     To  Greelev  it  seemed  that  the  Union  cause 


"Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life,  pp.  402-403. 


74  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

was  irretrievably  lost,  and  he  was  ready  to  consider  an  armistice 
looking  to  the  end  of  the  war.  A  more  hysterical  and  less  com- 
forting letter  than  the  following  can  hardly  be  imagined : 

New  York,  Monday,  July  29,  1861. 
Midnight. 

Dear  Sir :  This  is  my  seventh  sleepless  night — yours,  too, 
doubtless — yet  I  think  I  shall  not  die,  because  I  have  no  right 
to  die.  I  must  struggle  to  live,  however  bitterly.  But  to  bus- 
iness. You  are  not  considered  a  great  man,  and  I  am  a  hope- 
lessly broken  one.  You  are  now  undergoing  a  terrible  ordeal, 
and  God  has  thrown  the  greatest  responsibilities  upon  you.  Do 
not  fear  to  meet  them.  Can  the  rebels  be  beaten  after  all  that 
has  occurred,  and  in  view  of  the  actual  state  of  feeling  caused  by 
our  late,  awful  disaster?  If  they  can, — and  it  is  your  business 
to  ascertain  and  decide, — write  me  that  such  is  your  judgment, 
so  that  I  may  know  and  do  my  duty.  And  if  they  cannot  be 
beaten, — if  our  recent  disaster  is  fatal, — do  not  fear  to  sacrifice 
yourself  to  your  country.  If  the  rebels  are  not  to  be  beaten, — 
if  that  is  your  judgment  in  view  of  all  the  light  you  can  get, — 
then  every  drop  of  blood  henceforth  shed  in  this  quarrel  will  be 
wantonly,  wickedly  shed,  and  the  guilt  will  rest  heavily  on  the 
soul  of  every  promoter  of  the  crime.  I  pray  you  to  decide 
quickly  and  let  me  know  my  duty. 

If  the  Union  is  irrevocably  gone,  an  armistice  for  30,  60,  90, 
120  days — better  still  for  a  year — ought  at  once  to  be  proposed, 
with  a  view  to  a  peaceful  adjustment.  Then  Congress  should 
call  a  national  convention,  to  meet  at  the  earliest  possible  day. 
And  there  should  be  an  immediate  and  mutual  exchange  or  re- 
lease of  prisoners  and  a  disbandment  of  forces.  I  do  not  con- 
sider myself  at  present  a  judge  of  anything  but  public  sentiment. 
That  seems  to  me  everywhere  gathering  and  deepening  against 
a  prosecution  of  the  war.  The  gloom  in  this  city  is  funereal. — 
for  our  dead  at  Bull  Run  were  many,  and  they  lie  unburied  yet. 
On  every  brow  sits  sullen,  scorching,  black  despair.  It  would 
have  been  easy  to  have  Mr.  Crittenden  move  any  proposition  that 
ought  to  be  adopted,  or  to  have  it  come  from  any  proper  quarter. 
The  first  point  is  to  ascertain  what  is  best  that  can  be  done — 
which  is  the  measure  of  our  duty,  and  do*  that  very  thing  at  the 
earliest  moment. 


ON  TO  RICHMOND  75 

This  letter  is  written  in  the  strictest  confidence,  and  is  for 
your  eye  alone.  But  you  are  at  liberty  to  say  to  members  of  your 
cabinet  that  you  know  I  will  second  any  move  you  may  see  fit  to 
make.  But  do  nothing  timidly  nor  by  halves.  Send  me  word 
what  to  do.  I  will  live  until  I  can  hear  it  at  all  events.  If  it  is 
best  for  the  country  and  for  mankind  that  we  make  peace  with 
the  rebels  at  once  and  on  their  own  terms,  do  not  shrink  even 
from  that.  But  bear  in  mind  the  greatest  truth :  "Whoso  would 
lose  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  save  it."  Do  the  thing  that  is  the 
highest  right,  and  tell  me  how  I  am  to  second  you. 

Yours,  in  the  depths  of  bitterness, 

Horace  Greeley. 

Lincoln  quickly  saw  the  importance  of  calling  for  a  much 
larger  number  of  men  and  for  a  longer  period  of  service  than 
his  original  proclamation  contemplated.  He  soon  learned  that 
three  months  would  not  be  long  enough.  He  therefore  urged 
upon  Secretary  Cameron  the  acceptance  of  a  larger  number  than 
he  originally  contemplated.  Regiment  after  regiment  was  added 
and  provisions  were  made  for  their  equipment  and  sustenance. 
Gradually  the  nation  came  to  understand,  and  Lincoln  earlier 
than  many  of  the  leaders  of  public  opinion,  that  the  war  was  to 
be  longer  and  much  more  bitter  than  any  one,  either  North  or 
South,  had  supposed. 

The  effect  of  Bull  Run  was  to  convince  both  North  and  South 
that  the  war  was  not  to  be  a  short  and  easy  one,  but  perhaps  its 
most  important  result  was  its  influence  on  European  Govern- 
ments. They  believed  quite  generally  after  this  battle,  that  su- 
periority of  leadership  was  with  the  South.  With  the  exception 
of  Russia,  all  European  Governments,  and  especially  that  of 
England  and  France,  tended  to  side  with  the  South. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  more  than  possible  that  it  was  better  for 
the  Union  cause  that  its  armies  did  not  win  at  Bull  Run.  A 
cheap  and  easy  victory  won  at  that  stage  of  the  war  might  have 
proved  disastrous  in  the  days  that  followed. 

In  the  West  the  situation  was  more  favorable.  Under  Gener- 
als Lyons,   Fremont  and   Halleck,  the  Confederate   forces  were 


76  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

gradually  driven  out  of  Missouri,  and  that  state  was  saved  to  the 
Union.  The  citizens  of  German  birth  in  that  state  were  an  im- 
portant factor  in  the  attainment  of  this  result.  Kentucky,  which 
at  first  officially  maintained  an  armed  neutrality,  was  held  in  the 
Union  by  regiments  of  her  own  loyal  citizens.  Thus  was  the 
line  of  the  Confederacy  pushed  far  to  the  south  of  the  Missouri 
?nd  Ohio  Rivers.  In  the  east,  however,  the  Confederate  flag  flew 
within  sight  of  the  capitol,  and  it  was  considered  cheering  news 
when  4he  papers  could  report  that  all  was  "quiet  along  the  Po- 
tomac.1' 

This  is  not  a  history  of  the  Civil  War.  Many  of  its  battles 
will  not  be  mentioned.  Many  of  its  leading  generals  and  notable 
events  must  go  without  recognition  in  these  pages.  Only  so 
much  is  to  be  said  about  the  war  and  those  engaged  in  it  as  is 
necessary  to  our  interpretation  of  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
But  the  "impending  crisis"  long  foretold  by  Hinton  Rowan 
Helper,  the  "irrepressible  conflict"  of  which  William  H.  Seward 
had  spoken,  the  "house  divided  against  itself"  of  which  Lincoln 
had  talked  in  his  debates  with  Douglas,  came  swiftly. 

Lincoln  had  been  careful  to  disclaim  responsibility  for  John 
Brown,  whom  he  regarded  as  an  unauthorized  fanatic.  But  the 
war  which  Lincoln  found  himself  compelled  to  fight  gave  him 
unexpected  fellowship  with  that  praying  old  fighter.  Not  with- 
out reason  did  Lincoln's  seventy-five  thousand  volunteers  rally 
to  the  defense  of  the  Union,  with  a  song  about  "Old  John 
Brown."  They  were  fighting,  whether  they  knew  it  or  not,  for 
something  more  than  a  definition  of  the  Constitution.  They 
sang  as  they  marched  : 

"John  Brown's  body  lies  a-mould'ring  in  the  grave, 
But  his  soul  goes  marching  on." 


CHAPTER  VI 

LINCOLN    AND    CONGRESS 

The  president  of  the  United  States  is  commander-in-chief  of 
the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  United  States ;  but  he  has  no  power 
to  declare  war,  and  no  power  to  raise  or  appropriate  money  to 
carry  on  a  war.  These  functions  belong  to  the  Congress.  But 
there  are  certain  powers  which  the  Constitution  recognizes  but 
does  not  definitely  locate.  Even  in  times  of  peace  it  is  not  easy 
to  say  just  where  the  powers  of  Congress  end  and  those  of  the 
president  begin;  and  the  extraordinary  necessities  of  war  give 
opportunity  for  much  misunderstanding  and  friction.  Lincoln 
had  seen  little  of  Congress  since  his  own  membership  for  a  single 
term  in  1847-8.  He  had  opportunity  to  behold  Congress  in  ses- 
sion, and  to  feel  its  atmosphere  a  few  days  before  his  inaugura- 
tion. 

Lincoln's  reception  in  that  Congress  was  none  too  favorable. 
When  he  reached  Washington,  the  Congress  then  sitting  was 
near  its  end.  Some  of  its  most  prominent  members  were  con- 
cluding their  service  and  were  about  to  depart,  some  to  their 
districts  that  had  elected  as  their  successors  men  of  the  new 
party,  and  others  to  the  Confederacy,  with  which  already  they 
were  virtually  identified.  Adam  Gurowski,  in  his  entertaining 
Diary,  in  which  he  claimed  to  record  events  as  rapidly  as  they 
occurred  and  impressions  while  yet  they  were  fresh,  began  his 
orderly  chronicle  with  the  inauguration,  but  going  back  for  a 
few  days  for  an  introduction  to  his  narrative,  wrote : 

Some  days  previous  to  the  inauguration,  Mr.  Seward  brought 
Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  Senate  floor,  of  course  on  the  Republican 
side ;  but  soon  Mr.   Seward  was  busily  running  among  Demo- 

77 


78  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

crats,  begging  them  to  be  introduced  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  It  was 
a  saddening,  humiliating  and  revolting  sight  for  the  galleries, 
where  I  was.  Criminal  as  is  Mason,  for  a  minute  I  got  recon- 
ciled to  him  for  the  scowl  of  horror  and  contempt  with  which 
he  shook  his  head  at  Seward.  Only  two  or  three  Democratic 
Senators  were  moved  by  Seward's  humble  entreaties.* 

Ethan  Allen  is  alleged  to  have  demanded  the  surrender  of 
Fort  Ticonderoga  "in  the  name  of  the  Great  Jehovah  and  the 
Continental  Congress."  It  seems  almost  a  pity  to  learn  that  this 
story  does  not  rest  on  secure  foundation.  We  should  like  to  dis- 
cover the  Congress  of  the  United  States  in  more  normal  align- 
ment with  the  Divine  purpose,  and  in  more  frequent  appeal  to 
the  heroic.  During  the  Revolution,  Congress  was  small  comfort 
to  Washington,  and  during  the  Civil  War  it  was  sometimes  a 
thorn  in  the  flesh  of  Lincoln. 

Lincoln's  first  message  to  Congress,  when  that  body  assem- 
bled on  July  4,  1861,  was  a  very  different  document  from  his 
inaugural  address.  It  recited  the  events  which  had  occurred  dur- 
ing his  four  months  of  office.  It  gave  a  detailed  account  of 
matters  relating  to  Fort  Sumter  and  the  call  for  volunteers.  It 
recited  that  after  the  first  call  for  troops  it  had  been  necessary 
to  increase  the  number  of  volunteers  to  three  hundred  thousand 
and  extend  the  period  of  service  to  three  years.  These  calls  for 
troops  he  believed  to  have  been  justified  by  "a  popular  demand 
and  a  public  necessity."  He  did  not  discuss  whether  these  meas- 
ures were  strictly  legal  or  not.  He  believed  that  Congress 
would  readily  ratify  them. 

The  body  of  the  message  was  a  discussion  of  the  question  of 
the  right  of  secession.  This  right  he  denied  in  the  most  explicit 
terms  and  in  an  extended  argument.  He  declared  the  theory  of 
the  right  of  secession  to  be  "an  ingenious  sophism,  which  if  con- 
ceded, might  be  followed  by  perfectly  logical  steps,  through  all 
the  incidents,  to  the  complete  destruction  of  the  Union."  This 
"sophism"  he  defined  in  terms  of  this  proposition: 


Gurowski's  Diary,  p.  15. 


LINCOLN  AND  CONGRESS  79 

That  any  State  of  the  Union  may  consistently  with  the  Na- 
tional Constitution,  and  therefore  lawfully  and  peacefully,  with- 
draw from  the  Union  without  the  consent  of  the  Union  or  of  any 
other  State. 

He  said : 

Our  popular  government  has  often  been  called  an  experiment. 
Two  points  in  it  our  people  have  already  settled — the  successful 
establishing-  and  the  successful  administering  of  it.  One  still  re- 
mains— its  successful  maintenance  against  a  formidable  internal 
attempt  to  overthrow  it.  It  is  now  for  them  to  demonstrate  to> 
the  world  that  those  who  can  fairly  carry  an  election  can  also 
suppress  a  rebellion;  that  ballots  are  the  rightful  and  peacefu, 
successors  of  bullets ;  and  that  when  ballots  have  fairly  and  con- 
stitutionally decided,  there  can  be  no  successful  appeal  back  to 
bullets ;  that  there  can  be  no  successful  appeal,  except  to  ballots 
themselves,  at  succeeding  elections.  Such  will  be  a  great  lesson 
of  peace ;  teaching  men  that  what  they  cannot  take  by  an  election, 
neither  can  they  take  it  by  a  war;  teaching  all  the  folly  of  being 
the  beginners  of  a  war. 

He  considered  the  fact  that  certain  of  the  states,  as  for  in- 
stance Florida,  had  involved  the  government  in  large  expense, 
either  for  their  purchase  price  or  for  expenses  incurred  in  re- 
pelling Indian  attacks  or  in  the  settlement  of  the  claims  of  the 
Indian  tribes  for  compensation  for  the  land.  Were  these  states  at 
liberty  to  withdraw  from  the  Union  and  leave  the  remaining 
states  to  discharge  these  obligations?  Suppose  all  the  states 
should  secede  but  one;  would  that  one  remaining  state  be  re- 
sponsible for  the  debts  incurred  by  the  Federal  Government  of 
which  it  was  now  the  sole  remainder?  Suppose  the  one  remain- 
ing state  decided  to  secede,  who  then  would  remain  responsible 
for  the  obligations  incurred  by  the  nation? 

Avowedly  his  inaugural  address  was  an  appeal  to  the  plain 
people.  So  also  was  Lincoln's  first  message  to  Congress.  It 
was  couched  in  language  easily  understood;  but  it  was  a  very 
statesmanlike  document,  and  one  deserving  at  once  the  attention 
not  onlv  of  Congress  but  of  the  people. 


80  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  also  had  in  mind  the  border  states,  especially  Ken- 
tucky. Virginia  had  gone  over  to  secession,  but  Kentucky  was 
keeping  up  the  pretense  of  an  armed  neutrality.  For  the  sake 
of  the  border  states  and  also  as  an  appeal  to  the  loyal  element  in 
the  seceded  states  he  set  forth  his  own  purpose  with  respect  to 
the  southern  states  after  the  rebellion  should  be  suppressed : 

Lest  there  be  some  uneasiness  in  the  minds  of  candid  men  as 
to  what  is  to  be  the  course  of  the  government  toward  the  South- 
ern States  after  the  rebellion  shall  have  been  suppressed,  the 
executive  deems  it  proper  to  say  it  will  be  his  purpose  then,  as 
ever,  to  be  guided  by  the  Constitution  and  the  laws ;  and  that  he 
probably  will  have  no  different  understanding  of  the  powers  and 
duties  of  the  Federal  Government  relatively  to  the  rights  of  the 
States  and  the  people,  under  the  Constitution,  than  that  ex- 
pressed in  the  inaugural  address. 

He  desires  to  preserve  the  government,  that  it  may  be  admin- 
istered for  all  as  it  was  administered  by  the  men  who  made  it. 
Loyal  citizens  everywhere  have  the  right  to  claim  this  of  their 
government,  and  the  government  has  no  right  to  withhold  or 
neglect  it.  It  is  not  perceived  that  in  giving  it  there  is  any  co- 
ercion, any  conquest  or  any  subjugation,  in  any  just  sense  of 
those  terms. 

The  Constitution  provides,  and  all  the  States  have  accepted 
the  provision,  that  'the  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every 
State  in  this  Union  a  republican  form  of  government.'  But  if 
a  State  may  lawfully  go  out  of  the  Union,  having  done  so,  it 
may  also  discard  the  republican  form  of  government ;  so  that  to 
prevent  its  going  out  is  an  indispensable  means  to  the  end  of 
maintaining  the  guarantee  mentioned;  and  when  an  end  is  lawful 
and  obligatory,  the  indispensable  means  to  it  are  also  lawful  and 
obligatory. 

It  was  with  the  deepest  regret  that  the  executive  found  the 
duty  of  employing  the  war  power  in  defense  of  the  government 
forced  upon  him.  He  could  but  perform  this  duty  or  surrender 
the  existence  of  the  government.  No  compromise  by  public  serv- 
ants could,  in  this  case  be  a  cure;  not  that  compromises  are  not 
often  proper,  but  that  no  popular  government  can  long  survive 
a  marked  precedent  that  those  who  carry  an  election  can  only 
save  the  government  from  immediate  destruction  by  giving  up 


LINCOLN  AND  CONGRESS  81 

the  main  point  upon  which  the  people  gave  the  election.  The 
people  themselves,  and  not  their  servants,  can  safely  reverse 
their  own  deliberate  decisions. 

One  important  fact  about  this  first  message  of  Lincoln's  to 
Congress  must  not  be  overlooked.  It  had  virtually  no  reference 
to  slavery.  In  this  respect  it  was  a  decided  contrast  to  the  first 
inaugural.  This  fact  disturbed  the  abolitionists,  but  did  not  rouse 
immediate  criticism  to  any  marked  extent.  It  is  to  be  noted, 
however,  that  from  this  time  forward  Lincoln  was  centering  his 
thought  upon  his  primary  duty  of  saving  the  Union.  How  far 
he  seemed  to  some  of  his  associates  to  have  departed  from  the 
principles  laid  down  by  him  in  his  debate  with  Douglas,  we 
shall  have  occasion  later  to  consider.  Whether  Lincoln  was  con- 
scious of  it  or  not,  this  new  emphasis  on  the  Union  was  exactly 
in  line  with  the  suggestions  in  Seward's  "Thoughts" — "Change 
the  question  before  the  public  from  one  upon  slavery,  or  about 
slavery,  for  a  question  upon  Union  or  Disunion." 

Congress  assembled  in  a  good  temper  and  with  a  strong  work- 
ing majority  on  the  side  of  the  president.  His  appropriation 
proposals  were  fully  met,  and  his  requirements  for  troops  were 
authorized.  As  yet  the  Republican  Party  had  not  seriously 
broken  into  factions.  At  this  extraordinary  session  there  was 
almost  no  ordinary  legislation.  Congress  was  in  session  twenty- 
nine  working  days,  from  July  fourth  to  August  sixth.  Seventy- 
six  public  acts  were  passed,  of  which  seventy-two  bore  directly 
upon  the  war. 

At  the  same  time,  Congress  can  not  be  said  to  have  had  any 
adequate  appreciation  of  the  situation  as  it  existed  prior  to  the 
battle  of  Bull  Run.  Congress  believed  that  that  first  battle  would 
settle  the  whole  problem.  Not  a  fewT  members  of  Congress  drove 
across  the  Long  Bridge  and  toward  the  front  in  their  joyous 
anticipation  of  seeing  the  rebellion  wiped  off  the  map  at  a  single 
stroke.     These  men  returned  to  Washington  sadder  and  wiser. 

On  the  day  following  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  John  J.  Critten- 


82  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

den,  of  Kentucky,  rose  to  introduce  a  resolution  in  the  House, 
and  offered  a  program  very  different  from  the  famous  Crit- 
tenden Compromise.  That  Compromise  had  failed.  Now  he 
offered : 

That  the  present,  deplorable  civil  war  had  been  forced  upon 
the  country  by  the  Disunionists  of  the  Southern  States,  now  in 
arms  against  the  constitutional  government,  and  in  arms  around 
the  capital ;  that  in  this  national  emergency,  Congress,  banishing 
all  feelings  of  mere  passion  and  resentment,  will  recollect  only 
its  duty  to  the  whole  country;  that  this  war  is  not  waged  on  their 
part  in  any  spirit  of  oppression  or  for  any  purpose  of  conquest 
or  subjugation,  or  purpose  of  overthrowing  or  interfering  with 
the  rights  or  established  institutions  of  these  States,  but  to  de- 
fend and  maintain  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution,  and  to 
preserve  the  Union,  with  all  the  dignity,  equality,  and  rights  of 
the  several  States  unimpaired ;  and  that  as  soon  as  these  objects 
are  accomplished,  the  war  ought  to  cease. 

The  Crittenden  Resolution  was  passed  in  both  Houses;  there 
was  no  debate,  and  virtually  no  opposition.  Two  members  of 
the  House  of  Representatives,  however,  refrained  from  voting. 
They  were  Thaddeus  Stevens  and  Owen  Lovejoy.  In  the  Sen- 
ate, five  men  did  not  vote  for  the  resolution.  One  of  these  was 
Charles  Sumner.  The  reason  for  their  silence  was,  of  course, 
that  the  resolution  did  not  specify  the  overthrow  of  slavery 
as  a  main  objective  of  the  war.  Mr.  Crittenden  still  had  mani- 
festly in  mind  an  appeal  to  the  sentiment  of  Kentucky  and  the 
other  slave  states  not  yet  in  rebellion.  Lincoln  was  in  the  fullest 
sympathy  with  that  attitude  of  mind.  He  seemed  to  the  extreme 
abolitionists  to  have  forgotten  entirely  the  anti-slavery  issue. 

At  this  first  session,  however,  Congress  began  a  series  of 
legislative  acts  unfavorable  to  slavery.  On  August  6,  1861,  a 
bill  introduced  by  Senator  Lyman  Trumbull,  became  a  law  giv- 
ing freedom  to  all  slaves  that  had  been  employed  by  the  Con- 
federates in  carrying  on  the  war.  A  little  later  Owen  Lovejoy 
introduced  a  resolution  declaring  that  it  was  no  part  of  the  duty 


LINCOLN  AXD  CONGRESS  83 

of  the  soldiers  of  the  United  States  to  capture  and  return  fugi- 
tive slaves.  This  passed  the  House  by  a  large  majority ;  and 
while  it  did  not  repeal  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  it  was  a  triumph 
for  the  man  who  two  years  before,  in  February,  1859,  during 
his  first  term  in  Congress,  had  replied  to  the  charge  of  southern 
Representatives  that  he  was  a  "Xigger  stealer"  : 

"Yes,  I  do  assist  fugitives  to  escape.  Proclaim  it  upon  the 
housetops :  write  it  upon  every  leaf  that  trembles  in  the  forest ; 
make  it  blaze  from  the  sua  at  high  noon,  and  shine  forth  in  the 
radiance  of  every  star  that  bedecks  the  firmament  of  God.  Let 
it  echo  through  all  the  arches  of  heaven,  and  reverberate  and  bel- 
low through  all  the  deep  gorges  of  hell,  where  slavecatchers  will 
be  very  likely  to  hear  it.  Owen  Lovejoy  lives  at  Princeton,  Ill- 
inois, and  he  aids  every  fugitive  that  comes  to  his  door  and  asks 
it.  Thou  invisible  demon  of  slavery !  Dost  thou  think  to  cross 
my  humble  threshold,  and  forbid  me  to  give  bread  to  the  hungry 
and  shelter  to  the  homeless  ?  I  bid  you  defiance  in  the  name  of 
God." 

Shortly  after  the  assembly  of  Congress,  December  2,  1861, 
Honorable  Zachariah  Chandler,  of  Michigan,  introduced  a  reso- 
lution to  appoint  a  committee  of  three  to  inquire  into  the  conduct 
of  the  battle  of  Balls  Bluff,  and  the  reason  for  that  disaster. 
He  said  that  the  defect  had  been  attributed  "to  civilians,  to  poli- 
tics, to  everything  but  the  right  cause."  and  that  it  was  "due 
to  the  Senate  and  the  country,  that  the  blame  should  rest  where  it 
belonged." 

The  motion  prevailed,  and  Senator  Chandler  declining  the 
chairmanship,  Senator  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  of  Ohio,  was  made 
chairman,  with  Senator  Zachariah  Chandler,  of  Michigan,  and 
Senator  Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  as  his  associates.  The 
House  of  Representatives  appointed  as  its  members  of  the  com- 
mittee, David  W.  Gooch,  of  Massachusetts,  John  Covode.  of 
Pennsylvania,  George  W.  Julian,  of  Indiana,  and  Moses  F. 
Odell,  of  Xew  York. 

This  committee,  having  investigated  the  defeat  of  Balls  Bluff, 


84  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  having  agreed  in  its  report  that  the  disaster  occurred 
through  military  incompetence,  was  not  permitted  to  depart  in 
peace.  There  was  occasion  soon  to  investigate  the  defeat  at  Bull 
Run,  and  from  that  time  the  committee  was  never  without  em- 
ployment Its  membership  changed  somewhat,  but  it  was  dom- 
inated throughout  by  Wade  and  Chandler,  two  honest  and 
uncompromising  men,  whose  strong  convictions  were  far  from 
being  always  in  accord  with  the  views  of  the  president.  These 
men  hated  McClellan,  and  later  came  to  dislike  Meade.  They 
thought  Lincoln  far  too  timid  and  given  to  compromise.  Some 
authors  have  represented  Lincoln  as  continually  in  conflict  with 
the  Congressional  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War,  and  at 
times  it  was  so ;  but  at  other  times  the  committee  was  of  large 
assistance  to  him  and  to  Secretary  Stanton.  This  committee 
was  in  almost  continuous  session  until  March  4,  1865,  when  it 
was  given  ninety  days  to  finish  its  work,  its  final  report  bearing 
date  of  May  22,  1865. 

The  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War  wras  only  one  of 
the  president's  perplexities.  So  far  as  any  question  remained 
whether  the  president  or  Congress  was  master,  Lincoln  abated 
no  jot  of  his  contention.  The  president,  as  commander-in-chief 
of  the  army  and  navy,  must  assume  and  maintain  supreme  com- 
mand. But  the  press  of  the  country  was  of  many  minds  regard- 
ing Lincoln ;  and  besides  the  war  that  he  had  to  fight  against  the 
Confederates  in  front,  he  had  to  fight  other  battles  with  foes, 
open  and  secret,  in  his  rear.  Besides  these  were  friends,  some  of 
them  pretended  and  some  real,  and  not  all  of  them  wise,  whose 
efforts  constantly  embarrassed  him.  There  were  wars  and  ru- 
mors of  wars ;  and  Lincoln  could  have  said  with  St.  Paul,  that 
his  flesh  had  no  rest;  without  were  fightings  and  within  were 
fears. 

The  Constitution  recognized  that  in  time  of  war  it  might  be 
necessary  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus;  but  who  had  the 
right  to  declare  a  suspension  of  habeas  corpus,  and  to  hold 
suspected  men  and  women  in  prison  without  trial?    Was  this  re- 


LIXCOLX  AND  CONGRESS  85 

sponsibility  vested  in  the  Congress  or  in  the  president  ?  Very  large- 
ly the  members  of  Lincoln's  own  party  in  Congress  held  that 
these  powers  belonged  to  Congress,  but  Lincoln  assumed  that 
they  belonged  to  the  executive.  As  the  war  proceeded,  arrests 
grew  frequent,  and  the  Federal  prisons  in  Washington  and  else- 
where filled  with  men  and  women  who  were  unable  to  secure 
through  the  civil  courts  their  constitutional  peace-time  right  of 
trial.  Was  this  arbitrary  power  one  which  the  constitution  in- 
tended to  lodge  with  the  president?  If  so,  what  was  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  but  a  military  despotism?  This 
question  was  asked  by  newspapers  and  orators  in  many  parts  of 
the  country ;  and  it  was  asked  very  insistently  by  certain  mem- 
bers of  Congress. 

There  is  no  way  to  wage  a  war  gently.  Washington  was  full 
of  Confederate  spies,  and  many  of  them  escaped  detection  and 
arrest  in  spite  of  the  powers  assumed  by  the  president.  But  the 
president  believed  that  these  powers,  in  time  of  war,  must  belong 
to  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  army ;  that  is,  to  the  president. 
Congress  could  not  well  exercise  this  function,  nor  did  Lincoln 
believe  that  the  Constitution  recognized  Congress  as  capable  of 
its  exercise;  but  this  opinion  of  the  president  was  not  popular  in 
Congress,  nor  yet  among  the  Copperheads.  President  Lincoln 
had  before  him  a  long  and  hard  fight  concerning  the  areas  of 
power  which  the  government  does  not  assume  in  time  of  peace, 
nor  definitely  locate  in  time  of  war.  Lincoln  was  a  cautious 
man,  but  such  power  as  he  believed  was  necessary  to  the  conduct 
of  the  war,  he  assumed ;  and  in  time  there  was  loud  wailing  in 
protest  ir  Congress. 

If  Lincoln  ever  replied  to  these  criticisms  we  do  not  know  it. 
Certain  distinguished  lawyers  wrote  briefs  defending  the  presi- 
dent's assumption  of  extraordinary  powers  in  war  times,  and 
some  of  his  strong  supporters  in  Congress  gave  utterance  to 
views  so  fully  in  accord  with  the  position  which  Lincoln  as- 
sumed, that  some  authors  believe  their  addresses  to  have  been 
inspired  by  Lincoln.      Senator   Browning,  on   March    10,    1862, 


86  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

delivered  an  address  which  one  brilliant  biographer  of  Lincoln  is 
confident  "Surely  was  inspired — or  if  not  directly  inspired,  so 
close  a  reflection  of  the  president's  thinking  that  it  comes  to 
the  same  thing  in  the  end."*  But  the  remarkable  fact  is  that 
neither  Browning  nor  any  other  of  the  defenders  of  Lincoln 
claimed  Lincoln's  authority  for  their  utterances.  At  the  time  when 
Browning  delivered  this  address,  he  was  calling  at  the  White 
House  almost  daily,  but  did  not  record  in  his  Diary  any  intima- 
tion that  what  he  said  on  this  subject  was  suggested  by  the  presi- 
dent or  that  the  president  thanked  him  for  it. 

Lincoln  all  this  time  was  keeping  in  close  touch  with  those 
members  of  both  Houses  who  could  best  interpret  his  spirit  to 
Congress,  but  no  one  of  these  men  had  the  comfortable  feeling 
that  he  was  the  president's  spokesman. 

On  the  whole,  Congress  supported  the  president,  and  the  legis- 
lation of  the  long  session  was  intended  to' be  in  accord  with  his 
plans.  But  still  he  knew  that  there  was  a  deep-seated  occasion 
of  difference  between  him  and  the  law-making  body,  and  he 
intended  to  retain  all  his  powers  under  the  Constitution,  and  in 
addition  to  hold  to  those  that  he  deemed  necessary  to  him  as 
commander-in-chief  of  the  army. 

Lincoln  seldom  made  a  pun,  a  fact  which  is  mentioned  else- 
where in  this  work.  He  made  one  toward  the  end  of  the  first 
session  of  Congress.  A  member  of  the  opposition  called  upon 
him,  and  somewhat  testily  commented  on  the  fact  that  the  wel- 
fare of  the  negro  had  had  so  large  a  place  in  the  discussions  of 
that  session.  He  said,  "Mr.  President,  we  have  had  Nigger 
served  to  us  three  times  a  day  regularly,  dished  up  in  every  pos- 
sible style."  Lincoln  had  learned  a  new  culinary  term.  He 
knew  about  roast  chicken,  and  boiled  chicken,  and  especially 
about  fried  chicken,  but  he  had  had  occasion  to  learn  a  new 
French  way  of  serving  that  familiar  bird.  When  he  was  told 
of  the  monotony  of  a  diet  of  Nigger,  and  of  the  styles  in  which 


*Professor  N.  W.  Stephenson,  in  Lincoln,  p.  216. 


LINCOLN  AND  CONGRESS  87 

it  had  been  served  to  Congress,  he  said,  "The  principal  style,  I 
think,  was  frcc-cuss-cc." 

When  Congress  adjourned,  and  Lincoln  saw  the  members  de- 
parting, he  chuckled,  and  said : 

"In  1831,  I  went  to  New  Orleans  on  a  flat-boat,  and  we  tied 
up  for  a  day  at  Alton.  The  gate  of  the  State  Prison  opened, 
and  a  group  of  men  came  out.  I  inquired  who  they  were  and 
where  they  were  going,  and  I  was  told  that  they  were  a  lot  of 
thieves,  going  home.     They  had  served  their  time!" 


CHAPTER  VII 

LINCOLN    AND    MC  CLELLAN 

The  battle  of  Bull  Run  made  one  fact  ominously  plain ;  the 
army  must  have  a  younger  commanding  officer  than  General 
Scott.  Able  and  experienced  as  he  was,  he  was  not  in  condition 
to  fight  in  the  field ;  and  the  army  needed  a  visible  head.  Gen- 
eral Scott  remained  first  in  command ;  but  Lincoln  must  already 
have  convinced  himself  that  a  younger  man  must  assume  the 
active  leadership;  and  he  thought  he  knew  the  man. 

On  the  day  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  Lincoln  summoned 
General  George  B.  McClellan  to  Washington.  He  arrived  on 
the  twenty-eighth  of  July.  On  the  clay  before  his  arrival  Lin- 
coln appointed  him  commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 

McClellan  at  this  time  was  thirty-four  years  old.  He  was  in 
full  physical  vigor  and  of  fine  appearance  and  bearing.  He  was 
a  West  Point  graduate  of  the  class  of  1846.  He  had  distin- 
guished himself  under  General  Scott  in  the  Mexican  War.  He 
entered  the  war  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  with  the  rank  of  second 
lieutenant,  having  recently  graduated  from  West  Point;  he 
emerged  with  the  brevet  rank  of  captain,  and  had  won  his  pro- 
motion by  undoubted  gallantry  on  the  field  of  battle.  When 
Jefferson  Davis  was  secretary  of  war  in  1855,  he  sent  Captain 
McClellan  to  Europe  to  study  army  organization,  and  McClellan 
was  with  the  British  Army  during  the  siege  of  Sebastopol.  After 
the  war  he  had  a  varied  and  successful  career.  He  was  for  a 
time  chief  engineer  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company, 
and  later  its  vice-president.  In  that  capacity  he  met  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  connection  with  certain  litigation  of  the  company.  In 
later  years  he  recalled  that  acquaintance : 


LIXCOLX  AXD  McCLELLAX  89 

More  than  once  I  have  been  with  him  in  out-of-the-way  coun- 
ty-seats where  some  important  case  was  being  tried,  and,  in  the 
lack  of  sleeping  accommodations,  have  spent  the  night  in  front 
of  a  stove  listening  to  the  unceasing  flow  of  anecdotes  from 
his  lips.  He  was  never  at  a  loss  for  a  story,  and  I  could  never 
make  up  my  mind  how  many  of  them  he  had  really  heard  be- 
fore, and  how  many  he  invented  on  the  spur  of  the  moment. 
His  stories  were  seldom  refined,  but  were  always  to  the  point. 

McClellan  was  far  from  being  a  partisan  of  Lincoln  in  his 
campaign  against  Douglas.  On  the  contrary,  Douglas  traveled 
in  McClellan's  private  car,  and  Lincoln  rode  on  regular  trains. 

The  early  military  record  of  General  McClellan  was  one  of 
success.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  he  was  commissioned  a 
major  general  in  command  of  the  Department  of  the  Ohio.  In 
a  series  of  engagements  in  Western  Virginia  he  was  notably 
successful.  Any  Union  success  at  that  time  was  vastly  encour- 
aging. McClellan's  victories  were  not  large,  but  they  were  de- 
cisive; and  he  himself  turned  them  to  good  account  in  a  series 
of  well-phrased  proclamations  which  he  issued  from  a  portable 
printing  press. 

It  is  not  remarkable  that  the  country  made  McClellan  its  first 
military  idol.  Xo  one  of  the  generals  who  came  earlier  to  public 
notice  combined  in  anything  like  the  same  degree  such  elements 
for  popularity.  He  was  handsome,  he  was  well  educated,  he 
had  a  record  of  success.  On  horseback  he  appeared  to  good  ad- 
vantage. His  features,  his  pose,  his  military  bearing  all  com- 
bined to  win  for  him  an  admiration  and  affection  bordering  upon 
idolatry. 

Furthermore,  he  was  a  man  of  integrity  and  of  deep  religious 
feeling.  In  his  private  life  he  was  as  pure  as  Sir  Galahad  He 
possessed  a  rare  power  of  inspiring  confidence  and  devotion. 
Of  all  the  tragedies  of  the  Civil  War,  and  they  were  not  few, 
there  is  none  that  fills  the  student  with  keener  sorrow  than  that 
of  this  brilliant  officer.  He  seemed  not  only  by  far  the  best 
man  whom  Lincoln  could  have  chosen,  but  a  man  especially 
raised  up  to  meet  the  nation's  need. 


90  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

If  Lincoln  remembered  having  met  McClellan  in  the  days  of 
his  debates  with  Douglas — and  it  would  seem  that  he  must  have 
remembered  him — he  could  not  have  forgotten  that,  although  he 
was  attorney  for  the  railroad  of  which  McClellan  was  then  the 
managing  vice-president,  he  had  ridden  over  that  road  through- 
out the  campaign  with  entire  lack  of  such  courtesies  as  Mc- 
Clellan provided  for  Douglas.  Had  Lincoln  been  a  man  who 
cherished  resentments,  some  annoying  memories  must  have 
occurred  to  him.  Lincoln  was  not  naturally  inclined  to  take 
notice  of  slights  of  this  character ;  they  made  little  impression  on 
him,  and  to  that  extent  he  may  deserve  less  credit  than  a  more 
sensitive  man.  But  it  is  equally  true,  and  for  this  Lincoln  de- 
serves the  highest  credit,  that  in  so  far  as  he  noticed  personal 
slights  or  annoyances,  he  does  not  appear  ever  to  have  permitted 
personal  resentment  to  influence  his  sense  of  duty  to  the  pub- 
lic good.  Had  he  commented  on  McClellan's  conduct  in  those 
days,  he  probably  would  have  said  that  the  Illinois  Central  Rail- 
way, in  permitting  him  to  travel  on  a  pass,  was  doing  its  full 
duty  by  him  as  one  of  the  attorneys  of  the  road;  and  that  if 
Captain  McClellan  chose,  on  grounds  of  personal  or  political 
friendship,  to  do  more  than  that  for  Douglas,  that  was  his  priv- 
ilege. Lincoln  is  not  known  ever  to  have  commented  on  this 
discrimination ;  much  less  did  he  permit  it  to  influence  him  in  his1 
selection  of  a  general  to  command  the  armies  between  Wash- 
ington and  Richmond. 

What  McClellan  might  have  done  had  he  possessed  executive 
ability  as  well  as  organizing  power,  we  do  not  know.  At  the 
best  his  task  would  not  have  been  an  easy  one.  At  this  time 
there  were  pouring  into  Washington  large  numbers  of  men,  but 
they  did  not  constitute  an  army.  They  were  raw,  undisciplined 
and  unsoldierly.  McClellan  was  well  able  to  drill  them,  and  it 
was  believed  that  he  was  capable  of  commanding  them,  but  the 
country's  faith  in  his  leadership  was  destined  to  repeated  and 
heartbreaking  disappointments. 

When  McClellan  took  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  91 

there  were  in  and  about  the  city  of  Washington  according  to  his 
own  reports  about  "50,000  infantry,  less  than  1,000  cavalry  and 
650  artillerymen  with  nine  imperfect  field  batteries  of  thirty 
pieces."  On  October  twenty-seventh,  three  months  after  Gen- 
eral McClellan  took  command,  he  reported  for  the  army  under 
him  an  aggregate  strength  of  168,318  men,  of  whom  there  were 
present  for  duty  147,695.  The  adjutant  general  three  days  later 
made  a  report  for  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  showing  a  total 
army  of  198,238,  of  whom  116,737  were  present  and  available 
for  duty. 

For  a  time  McClellan  was  in  high  spirits.  His  indiscreet 
biographer,  endeavoring  to  show  how  unjustly  McClellan  had 
been  treated,  gave  to  the  world  McClellan's  confidential  letters 
to  his  wife.  He  arrived  in  Washington  July  26,  186 1,  and  as- 
sumed command  on  the  following  day.  His  first  letter  to  his 
wife  says : 

I  find  myself  in  a  new  and  strange  position  here ;  President, 
cabinet,  General  Scott  and  all  deferring  to  me.  By  some  strange 
operation  of  magic  I  seem  to  have  become  the  power  of  the  land. 

On  July  thirtieth  he  wrote : 

They  give  me  my  way  in  everything,  full  swing  and  un- 
bounded confidence.  Who  would  have  thought  when  we  were 
married  that  I  should  so  soon  be  called  upon  to  save  my  country  ? 

A  few  days  later  he  wrote : 

I  shall  carry  this  thing  on  en  grand,  and  crush  the  rebels  in 
one  campaign. 

On  August  ninth  he  wrote: 

I  would  cheerfully  take  the  dictatorship  and  agree  to  lay  down 
my  life  when  the  country  was  saved. 

To  make  sure  that  his  wife  understood  how  fully  he  retained 


92  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

his  modesty  in  all  this  recognition  of  his  own  importance,  he 
said :  "I  am  not  spoiled  by  my  unexpected  new  position." 

McClellan  combined  in  himself  a  strange  admixture  of  con- 
fidence in  himself  and  distrust  of  his  resources.  His  faith  in  his 
own  ability  and  of  the  importance  attaching  to  his  personality 
was  almost  pathetic ;  but  with  it  he  cherished  an  amazing  inabil- 
ity to  appreciate  the  strength  of  the  army  under  him,  while  in- 
variably multiplying  the  strength  of  the  army  opposed  to  him. 

Lincoln  at  the  beginning  appears  to  have  shared  fully  Mc- 
Clellan's  own  high  estimate  of  his  own  ability.  "I  will  hold  Mc- 
Clellan's horse  for  him  if  he  will  win  victories,"  said  Lincoln. 
McClellan  on  his  part  could  find  no  higher  praise  for  Lincoln 
than  this,  'The  president  is  honest  and  means  well." 

As  for  General  Scott,  McClellan  counted  him  only  a  stupid 
old  meddler,  forgetting  that  at  the  time  he  was  General  Scott's 
subordinate.  McClellan's  habitual  reference  to  him  in  his  letters 
to  his  wife  is  in  terms  like  these :  'The  old  General  always  comes 
in  the  way.     He  understands  nothing,  appreciates  nothing." 

In  McClellan's  mind,  everybody  else  was  in  his  way;  nobody 
understood  anything  or  appreciated  anything.  He  condemned 
as  stupid  meddlers  or  wilful  obstructionists  the  army  officials, 
the  politicians  and  the  president,  while  always  magnifying  the 
force  in  front  of  him.  At  a  time  when  the  opposing  Confederate 
force  was  perhaps  one-fourth  as  large  as  his  own,  he  wrote  to 
his  wife : 

I  am  here  in  a  terrible  place.  The  enemy  has  from  three  to 
four  times  my  force.  The  President,  the  old  General,  cannot  or 
will  not  see  the  true  state  of  affairs. 

At  a  time  when  Lincoln  was  bending  all  his  energies  to  help 
McClellan  he  could  write : 

I  have  a  set  of  men  to  deal  with  unscrupulous  and  false.  The 
people  think  me  all  powerful.  Never  was  there  a  greater  mis- 
take. I  am  thwarted  and  deceived  by  these  incapables  at  every 
turn. 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  93 

McClellan's  enemies  have  been  many;  but  his  worst  accusers 
are  his  own  letters. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  McClellan  found  no  one  in  Washing- 
ton sufficiently  great  to  command  his  respect.  He  found  in  the 
Cabinet  "some  of  the  greatest  geese  I  have  ever  seen — enough 
to  tax  the  patience  of  Job."  He  found  it  "sickening  in  the  ex- 
treme" to  "see  the  weakness  and  unfitness  of  the  poor  beings 
who  control  the  destinies  of  this  great  country." 

The  president  he  held  in  undisguised  contempt.  He  formed 
the  habit  of  hiding  at  Stanton's  house,  "to  dodge  all  enemies  in 
the  shape  of  browsing  presidents."  Stanton  at  this  time  did 
not  conceal  his  own  scorn  of  the  president.  McClellan  did  not 
long  continue  to  respect  Stanton's  judgment  in  anything  else, 
and  Stanton  before  long  lost  his  respect  for  McClellan,  but  so 
long  as  these  two  agreed  in  anything,  they  were  agreed  in  their 
hostility  to  Lincoln. 

It  was  inevitable  that  before  long  there  would  be  misunder- 
standings between  General  McClellan  and  his  superior  officer, 
General  Scott.  On  August  eighth,  1861,  McClellan  wrote  a  let- 
ter to  General  Scott  in  which  he  stated  that  he  was  impelled  by 
a  sense  of  duty  to  tell  General  Scott  how  inadequate  were  the  de- 
fenses of  Washington.  General  Scott  considered  this  letter  of- 
fensive. He  wrote  to  the  secretary  of  war  calling  attention  to 
the  stream  of  irregulars  pouring  into  the  city,  and  complaining 
of  the  insubordination  of  this  young  junior  officer.  For  two 
months  the  friction  between  the  two  generals  grew.  At  length, 
on  October  twenty-first,  General  Scott  sent  to  the  secretary  of 
war  the  following  letter  of  resignation : 

For  more  than  three  years  I  have  been  unable,  from  a  hurt,  to 
mount  a  horse  or  to  walk  more  than  a  few  paces  at  a  time,  and 
that  with  much  pain.  Other  and  new  infirmities — dropsy  and 
vertigo — admonish  me  that  repose  of  mind  and  body,  with  the 
appliances  of  surgery  and  medicine,  are  necessary  to  add  a  little 
more  to  a  life  already  protracted  much  beyond  the  usual  life  of 
man.     It  is  under  such  circumstances,  made  doubly  painful  by 


94  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  unnatural  and  unjust  rebellion  now  raging-  in  the  Southern 
States  of  our  so  late  prosperous  and  happy  Union,  that  I  am  com- 
pelled to  request  that  my  name  be  placed  on  the  list  of  army  offi- 
cers retired  from  active  service.  As  this  request  is  founded  on 
an  absolute  right  granted  by  a  recent  act  of  Congress,  I  am  en- 
tirely at  liberty  to  say  that  it  is  with  deep  regret  that  I  withdraw 
myself,  in  these  momentous  times,  from  the  orders  of  a  Presi- 
dent who  has  treated  me  with  distinguished  kindness  and  cour- 
tesy, whom  I  know  among  such  personal  intercourses  to  be 
patriotic,  without  sectional  partialities  or  prejudices,  to  be  high- 
ly conscientious  in  the  performance  of  every  duty,  and  of  un- 
rivalled activity  and  perseverance.  And  to  you,  Mr.  Secretary, 
I  beg  to  acknowledge  my  many  obligations  for  the  uniform  high 
consideration  I  have  received  at  your  hands. 

General  Scott's  resignation  was  accepted.  He  retired  with 
high  honor,  the  president  and  Cabinet  waiting  on  him  in  person 
to  present  him  the  thanks  of  the  country  for  his  long  and  illustri- 
ous service.  Immediately  Lincoln  appointed  McClellan  com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  Army  of  the  United  States.  The  presi- 
dent called  personally  at  McClellan's  headquarters  in  order  to 
congratulate  him.  McClellan  received  him  with  less  condescen- 
tion  than  on  some  other  occasions.  "I  should  feel  perfectly  sat- 
isfied," said  President  Lincoln,  "if  I  thought  that  this  vast  in- 
crease of  responsibility  would  not  embarrass  you."  He  had  not 
long  to  wait  for  his  satisfaction.  McClellan  assured  him  that, 
far  from  being  embarrassed,  he  was  greatly  relieved. 

This  was  on  the  night  of  November  i,  1861,  and  from  that 
time  on  the  president  and  country  waited  for  McClellan  to  win 
the  one  great  victory  which  he  was  sure  would  settle  the  fate  of 
the  Confederacy.  McClellan,  however,  did  not  move.  He  was 
busy  shifting  to  other  shoulders  than  his  own  the  blame  for  the 
skirmish  at  Ball's  Bluff  which  occurred  on  October  twenty-first 
and  ended  in  a  Union  loss  of  49  men  killed,  158  wounded  and 
694  missing,  against  a  Confederate  loss  of  36  killed  and  117 
wounded.  This  engagement,  which  appears  insignificant  in  com- 
parison with  later  battles,  was  notable  at  the  time.     It  was  an- 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  95 

other  though  a  smaller  Bull  Run.  It  resulted  in  the  retirement 
in  disgrace  and  imprisonment  of  General  Stone,  whose  severe 
punishment  is  believed  to  have  been  unmerited,  and  it  brought 
again  a  deep  sense  of  personal  sorrow  to  the  White  House  by 
reason  of  the  death  of  Colonel  Edward  D.  Baker,  Lincoln's  long 
time  personal  friend. 

John  Hay  made  this  entry  in  his  diary  on  November  13,  186 1 : 

I  wish  here  to  record  what  I  regard  a  portent  of  evil  to  come. 
The  President,  Governor  Seward  and  I  went  over  to  McClellan's 
house  tonight.  The  servant  at  the  door  said  the  General  was  at 
the  wedding  of  Colonel  Wheaton  at  General  Buell's  and  would 
soon  return.  We  went  in  and  after  we  had  waited  about  an  hour 
McClellan  came  in,  and  without  paying  any  attention  to  the 
porter  who  told  him  the  President  was  waiting  to  see  him,  went 
up  stairs,  passing  the  door  where  the  President  and  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  were  seated.  They  waited  about  half  an  hour,  and 
sent  once  more  a  servant  to  tell  the  General  they  were  there ;  and 
the  answer  came  that  the  General  had  gone  to  bed. 

I  merely  record  this  unparalled  insolence  of  epaulettes  without 
comment.  It  is  the  first  indication  I  have  seen  of  the  threatened 
supremacy  of  the  military  authorities. 

Mr.  Hay  did  not  at  the  time  regard  this  incident  of  particular 
significance  as  manifesting  McClellan's  own  feelings  toward  the 
president;  to  Hay  it  then  seemed  a  possible  portent  of  evil  as 
showing  what  the  military  authorities  might,  as  a  group,  come 
to  assume.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  after  all  allowances  had  been 
made  for  military  arrogance,  of  which  many  generals  had  their 
full  share,  there  never  was  another  general  in  the  Union  Army 
who  could  possibly  thus  have  treated  the  president  of  the  United 
States. 

In  January,  1862,  Lincoln  endeavored  to  impress  McClellan 
with  the  importance  of  a  forward  movement.  The  country  was 
growing  restive;  the  president  was  under  severe  criticism.  His 
arguments  met  with  no  response.  On  Washington's  birthday 
President  Lincoln  ordered  a  general  forward  movement.     This 


96  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

also,  McClellan  ignored.  Lincoln  grew  almost  desperate ;  he  had 
desired  McClellan  to  advance  to  Manassas.  McClellan  did  not 
do  so.  But  when  on  March  ninth  it  became  known  that  the  Con- 
federates had  evacuated  Manassas,  McClellan  marched  his  army 
there  and  then  back  again.  This  performance  brought  ridicule 
upon  him  and  deep  disappointment  and  chagrin  to  Lincoln. 

Let  us  endeavor  to  do  justice  to  McClellan.  He  was  placed 
at  the  head  of  a  large  and  increasing  body  of  men,  but  he  did  not 
command  an  army.  The  first  seventy-five  thousand  had  enlisted 
impulsively  in  full  confidence  that  ninety  days  was  more  than 
adequate  for  the  purpose  of  their  soldiering.  He  knew  that  the 
war  must  be  won  with  men  who  had  some  discipline,  and  very 
few  even  of  his  officers  realized  what  that  discipline  would  in- 
volve. McClellan  was  an  effective  drill-master.  He  knew  the 
value  of  military  organization.  He  did  not  intend  to  have  any 
more  battles  like  that  of  Bull  Run.  Most  well  informed  officers 
sympathized  with  him.  But  the  country  was  restless  and  eager 
for  a  battle  that  would  bring  final  victory. 

On  September  ninth,  McClellan  reckoned  his  army  at  85,000 
effective  men,  and  was  sure  the  Confederates  had  150,000. 
Month  by  month  he  increased  his  estimate  of  the  forces  opposed 
to  him.  Late  in  the  autumn  he  had  "a  gross  aggregate  force 
of  168,318,"  with  147,695  present  for  duty,  and  he  was  sure 
the  Confederates  greatly  outnumbered  him.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  Confederate  Army  confronting  him  numbered  41,000. 

In  December,  1861,  the  Congress  created  its  Committee  on  the 
Conduct  of  the  War.  It  was  a  committee  of  civilians  charged 
with  the  heavy  responsibility  of  passing  judgment  on  military 
matters  in  which  none  of  them  were  expert.  McClellan  did  not 
conceal  his  displeasure,  nor  can  he  be  blamed  for  his  resentment. 

Soon  after  this,  on  January  11,  1862,  Secretary  Cameron  re- 
signed his  portfolio  of  the  War  Department,  and  was  succeeded 
by  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  a  warm  personal  and  political  friend  of 
McClellan ;  but  he  and  McClellan  soon  quarreled,  and  from  that 
time  forth  were  mutually  hostile. 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  97 

Mr.  Lincoln's  patience  with  McClellan  in  this  trying  situation 
can  but  astonish  any  thoughtful  student.  McClellan's  letters  to 
his  wife  display  an  egotism  that  is  amazing,  and  a  contempt  for 
the  president  most  ill-becoming  in  a  general  of  the  army.  Lin- 
coln was  cautious.  By  all  his  traits  of  character  he  was  dis- 
posed to  carry  caution  to  the  extreme,  but  his  caution  was  not 
to  be  mentioned  beside  McClellan's.  McClellan  was  fertile  in 
discovering  reasons  why  he  could  not  do  anything.  The  enemies 
invariably  outnumbered  his  forces  beyond  any  hope. of  his  win- 
ning a  victory.  His  army  was  never  in  a  condition  to  move; 
never  strong  enough  for  the  work  expected  of  it.  Lincoln  now 
and  then  wished  that  General  McClellan  would  lend  him  his 
army  if  he  had  no  plan  to  use  it  himself.  Once  when  McClellan 
told  him  that  he  could  not  move  because  the  army  was  resting, 
Lincoln  indulged  in  sufficient  sarcasm  to  ask  just  what  he  had 
done  that  should  have  tired  any  of  them. 

The  year  went  by,  and  McClellan  had  done  nothing  worth 
speaking  about.  The  spring  of  1862  came,  and  on  April  third 
the  president  ordered  the  secretary  of  war  to  direct  General  Mc- 
Clellan "to  commence  his  forward  movement  from  his  new  base 
at  once." 

To  this  McClellan  replied  two  days  later,  "The  enemy  are  in 
large  force  along  our  front;  their  works  formidable." 

He  felt  sure  that  he  would  have  to  fight  the  whole  Confed- 
erate Army.  The  official  reports  of  General  Magruder  show 
that  he  had  only  eleven  thousand  men  with  which  to  oppose 
McClellan's  one  hundred  thousand.  And  he  was  surprised  that 
day  after  day  went  by  and  McClellan  did  not  move.  McClellan. 
however,  was  waiting  for  reenforcements,  and  Lincoln  answered 
very  kindly  but  firmly: 

I  suppose  the  whole  force  which  has  gone  forward  to  you,  is 
with  you  by  this  time,  and  if  so,  I  think  that  it  is  the  precise  time 
for  you  to  strike  a  blow.  By  delay,  the  enemy  will  relatively 
gain  upon  you — that  is,  he  will  gain  faster  by  fortifications  and 
re-enforcements  than   you  can  by  re-enforcements   alone ;   and 


98  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

once  more  let  me  tell  you,  it  is  indispensable  to  you  that  you 
strike  a  blow.  I  am  powerless  to  help  this.  You  will  do  me  the 
justice  to  remember  I  always  insisted  that  going  down  the  bay 
in  search  of  a  field,  instead  of  fighting  near  Manassas,  was  only 
shifting,  not  surmounting  the  difficulty.  .  .  .  The  country  will 
not  fail  to  note — and  it  is  now  noting — that  the  present  hesita- 
tion to  move  upon  an  intrenched  enemy,  is  but  the  story  of 
Manassas  repeated.  I  beg  to  assure  you  I  have  never  written 
...  in  greater  kindness,  nor  with  a  fuller  purpose  to  sustain 
you,  so  far  as  in  my  most  anxious  judgment  I  consistently  can. 
But  you  must  act. 

April  and  May  went  by  and  nothing  was  done.  On  June  21, 
1862,  McClellan  desired  to  leave  the  army  and  come  to  Wash- 
ington and  lay  before  the  president  his  views  "as  to  the  present 
state  of  military  affairs  throughout  the  whole  country."  Under 
other  circumstances  Lincoln  might  have  been  interested  in  Mc- 
Clellan's  views,  but  he  replied  good-naturedly  and  with  a  little 
sting  of  irony,  "If  it  would  not  divert  your  time  and  attention 
from  the  army  under  your  command,  I  should  be  glad  to  hear 
your  views  on  the  present  state  of  military  affairs  throughout 
the  whole  country." 

On  June  twenty-seventh,  after  some  minor  and  unsuccessful 
engagements,  McClellan  announced  his  intention  to  move,  but 
not  to  move  forward.  He  ordered  a  retreat  to  the  James  River, 
and  he  sent  to  the  secretary  of  war  an  insulting  letter  saying, 
"If  I  save  this  army,  I  tell  you  plainly,  I  owe  no  thanks  to  you, 
nor  to  any  one  at  Washington.  You  have  done  your  best  to  de- 
stroy this  army." 

Not  content  with  this  astounding  letter,  McClellan  a  few  days 
later  wrote  a  long  communication  to  the  president  giving  him 
paternal  advice  on  matters  relating  to  the  government,  civil  no 
less  than  military. 

Thus  one  opportunity  after  another  was  neglected  by  McClel- 
lan, and  the  army  under  his  command  marched  and  counter- 
marched and  arrived  nowhere,  fought  skirmishes  and  retreated, 
when  it  should  have  fought  battles  and  advanced.     He  waited 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  99 

for  reenforcements  while  losing  men  through  inaction,  and  suf- 
fering constantly  through  loss  of  courage  and  loss  of  what  we 
have  learned  to  call  morale. 

Early  in  July,  1862,  Lincoln  reached  the  conclusion  that  the 
command  of  the  armies  defending  Washington  and  organized 
for  an  attack  on  Richmond  must  devolve  on  some  commander 
capable  of  action.  General  Henry  W.  Halleck  was  in  the  West, 
and  in  spite  of  a  cantankerous  disposition  had  proved  a  success- 
ful organizer,  and  either  he  or  men  under  him,  including  one 
man  named  Grant,  whom  Halleck  greatly  disliked,  had  been 
winning  victories.     Lincoln,  on  July  11,  1862,  issued  an  order: 

That  Major-General  Henry  W.  Halleck  be  assigned  to  com- 
mand the  whole  land  forces  of  the  United  States  as  general-in- 
chief,  and  that  he  repair  to  this  capital  as  soon  as  he  can  with 
safety  to  the  positions  and  operations  within  the  department 
under  his  charge. 

McClellan  still  commanded  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  but 
Halleck  was  above  him  in  authority,  a  fact  little  to  McClellan's 
liking. 

On  July  14,  1862,  General  John  Pope,  son  of  Judge  Nathaniel 
Pope,  of  Illinois,  was  placed  in  charge  of  the  Army  of  Virginia, 
consisting  of  three  army  corps.  Pope  came  from  a  successful 
career  in  the  West,  and  had  the  bad  taste  to  tell  of  it  when  as- 
suming command.     He  said : 

I  have  come  to  you  from  the  West,  where  we  have  always  seen 
the  backs  of  our  enemies ;  from  an  army  whose  business  it  has 
been  to  seek  an  adversary,  and  beat  him  when  found ;  whose 
policy  has  been  attack  and  not  defense.  In  but  one  instance  has 
the  enemy  been  able  to  place  our  Western  armies  in  a  defensive 
attitude.  I  presume  I  have  been  called  here  to  pursue  the  same 
system,  and  to  lead  you  against  the  enemy.  It  is  my  purpose  to 
do  so,  and  that  speedily.  I  am  sure  you  long  for  an  opportunity 
to  win  the  distinction  you  are  capable  of  achieving;  that  oppor- 
tunity I  shall  endeavor  to  give  you.  In  the  meantime,  I  desire 
you  to  dismiss  certain  phrases  I  am  sorry  to  find  in  vogue 
amongst  you. 


ioo  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  hear  constantly  of  taking  strong  positions  and  holding  them 
— of  lines  of  retreat  and  bases  of  supplies.  Let  us  discard  such 
ideas.  The  strongest  position  a  soldier  should  desire  to  occupy 
is  one  from  which  he  can  most  easily  advance  against  the  enemy. 
Let  us  study  the  probable  line  of  retreat  of  our  opponents,  and 
leave  our  own  to  take  care  of  itself.  Let  us  look  before  us  and 
not  behind.  Success  and  glory  are  in  the  advance — disaster  and 
shame  lurk  in  the  rear.  Let  us  act  on  this  understanding,  and  it 
is  safe  to  predict  that  your  banners  shall  be  inscribed  with  many 
a  glorious  deed,  and  that  your  names  will  be  dear  to  your  coun- 
trymen forever. 

Pope  quickly  incurred  the  ill  will  of  McClellan,  and  when,  in 
August,  Pope  joined  battle  with  the  enemy,  McClellan  did  not 
send  Fitzjohn  Porter  to  support  his  advance  or  cover  his  re- 
treat.    On  August  ninth  General  Halleck  telegraphed  McClellan : 

I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  enemy  is  massing  his  forces  in 
front  of  Generals  Pope  and  Burnside,  and  that  he  expects  to 
crush  them,  and  move  forward  to  the  Potomac.  You  must  send 
re-enforcements  instantly  to  Acquia  Creek.  Considering  the 
amount  of  transportation  at  your  disposal,  your  delay  is  not  sat- 
isfactory.    You  must  move  with  all  possible  celerity! 

McClellan  did  not  move.  On  the  following  day  Halleck  tele- 
graphed that  General  Pope  was  fighting  and  needed  help,  and 
said: 

There  must  be  no  further  delay  in  your  movements.  That 
which  has  already  occurred  was  entirely  unexpected  and  must 
be  satisfactorily  explained. 

On  the  twenty-first  of  August  Halleck  again  telegraphed  Mc- 
Clellan that  the  forces  of  Burnside  and  Pope  were  being  hard 
pushed  and  needed  immediate  aid.  McClellan  on  the  evening  of 
the  twenty-third  started  in  leisurely  fashion,  and  four  days  later, 
when  it  was  far  too  late,  reached  Alexandria.  McClellan  might 
have  saved  Pope's  crushing  defeat.  One  of  his  generals,  Fitz- 
john Porter,  was  court-martialed  and  dismissed  for  not  coming 
to  Pope's  rescue. 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  101 

After  the  defeat  of  General  Pope,  Lincoln  and  Halleck  per- 
sonally called  on  McClellan,  and  placed  him  in  complete  command 
of  the  forces  about  Washington.  If  we  judge  from  McClellan's 
letter  to  his  wife  written  that  very  day,  the  interview  contained 
no  intimation  that  the  president  was  in  a  panic.  Writing-  on  the 
day  of  his  interview,  September  2,   1862,  he  said: 

I  was  surprised  this  morning,  when  at  breakfast,  by  a  visit 
from  the  President  and  Halleck,  in  which  the  former  expressed 
the  opinion  that  the  troubles  now  impending  could  be  overcome 
better  by  me  than  by  any  one  else.  Pope  is  ordered  to  fall  back 
upon  Washington,  and  as  he  reenters  everything  is  to  come  into 
my  command  again. 

In  his  home  letters  McClellan  never  missed  an  opportunity 
to  tell  his  wife  how  great  a  man  he  was  and  how  superior  to  all 
other  men  in  the  situation.  We  may  be  sure  that  this  letter  told 
essentially  what  occurred  and  there  is  no  evidence  whatever, 
apart  from  his  own  long  subsequent  testimony,  that  would  lead 
us  to  suppose  that  the  president  was  in  mortal  fear  that  Wash- 
ington was  lost. 

Many  years  afterward,  when  McClellan  wrote  his  book,  his 
memory  of  the  incident  was  that  the  president  and  Halleck  had 
both  believed  that  Washington  was  doomed  to  capture,  and  that 
McClellan  was  the  one  calm  and  unterrified  man  in  Washington : 

He  (the  president)  then  said  that  he  regarded  Washington  as 
lost,  and  asked  me  if  I  would,  under  the  circumstances,  as  a 
favor  to  him,  resume  command  and  do  the  best  that  could  be 
done.  Without  one  moment's  hesitation,  and  without  making 
any  conditions  whatever,  I  at  once  said  that  I  would  accept  the 
command  and  would  stake  my  life  that  I  would  save  the  city. 
Both  the  President  and  Halleck  again  asserted  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  save  the  city,  and  I  repeated  my  firm  conviction  that  I 
.could  and  would  save  it.  They  then  left,  the  President  verbally 
placing  me  in  entire  command  of  the  city  and  of  the  troops  fall- 
ing back  upon  it  from  the  front. 


102  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

This  story,  which  McClellan  did  not  relate  until  years  after- 
ward, undergoes  still  greater  expansion  in  the  account  written, 
on  McClellan's  authority,  by  George  Ticknor  Curtis : 

"Will  you,"  asked  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  his  distress,  "Will  you, 
dare  you,  take  command  in  this  dangerous  crisis?"  The  peril 
was  instantly  assumed  by  McClellan,  without  a  thought  con- 
cerning himself.  That  he  did  not  stipulate  for  a  written  order 
shows  how  little  he  was  considering  his  own  safety. 

Possibly  so;  and  it  is  equally  possible  that  there  is  no  written 
order  because  the  thing  did  not  happen  in  that  fashion.  Lincoln 
had  been  dead  a  long  time  before  McClellan  told  the  world  how 
all  Washington  was  in  terror  and  Lincoln  in  hysterics  and  Mc- 
Clellan the  only  calm  and  brave  man  in  Washington.  At  least 
four  men  who  were  then  seeing  Lincoln  almost  daily  were  keep- 
ing diaries,  and  neither  John  Hay  nor  O.  H.  Browning  nor 
Salmon  P.  Chase  nor  Gideon  Welles  represents  the  president  in 
any  such  state  of  terror. 

We  know  that  Lincoln's  appointment  of  McClellan  at  that 
crisis  was  strongly  opposed  by  a  majority  of  the  Cabinet,  who 
had  no  assurance  that  McClellan  was  the  only  man  who  could 
save  the  capital  from  the  Confederates.  Doubtless  Lincoln  was 
troubled,  but  we  are  quite  sure  we  know  his  reasons  for  giving 
the  command  to  the  more  than  willing  McClellan.  First  was 
the  fact  that  he  believed  McClellan  was  capable,  and  he  hoped 
had  learned  his  lesson.  Second  was  the  fact  that  the  soldiers 
still  believed  in  him.  And  third  was  the  fact  that  Lincoln  was 
afraid  McClellan  would  not  support  any  other  leader. 

It  is  not  strange  that  in  after  years  McClellan  saw  himself 
in  that  dark  hour  the  one  supremely  brave  and  confident  man, 
calmly  assuring  the  terrified  president  that  he,  McClellan,  would 
stake  his  own  head  on  his  ability  to  save  the  capital.  But  we 
know  that  there  were  men  in  and  about  Washington  in  those  days 
as  timid  as  McClellan  charged  the  president  with  having  been. 
One  man,  an  officer  in  the  army,  wrote  to  his  wife : 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN 


103 


I  do  not  regard  Washington  as  safe  against  the  rebels.  If  I 
can  quietly  slip  over  there  I  will  send  your  silver  off. 

It  will  certainly  interest  the  reader  to  know  that  the  brave  man 
who  wrote  and  signed  this  letter  was  Major  General  George  B. 
McClellan. 

For  a  considerable  time  Lincoln  bore,  without  appearing  to 
notice  it,  McClellan's  discourtesy  and  thinly  veiled  scorn.  At  no 
time  does  Lincoln  appear  to  have  taken  into  account  McClellan's 
personal  incivility.  But  Lincoln  was  losing  patience  with  Mc- 
Clellan's failures  to  achieve  a  victor}'.  Especially  did  Lincoln 
resent  McClellan's  failure  to  cooperate  with  Pope.  General  Hal- 
leck  took  command  of  all  the  armies  on  July  23,  1862.  He  and 
McClellan  utterly  failed  to  agree.  When  Pope  started  forth  on 
his  campaign  from  which  so  much  was  hoped,  he  warned  the 
president,  according  to  Chase,  that  he  could  not  safely  command 
the  Army  of  Virginia  if  his  success  was  to  depend  on  the  coop- 
eration of  McClellan.  When  Pope  made  his  humiliating  mis- 
take, and  McClellan  left  him  "to  get  out  of  his  own  scrape,"  the 
president  lost  very  nearly  all  the  patience  he  had  left. 

McClellan  was  not  tried  as  Porter  was,  for  deliberately  failing 
to  support  Pope.  But  on  August  twenty-ninth,  wThen  General 
Pope  was  being  driven,  McClellan,  still  inactive,  telegraphed  the 
president : 

I  am  clear  that  one  of  two  courses  should  be  adopted:  First, 
to  concentrate  all  our  available  forces  to  open  communication 
with  Pope.  Second,  to  leave  Pope  to  get  out  of  his  scrape  and 
at  once  use  all  means  to  make  the  capital  perfectly  safe.  No 
middle  course  will  now  answer.  Tell  me  what  you  wish  me  to 
do,  and  I  will  do  all  in  my  power  to  accomplish  it.  I  wish  to 
know  what  my  orders  and  authority  are.  I  ask  for  nothing, 
but  will  obey  whatever  order  you  give.  I  only  ask  a  prompt 
decision,  that  I  may  at  once  give  the  necessary  orders.  It  will 
not  do  to  delay  longer. 

This  was  an  astonishing  message   to  have    followed   such  a 


104  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

series  of  imperative  orders  as  McClellan  had  been  receiving  for 
weeks.  Manifestly,  his  inclination  now  was  to  leave  Pope  to  get 
out  of  his  scrape  if  he  could.  Indeed,  by  that  time  it  was  al- 
most necessary  thus  to  leave  him,  for  Pope's  broken  army  was 
no  longer  in  condition  to  protect  the  capital. 

Thus  was  Pope's  army  crushed,  Porter  disgraced  and  the 
country  disheartened.     And  still  McClellan  did  not  move. 

By  this  time,  Stanton,  who  had  been  McClellan's  warm  friend, 
had  become  his  most  pronounced  critic  and  relentless  enemy. 
After  the  defeat  of  Pope,  Stanton  was  furious.  John  Hay's 
diary  says : 

Stanton  was  loud  about  the  McClellan  business.  Was  un- 
qualifiedly severe  on  McClellan.  He  said  that  after  these  bat- 
tles there  should  be  one  court  martial  if  never  any  more.  He 
said  that  nothing  but  foul  play  could  lose  us  this  battle,  and  that 
it  rested  with  McClellan  and  his  friends.  Stanton  seemed  to 
believe  very  strongly  in  Pope.  So  did  the  President,  for  that 
matter. 

Seward,  also,  according  to  Hay,  was  bitterly  sad  about  Mc- 
Clellan's apparent  betrayal  of  Pope.  Seward  met  Hay,  and 
spoke  of  himself  as  old,  and  much  saddened  that  he  should  have 
lived  to  discover  the  rancor  of  military  jealousy.     Hay  records : 

I  said  it  never  should  have  seemed  possible  to  me  that  one 
American  General  should  write  of  another  to  the  President, 
suggesting  that  Pope  be  allowed  to  get  out  of  his  own  scrape 
in  his  own  way.  He  answered,  "I  don't  see  why  you  should 
have  expected  it.  You  are  not  old.  I  should  have  known  it." 
He  said  this  slowly  and  sadly. 

In  John  Hay's  diary  is  recorded  a  conversation .  which  oc- 
curred between  the  president  and  his  secretary  on  their  morning 
ride  from  the  Soldiers'  Home  to  the  White  House  on  Saturday 
August  30,  1862: 

The   President   is   very   outspoken   in   regard   to   McClellan's 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAX  105 

present  conduct.  He  said  it  really  seemed  to  him  that  McClel- 
lan  wanted  Pope  defeated.  He  mentioned  to  me  a  dispatch  of 
McClellan's  in  which  he  proposed  as  our  plan  of  action  "to  leave 
Pope  to  get  out  of  his  own  scrape,  and  devote  ourselves  to  se- 
curing Washington."  He  spoke  also  of  McClellan's  dreadful 
panic  in  the  matter  of  the  Chain  Bridge  which  he  had  ordered 
blown  up  the  night  before ;  and  also  his  incomprehensible  inter- 
ference with  Franklin's  corps  which  he  recalled  when  they  had 
been  sent  ahead  by  Halleck's  order,  begged  permission  to  recall 
them  again,  and  only  persisted  after  Halleck's  sharp  injunction 
to  push  them  ahead  until  they  whipped  something  or  got 
whipped  themselves.  The  President  seemed  to  think  him  a  little 
crazy.  Envy,  jealousy  and  spite  are  probably  a  better  explana- 
tion of  his  present  conduct. 

It  was  charged  against  Lincoln  afterward  that  by  this  time  he 
had  become  intent  upon  making  the  war  the  occasion  of  the  re- 
moval of  slavery,  that  he  did  not  wish  the  Confederates  defeated 
at  this  time;  and  that  the  Federal  losses,  not  only  under  Pope 
but  later  at  Fredericksburg  under  Burnside  and  at  Chancellors- 
ville  under  Hooker,  and  even  those  under  Meade  at  Gettysburg, 
were  fairly  to  be  charged  to  this  policy.  This  is  the  theory  sug- 
gested and  virtually  avowed  by  George  Ticknor  Curtis,  the  biog- 
rapher of  Buchanan,  and  eulogist  of  McClellan.*  But  this 
charge  is  not  only  not  supported  by  the  facts,  but  is  squarely 
opposed  to  what,  on  indubitable  evidence,  we  now  know  to  have 
been  Lincoln's  attitude  toward  McClellan,  toward  slavery  and 
toward  the  saving  of  the  Union. 

If  the  Confederate  Army  had  appreciated  the  full  value  to 
them  of  their  victory  at  Bull  Run  and  of  their  subsequent  gains, 
they  might  have  pressed  on  and  captured  Washington.  For- 
tunately for  the  Union  cause  then  and  later,  the  Confederates 
were  nearly  as  much  demoralized  as  were  the  Union  troops,  and 
felt  themselves  in  no  condition  to  follow  up  their  advantage. 
Washington,  however,  continued  in  a  state  of  perpetual  alarm. 


*See  his  scarce  pamphlet,  McClellan's  Last  Service  to  the  Public,  together 
with  a   Tribute  to  His  Memory,  published  by  Appleton  in   1886. 


106  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

It  was  filled  with  Confederate  spies  and  was  at  times  within 
cannon  shot  of  the  Confederate  outposts.  General  Halleck  was 
not  unmindful  of  the  value  to  the  Union  which  the  capture  of 
Richmond  would  involve;  but  he  knew  well  that  the  Confed- 
erates could  well  afford  at  any  moment  to  exchange  Richmond 
for  Washington.  The  seat  of  the  Confederate  Government  was 
of  no  long  standing,  and  having  once  been  removed  from  Mont- 
gomery to  Richmond,  might  be  removed  from  Richmond  to 
some  other  city,  not  indeed  without  loss  but  without  irreparable 
loss.  The  capture  of  Washington,  however,  would  have  been 
a  disaster  beyond  all  computation.  Its  capture  would  almost 
certainly  have  been  followed  promptly  by  the  recognition  of  the 
Confederacy  by  both  England  and  France.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  the  Confederate  Government  itself  would  have  been  trans- 
ferred from  Richmond  to  Washington.  The  capture  of  Wash- 
ington was  a  possibility  so  appalling  that  neither  Halleck  nor 
Lincoln  could  contemplate  it  with  any  degree  of  comfort.  Mc- 
Clellan  rested  in  his  fatuous  conviction  that  one  successful  battle 
fought  by  him  would  destroy  the  Confederate  Army  and  end  the 
Confederate  Government.  He  is  not  to  be  blamed  for  desiring  to 
be  fully  prepared  for  that  battle.  He  demanded  that  all  other 
interests  be  subordinated  to  the  building  up  of  his  one  great 
army.  There  was  no  disposition  on  Lincoln's  part  to  deny  to 
McClellan  any  reenforcements  which  the  government  could  pos- 
sibly spare  to  him ;  but  it  was  felt  most  earnestly  that  a  sufficient 
body  of  troops  should  be  held  in  reserve  for  the  protection  of 
Washington. 

We  shall  have  occasion  to  consider  McClellan's  character  and 
conduct  again  when  we  come  to  the  battle  of  Antietam,  and 
again  when  we  come  to  the  presidential  campaign  of  1864.  For 
the  present  it  is  enough  to  remember  that  after  the  failure  of 
Pope,  McClellan  resumed  command,  and  that  he  fought  and  won 
at  Antietam  his  first  and  only  notable  victory  after  his  first 
successes  in  western  Virginia. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


LINCOLN    AND    STANTON 


Lincoln  had  accepted,  with  such  grace  as  he  could,  Simon 
Cameron  as  secretary  of  war.  On  January  14,  1862,  Cameron 
resigned  this  position.  Lincoln  made  no  pretense  of  regret 
when  he  accepted  Cameron's  resignation.  He  appointed  Cam- 
eron Minister  to  Russia.  The  reason  that  was  permitted  to  be 
given  to  the  public  was  a  difference  of  opinion  which  existed 
between  the  president  and  secretary  of  war  concerning  the  arm- 
ing of  men  who  had  been  slaves.  Cameron's  report  at  the  end 
of  1 86 1  virtually  committed  the  War  Department  to  that  policy, 
and  Lincoln,  so  it  was  said,  "was  not  prepared  to  permit  a  mem- 
ber of  his  Cabinet,  without  his  consent,  to  commit  the  adminis- 
tration to  so  radical  a  policy  at  so  early  a  date."  This  is  the 
explanation  given  by  John  G.  Nicolay.  But  a  much  more  seri- 
ous reason  might  have  been  given,  which  was  that  personal 
friends  and  political  associates  of  the  secretary  of  war  were 
charged  with  profiting  through  dishonorable  contracts,  by 
means  of  which  the  government  was  robbed  for  their  financial 
profit.  Whatever  the  truth  of  the  matter,  the  resignation  of 
Cameron  was  very  willingly  accepted.  He  continued,  however, 
a  warm  friend  and  supporter  of  Lincoln. 

When  Cameron  resigned  there  was  a  strong  demand  upon 
Lincoln  that  others  of  his  Cabinet  be  dismissed.  It  was  felt 
that,  as  Lincoln  had  asserted  himself  in  that  one  instance,  the 
time  was  favorable  for  his  removing  some  other  members  who 
were  more  or  less  unpopular.  There  were  even  those  who  ad- 
vocated an  entire  new  Cabinet.     Certain   Republican  senators 

107 


108  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

earnestly  advised  him  to  make  a  clean  sweep,  and  select  seven 
new  men,  and  so  restore  the  waning  confidence  of  the  country. 

The  president  listened  with  patient  courtesy,  and  when  the 
senators  had  concluded,  he  said,  with  a  characteristic  gleam  of 
humor  in  his  eye : 

"Gentlemen,  your  request  for  a  change  of  the  whole  Cabinet 
because  I  have  made  one  change  reminds  me  of  a  story  I  once 
heard  in  Illinois,  of  a  farmer  who  was  much  troubled  with 
skunks.     His  wife  insisted  on  his  trying  to  get  rid  of  them. 

"He  loaded  his  shotgun  one  moonlight  night  and  awaited  de- 
velopments. After  some  time  the  wife  heard  the  shotgun  go  off, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  the  farmer  entered  the  house. 

"  'What  luck  have  you  ?'  asked  she. 

"  T  hid  myself  behind  the  wood-pile,'  said  the  old  man,  'with 
the  shotgun  pointed  toward  the  hen-roost,  and  before  long  there 
appeared  not  one  skunk,  but  seven.  I  took  aim,  blazed  away, 
killed  one,  and  he  raised  such  a  fearful  smell  that  I  concluded  it 
was  best  to  let  the  other  six  go.'  " 

The  senators  laughed  and  departed,  not  questioning  the  presi- 
dent's logic. 

At  this  time  Lincoln  called  to  the  position  made  vacant  by  the 
resignation  of  Cameron,  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  a  man  of  great  in- 
dustry and  energy.  He  was  no  stranger  to  Lincoln.  In  1855 
they  had  met  in  Cincinnati  in  the  McCormick  Reaper  case.  Stan- 
ton is  said  to  have  described  Lincoln  as  "a  long  lank  creature 
from  Illinois,  wearing  a  dirty  linen  duster  for  a  coat,  on  the  back 
of  which  the  perspiration  had  splotched  wide  stains  that  re- 
sembled a  map  of  the  continent."  He  did  not  permit  Lincoln 
to  plead  in  that  case.  Lincoln  was  humiliated  and  indignant. 
He  said  that  no  man  had  ever  treated  him  as  rudely  as  Stanton 
did. 

Nothing  can  more  finely  illustrate  Lincoln's  lack  of  vindictive- 
ness  than  his  choice  of  Stanton  as  a  member  of  his  Cabinet.  He 
knew  that  Stanton  held  him  in  contempt ;  that  he  was  profane, 
abusive  and  a  member  of  the  Democratic  Party.     He  had  every 


LINCOLN  AND  STANTON  109 

reason  to  believe  that  Stanton  was  a  man  in  whose  association 
he  would  have  occasion  to  anticipate  unhappy  experiences;  but 
Lincoln  believed  that  Stanton  was  a  man  of  courage,  a  man  of 
integrity,  a  man  of  large  organizing  ability,  and  a  man  thor- 
oughly loyal  to  his  country.  If  it  ever  cost  Lincoln  a  struggle 
to  invite  Stanton  to  this  position,  he  never  told  of  it. 

Edwin  M.  Stanton  was  born  at  Steubenville,  Ohio,  December 
19,  1814.  He  studied  at  Kenyon  College,  but  did  not  graduate. 
He  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  and  by  industry  and  integrity  he 
rose  to  a  foremost  position  among  the  lawyers  of  his  own  state. 
In  the  Wheeling  Bridge  Case  he  established  the  principle  of 
national  sovereignty  over  all  internal  navigable  waters,  and  by 
the  Pennsylvania  State  Canal  and  Railway  cases  he  settled  the 
right  of  the  people  to  control  all  methods  of  public  transporta- 
tion. He  was  sent  to  California  to  protect  the  interests  of  the 
Federal  Government  against  an  army  of  fraudulent  claimants. 
An  ardent  Democrat,  he  accepted  a  position  in  Buchanan's  Cabi- 
net as  attorney  general  when  Jeremiah  S.  Black  vacated  that 
position  to  become  secretary  of  state;  and  when  John  B.  Floyd 
resigned  his  position  as  secretary  of  war  to  go  with  the  South, 
Stanton  succeeded  him. 

While  secretary  of  war  under  Buchanan,  Stanton  entered  into 
negotiations  with  the  friends  of  the  Union,  and  in  the  months 
that  preceded  the  inauguration  he  may  be  said  to  have  done 
more  than  any  other  one  man  in  Washington,  except  Seward,  to 
prevent  a  peaceable  disruption  of  the  Union.  This  loyalty  to 
the  L^nion  did  not,  however,  enhance  his  regard  for  Lincoln. 
He  wrote  to  General  John  A.  Dix  concerning  what  he  called 
"the  imbecility  of  Lincoln."  He  habitually  referred  to  Lincoln 
as  a  "gorilla.''  His  criticism  of  Lincoln's  first  months  as  presi- 
dent was  incessant  and  unsparing.  He  was  McClellan's  adviser 
and  host  at  the  time  when  McClellan  was  in  virtual  rebellion 
against  Lincoln  and  General  Scott.  Several  of  McClellan's  least 
admirable  letters  were  written  from  Stanton's  house. 

Stanton  entered  the  War  Department  with  the  declaration  that 


no  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

he  would  "make  Abe  Lincoln  president."  There  is  an  impres- 
sion that  he  undertook  rather  to  make  Edwin  M.  Stanton  presi- 
dent. Yet  it  really  was  Stanton  who  induced  Lincoln  to  assert 
the  supremacy  which  the  Constitution  gave  him  as  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  United  States.  In  a  very 
real  sense  it  was  Stanton  who  stood  for  the  authority  of  the 
president  as  over  against  the  ambitions  of  Seward  and  Chase, 
each  of  whom  was  disposed  to  believe  himself  the  president  de 
facto.  Of  Stanton  in  his  relations  to  the  president  might  be  said 
what  was  affirmed  concerning  the  wife  of  the  Reverend  Doctor 
Syntax : 

No  tongue  she  suffered  to  dethrone 
His  reverent  greatness  but  her  own. 

And,  while  Lincoln  and  Stanton  can  never  be  said  to  have  been 
congenial  friends,  the  relations  of  the  same  interesting  couple 
might  again  be  cited: 

But  they  retained  with  all  their  pother 
A  sneaking  fondness  for  each  other. 

There  was  that  about  Stanton  which  Lincoln  unfeignedly 
liked,  and  there  was  that  in  Lincoln  which  Stanton  was  more 
and  more  compelled  to  admire. 

Lincoln  did  more  than  tolerate  Stanton,  he  profited  largely  by 
Stanton's  presence  in  the  Cabinet.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  Lin- 
coln could  possibly  have  spared  him.  Stanton  was  a  terror  to 
evil-doers.  Corrupt  contractors  could  neither  bribe  nor  bully 
him.  If  Stanton  now  and  then  overruled  Lincoln's  judgment, 
the  chances  are  fully  even  that  in  those  particulars  the  judgment 
of  Lincoln  needed  to  be  overruled;  for  there  were  times  when 
Lincoln's  judgment  warped  under  pressure. 

On  one  occasion  a  deputation  waited  on  Stanton  with  an  of- 
ficial order  from  the  president,  and  Stanton  flatly  refused  to  obey 
the  order. 


LINCOLN  AND  STANTOX  in 

"But  we  have  the  president's  order,"  said  the  spokesman  of 
the  deputation. 

"The  president  is  a  fool,"  blurted  out  Stanton. 

Forthwith  the  delegation  returned  to  the  White  House  and 
gave  to  Lincoln  a  report  of  the  conversation. 

"Did  Stanton  say  I  was  a  fool?"  inquired  the  president. 

"He  used  that  very  word." 

"Stanton  is  usually  right,"  said  Lincoln.  "I  will  slip  over  and 
see  him." 

He  did  so,  and  Stanton  convinced  the  president  that  the  course 
he  had  intended  to  follow  was  inadvisable.  The  president  ac- 
cepted the  judgment  of  his  secretary. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  times  when  Lincoln  stood  his 
ground  and  compelled  Stanton  to  do  the  thing  which  he  believed 
was  right. 

One  thing  Stanton  did,  which  was  to  introduce  another  strong 
personality  into  the  Cabinet — one  who  could  hold  his  own 
against  either  Seward  or  Chase. 

Cabinet  meetings  now  are  formal  affairs,  and  each  member 
has  his  assigned  seat,  its  distance  from  the  president  being  de- 
pendent on  the  time  when  that  particular  department  first  came 
to  be  represented  in  the  Cabinet.  But  in  Lincoln's  day,  meetings 
were  very  informal.  Seward  assumed  his  right  to  sit  next  the 
president,  and  that  is  where  he  would  now  be  expected  to  sit; 
but  sometimes  the  president  thought  Seward's  assumption  of 
authority  did  not  seem  to  leave  much  responsibility  for  any 
one  else.    On  September  16,  1862,  Secretary  Welles  wrote: 

At  the  Executive  Mansion  the  Secretary  of  State  informed  me 
that  there  was  to  be  no  Cabinet  meeting.  He  was  authorized 
by  the  President  to  communicate  the  fact.  Smith  said  it  would 
be  as  well,  perhaps,  to  postpone  the  Cabinet  meetings  altogether 
and  indefinitely — there  seemed  no  use  latterly  for  our  coming 
together.  Others  expressed  corresponding  opinions.  Seward 
turned  off,  a  little  annoyed.  An  unfavorable  impression  is  get- 
ting abroad  in  regard  to  the  President  and  the  administration, 


ii2  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

not  without  reason,  perhaps,  which  prompted  Smith  and  others 
to  express  their  minds  freely.  There  is  really  very  little  of  a 
Government  here  at  this  time,  so  far  as  the  most  of  the  Cabinet 
are  concerned.  Seward,  when  in  Washington,  spends  more  or 
less  of  each  day  with  the  President,  absorbs  his  attention,  and  I 
fear  to  an  extent  influences  his  action,  not  always  wisely.  The 
President  has  good  sense,  intelligence,  and  an  excellent  heart, 
but  he  is  sadly  perplexed  and  distressed  by  events.  .  .  .  Seward 
seeks,  and  at  times  has,  influence  which  is  sometimes  harmful. 
He  is  anxious  to  direct,  to  be  Premier,  the  real  executive.* 

Welles  came  also  to  resent  the  usurpation  of  Stanton.  On 
June  3,  1863,  he  wrote: 

Stanton  does  not  attend  one  half  of  the  Cabinet  meetings. 
When  he  comes  he  communicates  little  of  importance.  Not  in- 
frequently he  has  a  private  conference  with  the  President  in  one 
corner  of  the  room,  or  with  Seward  in  the  library.  Chase,  Blair 
and  Bates  have  expressed  their  mortification  and  chagrin  that 
things  were  so  conducted. f 

It  is  not  certain  that  the  world  understands  Stanton.  His 
rough  speeches  and  hot  temper  have  been  made  a  foil  for  Lin- 
coln's considerate  utterance  and  calm  demeanor.  There  is  good 
reason  to  believe  that  Stanton  was  a  kinder  and  nobler  man  than 
has  sometimes  been  represented.  It  is  true  that  Stanton  treated 
Lincoln  with  discourtesy  at  Cincinnati,  and  that  Stanton  is  al- 
leged to  have  said  among  other  harsh  things,  that  he  had  "met 
Lincoln  at  the  bar,  and  found  him  a  low,  cunning  clown.  1  It 
is  true  that  Stanton  sometimes  refused  to  obey  the  president's 
orders ;  though  there  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  in  these  mat- 
ters Lincoln  and  Stanton  understood  each  other  better  than  other 
men  understood  either  of  them. ft    But  it  does  not  appear  to  be 


*Diary,  i,  pp.  13 1-3. 
t Diary,  i,  p.  320. 

$Ben    Perley    Poore    in    Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln  by  Distin- 
guished Men  of  His  Time,  p.  223. 

tfSee  J.  P.  Usher  in  Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  etc.,  p.  100. 


LINCOLN  AND  STANTON  113 

true  that  Stanton  was  cruel  or  wilfully  unjust.     Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  who  knew  him  well,  said : 

"Stanton  was  as  tender  as  a  woman — he  was  tender  as  a 
lover."* 

The  candid  student  is  forced  to  the  conviction  that  more  than 
once  Stanton's  sound  judgment  and  unflinching  courage  saved 
the  country  from  disaster.  But  Stanton  is  not  to  be  reckoned 
among  those  who  habitually  opposed  the  president.  There  is 
good  reason  to  believe  that  an  understanding  existed  between 
them  whereby  Stanton  had  authority  now  and  then  to  do  what 
appeared  like  an  overruling  of  the  president's  policies.  In  the 
Cabinet  Stanton  was  one  of  Lincoln's  habitual  and  emphatic  sup- 
porters. He  was  from  the  beginning  one  of  the  two  members 
of  the  Cabinet  who  believed  in  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves, 
and  his  pressure  upon  Lincoln  was  not  without  influence  in  in- 
ducing him  to  take  that  step. 

Stanton  filled  the  military  prisons  in  and  about  Washington 
with  men  and  women  accused  of  disloyalty.  It  is  more  than 
possible  that  some  men  were  imprisoned  who  did  not  deserve 
that  fate;  but  broadly  speaking  no  very  large  proportion  of  the 
population  of  the  military  prisons  was  sent  to  jail  for  being  loyal 
or  good. 

Lincoln  himself  was  accustomed  to  tell  a  story  illustrative  of 
the  high  virtue  claimed  by  practically  all  people  in  prison.  The 
governor  of  a  certain  state  was  visiting  the  state  prison,  and 
stopped  to  talk  with  a  number  of  prisoners.  They  told  him  their 
story,  and  in  every  instance  it  was  one  of  wrong  suffered  by  an 
innocent  person.  The  real  criminal  had  always  escaped,  and  the 
imprisoned  man  was  the  unfortunate  victim  of  appearances  or  of 
conspiracy  or  perjury.  There  was  one  man,  however,  who  ad- 
mitted his  crime  and  the  justice  of  his  sentence.  "I  must  pardon 
you,"  said  the  governor,  "I  can't  have  you  in  here  corrupting  all 
these  good  men." 


*See  Henry  Ward  Beecher  in  Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  etc. 
P.  252.    * 


H4  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Stanton  wore  himself  out  in  the  service  of  his  country.  It 
was  a  service  as  unsparing  of  himself  as  it  had  been  uncompro- 
mising of  its  demands  upon  others.  Finally  when  the  war  was 
over  and  the  great  president  had  crowned  his  sacrifice  with  his 
own  blood,  it  was  Stanton  who  assumed  the  responsibility  of 
the  government  during  the  hours  before  Andrew  Johnson  was 
in  condition  to  be  inaugurated.  A  few  years  later,  Edwin  M. 
Stanton,  exhausted  in  body  and  mind  and  purse,  having  given 
to  his  country  all  he  had  of  strength  and  wealth,  and  even  of 
honor  justly  due  him,  lay  down  and  died. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE    TRENT   AND   THE    MONITOR 


It  has  never  been  easy  for  Americans  to  forgive  official  Great 
Britain  for  her  attitude  toward  the  United  States  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Civil  War.  The  haste  with  which  Great  Britain  and 
France  recognized  the  Confederates  as  belligerents  was  in  itself 
a  disappointment,  and  this  recognition,  itself  an  unneighborly  act 
on  the  part  of  both  these  nations,  was  followed  by  acts  of  aid 
and  comfort  to  the  Confederate  forces  which  no  pretense  of 
neutrality,  much  less  of  friendship,  could  disguise.  The  readi- 
ness of  Great  Britain  to  give  offense  was  equaled  by  her  readi- 
ness to  take  offense.  The  delicacy  of  the  relations  between  the 
two  countries  became  painfully  apparent  in  the  Trent  affair. 

On  November  8,  1861,  Captain  Charles  Wilkes,  commanding 
the  United  States  steamer  San  Jacinto,  halted  the  British  royal 
mail  steamship  Trent,  and  removed  from  her  James  M.  Mason 
and  John  Slidell,  with  their  two  secretaries,  and  took  them  to 
Boston  where  they  were  imprisoned  in  Fort  Warren  in  Boston 
Harbor.  Mason  and  Slidell  were  the  accredited  envoys  of  the 
Confederacy  to  England  and  France.  They  ran  the  blockade  at 
Charleston  in  the  autumn  of  1861,  and  arrived  at  Havana. 
They  announced  their  purpose  to  sail  from  there  for  Great 
Britain  on  the  Steamer  Trent  on  November  seventh.  On  the  fol- 
lowing day  Captain  Wilkes  compelled  the  Trent  to  halt  as  she 
was  sailing  through  the  Bahama  Channel,  and  sent  a  force  of 
marines  on  board  to  take  off  the  emissaries  of  the  Confederate 
Government.     The  Trent  then  proceeded  upon  her  voyage. 

This  act  on  the  part  of  Captain  Wilkes  was  hailed  with  great 

115 


n6  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

joy  throughout  the  North.  Secretary  Welles  wrote  to  Captain 
Wilkes  a  letter  of  congratulation,  declaring  that  his  conduct  was 
marked  by  intelligence,  ability,  decision  and  firmness,  and  that 
it  "had  the  emphatic  approval  of  this  department."  Secretary 
Stanton  also  applauded  the  act. 

Congress  convened  just  at  the  time  the  interest  in  this  matter 
was  at  its  height.  One  of  its  first  acts  on  the  opening  day  of  the 
session  was  to  pass  by  unanimous  consent  a  vote  of  thanks  to 
Captain  Wilkes.  This  resolution  was  introduced  by  Owen  Love- 
joy,  and  the  House  lost  no  time  in  placing  the  hot-headed  reso- 
lution on  its  record. 

Chittenden  in  his  book  of  Recollections,  asserts  that  Secretary 
Seward  from  the  first  disapproved  the  action;  but  Chittenden's 
recollections  were  sometimes  very  wide  of  the  facts ;  Gideon 
Welles  declares  that  Seward  at  the  beginning  was  opposed  to 
giving  up  the  emissaries,  but  yielded  when  the  demand  of  Great 
Britain  became  peremptory.  Considering  the  attitude  of  Sew- 
ard toward  Great  Britain  as  shown  by  his  Thoughts  for  the 
President's  Consideration,  on  April  i,  1861,  in  which  he  was 
then  ready  to  go  to  war  with  Great  Britain,  Welles  is  more  likely 
to  be  correct  in  this  matter  than  Chittenden. 

Whatever  the  attitude  of  others,  there  appears  to  be  no  doubt 
of  Lincoln's  view  of  the  case.  He  had  grave  misgivings  from 
the  start  concerning  the  right  of  Captain  Wilkes  to  stop  and 
search  a  British  vessel  on  the  high  seas. 

"I  fear  the  traitors  will  prove  to  be  white  elephants,"  he  said. 
"We  must  stick  to  American  principles  concerning  the  rights  of 
neutrals.  We  fought  Great  Britain  for  insisting  by  theory  and 
practice  on  the  right  to  do  exactly  what  Captain  Wilkes  has  done. 
If  Great  Britain  shall  now  protest  against  the  act  and  demand 
their  release,  we  must  give  them  up,  apologize  for  the  act  as  a 
violation  of  our  doctrines,  and  thus  forever  bind  her  over  to  keep 
the  peace  in  relation  to  neutrals,  and  so  acknowledge  that  she 
has  been  wrong  for  sixty  years." 

Meantime,  Great  Britain  was  working  her  navy  yards  night 


THE  TRENT  AND  THE  MONITOR  117 

rnd  day  in  open  and  visible  preparation  for  war  against  the 
United  States.  The  British  press  flamed  with  denunciations  of 
the  American  insult  to  the  British  Navy.  At  one  time  war 
seemed  inevitable. 

Mr.  Frederick  Seward,  who  was  assistant  to  his  father,  main- 
tained that  it  was  Secretary  Seward  who  at  this  juncture  saved 
the  country  from  a  calamitous  and  unjustifiable  war  with 
Great  Britain.  Charles  Francis  Adams,  the  American  Ambas- 
sador at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  agreed  with  him.  But  while 
high  honor  is  due  to  Adams  at  this  juncture,  and  some  also  to 
Seward,  it  appears  to  have  been  Lincoln's  common  sense  and 
sound  judgment  which  saved  the  day.  All  through  the  excite- 
ment he  was  calmly  considering  America's  historic  attitude  to- 
ward the  question  of  the  right  of  search,  and  the  practical  way  of 
saving  America  the  necessity  of  a  war  with  Great  Britain.  On 
Lincoln's  advice  and  practically  upon  his  decision  that  it  must 
be  done,  the  prisoners  were  returned  to  Great  Britain.  This  act 
greatly  strengthened  America  before  the  public  sentiment  of 
England. 

"If  reparation  were  made  at  all,  of  which  few  of  us  felt  more 
than  a  hope,"  wrote  John  Stuart  Mill,  "we  thought  that  it  would 
be  made  obviously  as  a  concession  to  prudence,  not  to  principle. 
IVe  thought  that  there  would  have  been  truckling  to  the  news- 
paper editors  and  supposed  fire-eaters  who  were  crying  out  for 
retaining  the  prisoners  at  all  hazards.  .  .  .  We  expected  every- 
thing, in  short,  which  would  have  been  weak,  and  timid,  and 
paltry.  The  only  thing  which  no  one  seemed  to  expect  is  what 
has  actually  happened.  Mr.  Lincoln's  government  have  done 
none  of  these  things.  Like  honest  men  they  have  said  in  direct 
terms  that  our  demand  was  right ;  that  they  yielded  to  it  because 
it  was  just ;  that  if  they  themselves  had  received  the  same  treat- 
ment, they  would  have  demanded  the  same  reparation;  and  if 
what  seemed  to  be  the  American  side  of  the  question  was  not 
the  just  side,  they  would  be  on  the  side  of  justice,  happy  as  they 
were  to  find  after  their  resolution  had  been  taken,  that  it  was 
also  the  side  which  America  had  formerly  defended.  Is  there 
any  one  capable  of  a  moral  judgment  or  feeling,  who  will  say 


n8  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that   his   opinion   of  America   and   American   statesmen   is  not 
raised  by  such  an  act,  done  on  such  grounds?" 

In  the  United  States,  however,  there  was  no  such  unanimity  of 
sentiment.  The  return  of  Mason  and  Slidell  was  denounced  by 
many  as  an  act  of  weakness  on  the  part  of  the  administration; 
and  some  who  conceded  the  practical  necessity  of  the  act  were 
grief  stricken  at  the  humiliation  of  it.  Owen  Lovejoy,  who  had 
always  refused  to  be  silent  in  his  denunciation  of  the  crime  of 
slavery,  spoke  out  hot  words  which  many  men  deemed  unwise, 
but  whose  sentiments  very  many  people  shared.     He  said: 

"Every  time  this  Trent  affair  comes  up;  every  time  that  an 
allusion  is  made  to  it  .  .  .  I  am  made  to  renew  the  horrible 
grief  which  I  suffered  when  the  news  of  the  surrender  of  Mason 
and  Slidell  came.  I  acknowledge  it,  I  literally  wept  tears  of  vex- 
ation. I  hate  it ;  and  I  hate  the  British  government.  I  have 
never  shared  in  the  traditionary  hostility  of  many  of  my  coun- 
trymen against  England.  But  I  now  here  publicly  avow  and  re- 
cord my  inextinguishable  hatred  of  that  government.  I  mean 
to  cherish  it  while  I  live,  and  to  bequeath  it  as  a  legacy  to  my 
children  when  I  die.  And  if  I  am  alive  when  war  with  England 
comes,  as  sooner  or  later  it  must,  for  we  shall  never  forget  this 
humiliation,  and  if  I  can  carry  a  musket  in  that  war,  I  will  carry 
it.  I  have  three  sons,  and  I  mean  to  charge  them,  and  I  do  now 
publicly  and  solemnly  charge  them,  that  if  they  shall  have,  at 
that  time,  reached  the  years  of  manhood  and  strength,  they  shall 
enter  into  that  war."* 

Senator  Hale,  of  New  Hampshire,  went  so  far  as  to  threaten 
the  administration  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"If,"  said  he,  "this  administration  will  not  listen  to  the  voice 
of  the  people,  they  will  find  themselves  engulfed  in  a  fire  that 
will  consume  them  like  stubble:  they  will  be  helpless  before  a 
power  that  will  hurl  them  from  their  places."* 

Before  many  months,  however,  an  event  occurred  which  did 


^Congressional  Globe,  26.  Session  37th  Congress,  January  7,  1862,  p.  177. 
^Congressional  Globe,  2d   Session  37th  Congress,  p.  2>2>Z> 


THE  TRENT  AND  THE  MONITOR  119 

much  to  strengthen  the  cause  of  the  North  in  the  sight  of  Great 
Britain,  particularly  with  respect  to  the  conflict  to  be  waged  on 
the  ocean. 

The  navy  yard  at  Norfolk,  Virginia,  had  been  captured  by  the 
Confederates.  Among  the  other  vessels  which  then  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  enemy,  was  a  war-ship  named  the  Merrimac. 
The  Confederates  sheathed  her  sides  with  iron,  and  changed  her 
name  to  the  Virginia.  She  was  finished  in  the  spring  of  1862, 
and  on  March  seventh  she  sailed  out  of  Norfolk  Harbor.  On  the 
following  day  she  sailed  down  the  James  River  and  attacked  and 
destroyed  two  United  States  frigates,  the  Cumberland  and  the 
Congress.  A  third  vessel,  the  Minnesota,  was  coming  to  the  aid 
of  the  Cumberland,  but  ran  aground  and  lay  at  the  mercy  of  the 
destroyer. 

The  cannon  balls  fired  by  these  three  vessels  fell  as  harm- 
lessly as  peas  upon  the  iron  armor  of  the  Merrimac.  The  only 
harm  she  suffered  in  this  attack  which  lost  the  Union  Navy  two 
ships,  and  seemed  to  doom  a  third,  was  the  damage  done  to  her 
own  prow  when  she  rammed  the  Cumberland.  She  withdrew  to 
her  anchorage,  and  waited  for  another  day  on  which  she  ex- 
pected easily  to  finish  the  Minnesota. 

On  Sunday  morning,  March  ninth,  the  Virginia,  which  is  still 
known  in  literature  as  the  Merrimac,  moved  triumphantly  to- 
ward the  Minnesota,  never  questioning  that  her  wooden  walls 
would  be  crushed  by  the  first  impact.  Suddenly,  from  under 
the  stern  of  the  Minnesota,  sailed  a  small  nondescript  craft  and 
advanced  to  meet  the  Merrimac. 

The  Monitor,  which  was  the  name  of  this  vessel,  had  been 
built  in  a  Connecticut  shipyard  by  an  ingenious  Swedish  engi- 
neer, John  Ericsson.  She  mounted  two  eleven-inch  Dahlgren 
guns,  each  carrying  a  solid  shot  weighing  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
eight  pounds.  These  guns  were  mounted  in  a  revolving  turret 
which  stood  upon  the  low  deck  only  a  few  inches  above  the  water 
line. 

This  absurd-looking  craft  emerged  and  interposed  its  ridicu- 


120  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

lous  bulk  between  the  Merrimac  and  the  Minnesota.  Then  ensued 
a  battle  the  like  of  which  had  never  been  witnessed  on  the  high 
seas.  Close  against  each  other  the  two  ships  exchanged  their 
heaviest  volleys,  their  iron  rasping  against  iron.  The  battle  be- 
tween David  and  Goliath  was  enacted  again  between  this  mighty 
iron  clad  behemoth  and  the  little  "Yankee  Cheesebox"  floating 
upon  its  raft. 

The  Merrimac  was  not  destroyed,  but  was  so  severely  injured 
that  she  was  compelled  to  withdraw  to  the  shelter  of  the  Nor- 
folk navy  yard,  and  there  she  lay,  a  useless  and  battered  hulk, 
until  the  Confederates  surrendered  the  yard,  when  she  was  de- 
stroyed. 

The  effect  upon  the  country  was  marvelous.  The  news  of  the 
destruction  of  the  Cumberland  and  the  Congress,  and  of  the  cer- 
tain doom  of  the  Minnesota,  had  stricken  the  country  with  ter- 
ror. It  seemed  as  though  every  vessel  in  the  Union  Navy  was 
doomed,  and  that  Washington  itself  would  soon  be  lying  help- 
less under  the  guns  of  this  invincible  iron  ship.  The  Monitor 
had  been  so  hurriedly  finished  that  the  mechanics  remained  on 
board  when  she  left  New  England  for  the  Chesapeake.  Her 
arrival  was  in  the  nick  of  time.  She  actually  entered  the  har- 
bor on  the  night  before  her  battle  by  the  light  of  the  burning  ship 
Congress.  The  country  could  hardly  believe  the  glorious  news 
which  followed  the  Sunday  battle.  In  a  single  day  the  whole 
aspect  of  the  war  upon  the  ocean  was  changed.  No  longer  did 
Washington  fear  attack  by  water.  No  ship  in  the  Confederate, 
or  any  other  navy,  could  stand  the  shock  of  the  Monitor's  heavy 
guns.  By  the  method  of  their  mounting  they  could  be  quickly 
brought  to  bear  upon  any  point  of  the  compass ;  and  the  revolu- 
tion of  the  turret  permitted  them  to  be  loaded  without  exposing 
any  open  port  to  the  fire  of  the  enemy.  The  mourning  of  the 
nation  over  the  loss  of  the  Cumberland  and  Congress  was 
changed  in  a  single  night  to  rejoicing. 

If  there  was  in  Washington  one  man  more  happy  than  any 
other  on  the  night  when  the  Monitor  had  put  the  Merrimac  out 


THE  TRENT  AND  THE  MONITOR  121 

of  commission,  it  was  Gideon  Welles,  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  He 
had  believed  in  the  Monitor  when  no  one  else,  or  few,  thought 
her  of  much  account.  When  the  Merrimac  had  sunk  the  Cum- 
berland and  the  Congress,  the  Cabinet  feared  she  would  steam 
straight  up  to  Washington,  and  to  Xew  York.  Wrelles  assured 
them  that  she  would  not  steam  in  both  directions  at  once,  and 
his  calm,  as  he  tells  the  story,  did  little  to  pacify  them.  They 
were  inclined  to  hold  him  responsible  for  the  disaster.     He  says : 

The  President  himself  ever  after  gave  me  the  credit  of  being 
the  most  calm  and  self-possessed  of  any  member  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. The  President  himself  was  so  excited  that  he  could 
not  deliberate.  .  .  .  But  the  most  frightened  man  on  that  gloomy 
day — the  most  so,  I  think,  of  any  during  the  Rebellion — was  the 
Secretary  of  War.  He  was  at  times  almost  frantic,  and  as  he 
walked  the  room  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  me,  I  saw  well  the  esti- 
mation in  which  he  held  me  with  unmoved  and  unexcited  man- 
ner and  conversation ....  Stanton  made  some  sneering  inquiry 
about  this  new  vessel,  the  Monitor,  of  which  he  admitted  he 
knew  little  or  nothing.  I  described  her.  .  .  .  Stanton  asked  about 
her  armament,  and  when  I  mentioned  she  had  two  guns,  his 
mingled  look  of  incredulity  and  contempt  cannot  be  described. 
...  I  was  not  appalled  by  his  terror  or  bluster.  I  more  correctly 
read  and  understood  his  character  in  that  crisis  than  he  mine.* 

With  great  satisfaction  Welles  records  that  this  victory  gave 
him  new  standing  in  the  Cabinet,  and  that  even  Stanton  treated 
him  with  less  roughness  than  he  habitually  extended  toward  his 
other  colleagues. 

We  recall  the  effect  of  the  Monitor's  victory  on  our  relations 
with  England  and  France,  because  it  is  necessary  to  remember 
them  in  this  connection.  France  has  been  America's  traditional 
friend  from  the  beginning  of  our  history.  Whether  she  has 
ever  been  our  friend,  except  when  she  had  something  to  gain  by 
the  friendship,  need  not  here  be  discussed.  Certainly  her  friend- 
ship in  the  Revolution  proves  no  more  than  that  she  thought  the 
best  way  to  harm  England  was  to  help  free  England's  colonies, 


*Diary,  i,  pp.  63-4. 
23 


122  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

but  she  did  not  officially  offer  that  help  until  she  herself,  and 
for  quite  other  reasons,  was  at  war  with  England.  England 
is  our  friend,  and  increasingly  so.  The  ties  that  bind  together  the 
English  speaking  races  must  be  strengthened  in  every  legitimate 
way.  For  that  matter,  all  ties  that  unite  all  nations  in  friend- 
ship need  to  be  strengthened.  But  it  deserves  also  to  be  remem- 
bered, that,  while  the  Union  had  many  warm  friends  in  France 
snd  especially  in  England  during  the  Civil  War,  the  official 
basis  of  that  friendship  was  immensely  strengthened  by  the  new 
respect  for  the  American  Navy  which  both  nations  learned  after 
the  defeat  of  the  Merrimac.  The  Alabama  was  still  sailing  the 
high  seas,  firing  British-made  shot  from  British-made  guns  into 
unarmed  American  vessels;  but  the  victory  of  the  Monitor  was 
a  mailed  hand  stretched  across  the  sea  for  the  grasp  of  a  new 
friendship. 

Russia  was  the  Union's  best  friend  during  the  Civil  War.  In 
1867  William  H.  Seward  negotiated  a  treaty  with  Russia  by  the 
terms  of  which  the  United  States  acquired  the  Territory  of 
Alaska.  For  it  the  United  States  paid  the  sum  of  $7,200,000,  a 
sum  that  now  seems  very  small.  But  it  was  then  so  large  that  it 
still  remains  a  question  how  much  of  that  sum  was  intended  to 
pay  for  the  territory  and  how  much  was  to  cover  the  expense  of 
Russia's  sending  a  fleet  into  New  York  harbor  on  a  friendly 
visit,  just  at  a  time  when  the  European  nations  that  should  have 
been  our  friends  needed  to  be  reminded  that  America,  fighting 
for  her  national  integrity  and  for  human  freedom,  could  find  a 
friend,  if  not  in  England  or  France,  then  in  despotic  Russia. 
America  still  owes  Russia  something  for  friendship  at  a  time 
when  friends  were  fewer  than  America  deserved. 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  BATTLE  OF  AXTIETAM 

By  the  end  of  1861,  it  had  become  evident,  both  in  the  North 
and  the  South,  that  the  struggle  would  be  severe  and  long.  In 
most  of  the  actual  battles  the  Confederates  had  had  the  advan- 
tage. The  cheerful  confidence  of  the  Northern  Army  that  it  could 
subdue  the  South  in  ninety  days  was  entirely  gone.  But  the 
South  itself  had  had  time  for  very  serious  thought.  Although 
the  Confederates  had  been  recognized  as  a  belligerent,  their  gov- 
ernment had  not  been  acknowledged  by  any  European  nation. 
They  had  failed  to  hold  Maryland,  Kentucky  or  Missouri.  In 
the  West  they  had  lost  ground,  and  in  the  East  they  were  on  the 
defensive. 

The  first  fighting  of  1862  was  in  the  West.  General  Ulysses 
S.  Grant,  who  had  already  done  some  inconspicuous  but  success- 
ful campaigning,  began  that  year  with  an  advance,  and  captured 
Fort  Henry  on  the  Tennessee,  and  Fort  Donelson  on  the  Cumber- 
land. In  this  he  was  materially  aided  by  a  fleet  of  gunboats  un- 
der the  command  of  Commodore  A.  H.  Foote.  This  was  the 
first  important  victory  on  the  Union  side.  Very  soon.  General- 
George  H.  Thomas  won  a  victory  at  Mill  Springs,  which  with 
the  victories  of  Grant,  compelled  the  evacuation  by  the  Con- 
federate Armies  of  Kentucky  and  a  considerable  part  of  Ten- 
nessee. On  April  6,  1862,  Grant  was  attacked  at  Pittsburg 
Landing,  or  Shiloh,  on  the  Tennessee  River,  by  General  Albert 
Sidney  Johnston.  On  the  first  day  the  Union  Army  was  se- 
verely beaten,  but  on  the  second  day  the  tide  turned,  and  in 
the  hour  of  victory  reenforcements  came  under  Buell,  rendering 

123 


124  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  Confederate  defeat  impossible  to  retrieve.  Although  the 
Union  losses  were  larger  than  the  Confederate,  and  Grant  did 
not  pursue  the  army,  which  he  had  repulsed,  the  Confederates 
were  compelled  to  withdraw,  leaving  the  river  in  the  hands  of 
the  Union  Army.  Soon  after,  Corinth,  an  important  railroad 
center  near  by,  was  abandoned  by  the  Confederates.  Just  as 
Grant  was  driving  back  the  Confederate  forces  at  Shiloh  on 
April  seventh,  Commodore  Foote  captured  Island  No.  10  on  the 
Mississippi.  The  Confederate  front  was  thus  pushed  a  consider- 
able distance  farther  south  along  the  whole  western  border. 

But  while  these  victories  in  the  West  were  cheering  the  heart 
of  the  North,  there  was  nothing  but  discouragement  in  the  East. 
McClellan  had  failed  to  capture  Richmond;  Pope  had  fought 
and  lost  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run  on  August  29  and  30, 
1862.  The  Confederates,  swollen  with  the  pride  of  victory,  pre- 
pared to  move  on  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia.  They  crossed  in- 
to Maryland,  captured  Harper's  Ferry,  and  met  McClellan's 
army  at  Antietam. 

The  majority  of  Lincoln's  Cabinet  were  opposed  to  the  reap- 
pointment of  McClellan.  Stanton  and  Chase,  on  August  twenty- 
ninth,  drew  up  a  formal  protest,  which  was  signed  by  both  of 
them  and  also  by  the  attorney  general  and  the  secretary  of  the  in- 
terior. The  secretary  of  the  navy  agreed  with  them,  but  declined 
to  sign  the  paper  lest  his  doing  so  should  embarrass  Lincoln. 
The  appointment,  however,  stood,  and  McClellan  set  himself  to 
work  in  a  manner  that  appeared  to  justify  Lincoln's  partly  re- 
stored confidence.  Fortunately,  he  found  his  army  in  not  so 
deplorable  a  condition  as  appeared  after  the  defeat  of  Pope.  All 
told,  he  had  a  hundred  thousand  men,  and  he  himself  reported 
eighty-seven  thousand  under  his  command  at  the  time  of  the 
battle  of  Antietam.  Lee  had  forty  thousand.  At  the  outset 
McClellan  felt  sure  that  Lee's  army  was  nearly  twice  as  large  as 
it  actually  was. 

General  Lee's  invasion  of  Maryland  was  his  own  undertaking. 
He  believed  that  his  invasion  of  that  state  would  bring  to  his 


THE  BATTLE  OF  ANTIETAM  125 

army  a  large  number  of  men  resident  in  that  state  and  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  South,  and  also  that  he  would  be  able  to  draw 
McClellan's  army  away  from  Washington  to  a  position  where 
Lee  could  fight  it  on  ground  of  his  own  selection.  McGlellan 
had  worked  industriously  in  getting  his  army  into  shape  for 
fighting.  He  now  approached  Lee  with  very  great  deliberation 
and  on  September  seventeenth  fought  a  bloody  battle  at  Antie- 
tam.  McClellan  was  favored  by  a  fortunate  accident  through 
which  he  captured  papers  disclosing  the  entire  plan  of  Lee.  If 
McClellan  had  moved  more  promptly  he  might  have  come  upon 
Lee's  army  divided,  and  almost  have  wiped  it  out  of  existence. 
McClellan  knew  Lee's  plan :  he  could  no  longer  deceive  himself 
with  his  habitual  delusion  that  the  enemy  was  stronger  than  he, 
for  he  had  learned  authoritatively  that  Lee's  army  was  less  than 
half  as  large  as  his  own. 

It  was  a  battle  which  McClellan  could  not  wholly  lose,  but 
which  his  delays  and  indecisions  brought  to  a  close  in  a  meager 
victory,  of  which  he  took  no  advantage. 

The  losses  on  both  sides  were  heavy.  On  the  Union  side  12,- 
410  were  lost  in  the  battle  of  Antietam,  and  the  whole  campaign 
involved  a  loss  of  15,203.  This  does  not  include  the  Union  loss 
of  12,737  involved  in  Lee's  capture  of  Harper's  Ferry.  The 
Confederate  loss  as  nearly  as  can  be  ascertained,  was  11,172  at 
Antietam  and  their  whole  loss  in  this  campaign  of  13,964.  Nev- 
ertheless, it  was  a  Union  victory.  Lee  suffered  a  loss  which  he 
could  not  afford,  and  he  saw  before  him  no  possible  success  re- 
sulting from  further  penetration  of  the  North.  He  withdrew  his 
army  across  the  Potomac. 

If  McClellan  had  only  renewed  the  battle  on  the  morning  of 
the  eighteenth,  he  might  materially  have  shortened  the  war ;  but 
he  was  inordinately  gratified  by  his  success  on  the  preceding 
day,  and  quite  unwilling  to  risk  his  laurels  by  any  further  im- 
mediate venture.  His  corps  commanders,  according  to  their 
own  testimony,  earnestly  advised  him  to  renew  the  battle  on  the 
following  morning  and  McClellan  said  he  would  consider  it. 
The  next  morning  he  wrote : 


126  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Those  in  whose  judgment  I  rely  tell  me  that  I  fought  the 
battle  splendidly,  and  that  it  was  a  masterpiece  of  art. 

Two  days  later  he  wrote: 

I  feel  that  I  have  done  all  that  can  be  asked  in  twice  saving 
the  country. 

Lincoln  rejoiced  in  McClellan's  success,  but  was  profoundly 
saddened  when  McClellan  permitted  Lee  to  return  across  the 
Potomac.  He  himself  paid  a  visit  to  McClellan's  army.  Appar- 
ently he  could  discover  no  hope  that  McClellan  had  any  plans 
for  aggressive  action.  Lincoln  now  removed  McClellan  from 
command,  and  that  general  ceased  to  be  a  figure  of  military 
importance  from  that  time  forward.  But  as  he  disappeared 
from  the  military  horizon,  his  star  rose  as  a  political  rival  of 
Lincoln. 

Lincoln  had  not  consulted  his  Cabinet  about  the  appointment 
of  McClellan  to  the  chief  command  after  the  disaster  of  Pope. 
There  was  a  Cabinet  meeting  that  afternoon,  and,  the  members 
assembling  before  Lincoln  came,  Stanton  in  a  voice  that  trem- 
bled with  anger  and  excitement  told  the  others  what  Lincoln 
had  done.  When  Lincoln  arrived,  their  attitude  was  one  of  ac- 
cusation. Lincoln  admitted  that  he  had  done  it  against  their 
judgment,  but  thought  it  justified  on  two  grounds,  McClellan's 
organizing  ability  and  the  confidence  of  the  army  in  him.  They 
certainly  did  not  think  that  McClellan  was  the  only  man  who 
could  save  Washington.  Glad  enough  were  they  when  Mc- 
Clellan after  the  battle  of  Antietam  was  finally  removed.  But  it 
is  not  certain  that  they  were  better  judges  of  the  situation  than 
Lincoln.  McClellan  had  accomplished  the  thing  for  which  Lin- 
coln had  recalled  him.  He  had  organized  the  Army  of  the  Po- 
tomac as  it  had  not  been  organized  before,  and  he  had  won  a 
victory,  though  not  a  brilliant  one. 

The  significance  of  the  battle  of  Antietam,  for  the  purpose  of 
this  biography  of  Lincoln,  is,  first,  in  its  bearing  upon  Lincoln's 


THE  BATTLE  OF  ANTIETAM  127 

relations  with  the  general  from  whom  so  much  had  been  ex- 
pected and  who  had  accomplished  so  little.  It  is  even  more 
notable  in  its  relation  to  Lincoln's  long  deferred  Proclamation 
of  Emancipation. 


CHAPTER  XI 


EMANCIPATION 


Lincoln's  personal  convictions  concerning  the  sin  of  slavery, 
and  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to  eliminate  that  evil  from 
its  moral  and  political  and  economic  life  were  pealed  forth  in 
trumpet  tones  in  his  Peoria  speech  of  October  16,  1854.  Never 
did  he  recede  from  the  position  there  taken.  But  the  practical 
difficulties  that  might  attend  the  elimination  of  slavery  either 
in  peace  or  war  were  never  underestimated  by  him.  Because  of 
what  seemed  to  many  his  wavering  policy  with  respect  to  that 
question,  let  us  remind  ourselves  of  what  he  said  in  that  memor- 
able address,  for  here,  if  anywhere,  Lincoln  spoke  his  deepest 
convictions  concerning  slavery : 

This  declared  indifference,  but,  as  I  must  think,  covert  zeal  for 
the  spread  of  slavery,  I  cannot  but  hate.  I  hate  it  because  of 
the  monstrous  injustice  of  slavery  itself.  I  hate  it  because  it 
deprives  our  republican  example  of  its  just  influence  in  the 
world ;  enables  the  enemies  of  free  institutions  with  plausibility 
to  taunt  us  as  hypocrites;  causes  the  real  friends  of  freedom  to 
doubt  our  sincerity;  and  especially  because  it  forces  so  many 
really  good  men  among  ourselves  into  an  open  war  with  the  very 
fundamental  principles  of  civil  liberty,  criticising  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  and  insisting  that  there  is  no  right  prin- 
ciple of  action  but  self-interest. 

The  doctrine  of  self-government  is  right, — absolutely  and 
eternally  right, — but  it  has  no  just  application  as  here  attempted. 
Or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say  that  whether  it  has  such  just  ap- 
plication, depends  upon  whether  a  negro  is  not,  or  is,  a  man. 
If  he  is  not  a  man,  in  that  case  he  who  is  a  man  may  as  a  mat- 

128 


EMANCIPATION  129 

ter  of  self-government  do  just  what  he  pleases  with  him.  But  if 
the  negro  is  a  man,  is  it  not  to  that  extent  a  total  destruction  of 
self-government  to  say  that  he  too  shall  not  govern  himself? 
When  the  white  man  governs  himself,  that  is  self-government; 
but  when  he  governs  himself  and  also  governs  another  man,  that 
is  more  than  self-government — that  is  despotism. 

What  I  do  say  is,  that  no  man  is  good  enough  to  govern  an- 
other man  without  that  other's  consent. 

The  master  not  only  governs  the  slave  without  his  consent, 
but  he  governs  him  by  a  set  of  rules  altogether  different  from 
those  which  he  prescribes  for  himself.  Allow  all  the  governed 
an  equal  voice  in  the  government ;  that,  and  that  only,  is  self- 
government. 

Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfishness  of  man's  nature — oppo- 
sition to  it  in  his  love  of  justice.  These  principles  are  an  eternal 
antagonism;  and  when  brought  into  collision  so  fiercely  as  slav- 
ery extension  brings  them,  shocks  and  throes  and  convulsions 
must  ceaselessly  follow.  Repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise — 
repeal  all  compromise — repeal  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
— repeal  all  past  history — still  you  cannot  repeal  human  nature. 

I  particularly  object  to  the  new  position  which  the  avowed 
principle  of  this  Nebraska  law  gives  to  slavery  in  the  body  pol- 
itic. I  object  to  it  because  it  assumes  that  there  can  be  moral 
right  in  the  enslaving  of  one  man  by  another.  I  object  to  it  as 
a  dangerous  dalliance  for  a  free  people, — a  sad  evidence  that 
feeling  prosperity,  we  forget  right, — that  liberty  as  a  principle 
we  have  ceased  to  revere. 

Little  by  little,  but  steadily  as  man's  march  to  the  grave,  we 
have  been  giving  up  the  old  for  the  new  faith.  Near  eighty 
years  ago  we  began  by  declaring  that  all  men  are  created  equal ; 
but  now  from  that  beginning  we  have  run  down  to  the  other 
declaration  that  for  some  men  to  enslave  others  is  a  "sacred 
right  of  self-government."  These  principles  cannot  stand  to- 
gether.    They  are  as  opposite  as  God  and  mammon. 

Our  Republican  robe  is  soiled  and  trailed  in  the  dust.     Let  us 


i3o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

repurify  it.  Let  us  turn  and  wash  it  white,  in  the  spirit  if  not 
the  blood  of  the  Revolution.  Let  us  turn  slavery  from  its  claims 
of  "moral  right"  back  upon  its  existing  legal  rights,  and  its 
arguments  of  "necessity."  Let  us  return  it  to  the  position  our 
fathers  gave  it,  and  there  let  it  rest  in  peace.  Let  us  readopt  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  the  practices  and  policy  which 
harmonize  with  it.  Let  North  and  South — let  all  Americans — 
let  all  lovers  of  liberty  everywhere — join  in  the  great  and  good . 
work.  If  we  do  this,  we  shall  not  only  have  saved  the  Union, 
but  we  shall  have  so  saved  it,  as  to  make  and  to  keep  it  for- 
ever worthy  of  the  saving.  We  shall  have  so  saved  it  that  the 
succeeding  millions  of  free,  happy  people,  the  world  over,  shall 
rise  up  and  call  us  blessed  to  the  latest  generation. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  administration  Lincoln  was  far  from 
being  ready  to  give  immediate  freedom  to  all  the  slaves.  But 
he  hoped  to  increase  the  area  of  freedom  by  inducing  some  of 
the  border  states  to  free  their  slaves.  He  went  further.  By  the 
end  of  1 86 1,  many  slaves  had  been  freed  by  the  war  itself;  as 
early  as  May  27,  1861,  General  Benjamin  F.  Butler  had  ingen- 
iously and  unanswerably,  from  the  standpoint  of  a  recognition  of 
the  slaves  as  property,  declared  them  to  be  "contraband  of  war." 
Lincoln  knew  that,  by  certain  processes  of  law,  certain  states 
had  acquired  title  to  negroes,  and  he  held  it  to  the  lasting  honor 
of  Kentucky  that  that  state  had  never  put  such  negroes  on  the 
auction-block.  Whose  were  the  negroes  whom  the  war  had 
freed?  If  not  the  property,  they  were  morally  the  wards  of  the 
nation.  Why  not  accept  them  as  such,  and,  under  the  law  of 
confiscation,  take  such  others  as  might  properly  be  taken,  and 
colonize  them?  And  why  not  colonize,  also,  such  free  negroes 
as  desired  it?  This  is  the- portion  of  his  message  to  Congress, 
December  3,   1861,  which  gave  rise  to  the  Compensation  Bill: 

The  war  continues.  In  considering  the  policy  to  be  adopted 
for  suppressing  the  insurrection,  I  have  been  anxious  and  care- 
ful that  the  inevitable  conflict  for  this  purpose  shall  not  degener- 
ate into  a  violent  and  remorseless  revolutionary  struggle.  I 
have,  therefore,  in  every  case,  thought  it  proper  to  keep  the  in- 


EMANCIPATION  131 

tegrity  of  the  Union  prominent  as  the  primary  object  of  the  con- 
test on  onr  part,  leaving  all  questions  which  are  not  of  vital  mili- 
tary importance  to  the  more  deliberate  action  of  the  legislature. 
In  the  exercise  of  my  best  discretion  I  have  adhered  to  the 
blockade  of  the  ports  held  by  the  insurgents,  instead  of  putting 
in  force,  by  proclamation,  the  law  of  Congress  enacted  at  the  late 
session  for  closing  those  ports.  So,  also,  obeying  the  dictates 
of  prudence,  as  well  as  the  obligations  of  law,  instead  of  tran- 
scending, I  have  adhered  to  the  act  of  Congress  to  confiscate 
property  used  for  insurrectionary  purposes.  If  a  new  law  upon 
the  same  subject  shall  be  proposed,  its  propriety  will  be  duly 
considered.  The  Union  must  be  preserved;  and  hence,  all  in- 
dispensable means  must  be  employed.  We  should  not  be  in 
haste  to  determine  that  radical  and  extreme  measures,  which 
may  reach  the  loyal  as  well  as  the  disloyal,  are  indispensable. 

This  was  the  method  which  Lincoln  favored  in  liberating  the 
slaves.  Senator  Browning  spent  the  Sunday  afternoon  with 
him  before  his  sending  to  Congress  his  message  including  the 
Compensation  Provision,  and  wrote: 

He  is  very  hopeful  of  ultimate  success.  He  suggested  to  me 
the  policy  of  paying  Delaware,  Maryland,  Kentucky  and  Mis- 
souri $500  apiece  for  all  the  negroes  they  had  according  to  the 
census  of  i860,  provided  they  would  adopt  a  system  of  gradual 
emancipation  which  should  work  the  extinction  of  slavery  in 
twenty  years,  and  said  it  would  require  only  about  one-third  of 
what  was  necessary  to  support  the  war  for  one  year ;  and  agreed 
with  me  that  there  should  be  connected  with  it  a  scheme  for  col- 
onizing the  blacks  somewhere  in  the  American  continent.  There 
was  no  disagreement  in  our  view  upon  any  subject  we  discussed. 

In  April,  1862,  Congress  passed  a  bill  to  abolish  slavery  in 
the  District  of  Columbia.  Lincoln  signed  it,  but  not  with  full 
approval.  Senator  Browning  wrote  in  his  Diary,  April  14, 
1862,  this  rather  astounding  entry: 

At  night  went  to  the  President's  to  lay  before  him  the  bill  to 
abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  Had  a  talk  with 
him.     He  told  me  he  would  sign  the  bill — but  he  regretted  the 


132  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

bill  had  been  passed  in  its  present  form — that  it  should  have 
been  for  gradual  emancipation — that  now  families  should  at  once 
be  deprived  of  cooks,  stable  boys,  &c,  and  they  of  their  pro- 
tectors, without  any  provision  for  them.  He  further  told  me 
that  he  would  not  sign  the  bill  before  Wednesday.  That  old 
Governor  Wickliff  had  two  family  servants  with  him  who  were 
sickly,  and  who  would  not  be  benefited  by  freedom,  and  wanted 
time  to  remove  them  but  could  not  get  them  out  of  the  city  until 
Wednesday,  and  that  the  Governor  had  come  frankly  to  him 
and  asked  for  time.  He  added  to  me  that  this  was  told  me  in 
the  strictest  confidence. 

For  two  days  Abraham  Lincoln  pocketed  the  bill  to  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  in  order  to  give  Ex-Gov- 
ernor Wickliff  time  to  send  two  old  slaves  back  to  Kentucky 
before  the  bill  became  a  law. 

When  Lincoln  became  president  he  cherished  and  expressed 
deep  concern  for  the  support  of  the  border  states.*  Kentucky, 
Missouri  and  Maryland  were  all  slave  states.  Lincoln  feared  to 
alienate  them  by  too  pronounced  a  policy  in  favor  of  emanci- 
pation. It  was  said  of  Lincoln  in  that  day,  "Abraham  Lincoln 
hopes  that  he  has  God  on  his  side,  but  thinks  he  must  have  Ken- 
tucky." 

Lincoln  was  himself  a  border  state  man.  Not  until  he  had 
given  up  hope  of  winning  the  border  states  to  a  policy  of  com- 
pensated emancipation,  did  he  commit  himself  in  his  own  mind 
to  the  plan  of  freeing  the  slaves  by  executive  proclamation.  He 
believed  that  he  had  the  power  to  do  this  as  a  war  measure,  but 
he  did  not  believe  that  he  was  justified  in  doing  it,  if  in  so 
doing  he  would  weaken  the  cause  of  the  Union  by  the  alienation 
of  the  border  states,  and  without  material  gain  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  republic. 

From  the  date  of  his  election  Lincoln  was  deluged  with  advice 
from  both  sides.  Loyal  men  from  the  border  states  told  him 
that  a  policy  of  emancipation  would  drive  those  states  into  the 
confederacy.     On  the  other  hand,  the  friends  of  freedom  were 


/  CI  ?\f 


{*BN%^' 


UNION  GENERALS  PROMINENT  IN  FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  WAR 
From  First  Volume  of  Greeley's  American  Conflict 


EMANCIPATION  133 

confidently  demanding  that  he   should   immediately  liberate   all 
slaves. 

The  sharp  antithesis  between  Lincoln's  advisers  is  well  illus- 
trated in  two  speeches  that  were  delivered  on  succeeding  days, 
one  in  the  Senate  and  the  other  in  the  House  of  Representatives. 
On  April  23,  1862,  Senator  John  J.  Crittenden,  of  Kentucky, 
speaking  on  the  Confiscation  Bill,  said: 

There  is  a  niche  in  the  temple  of  fame,  a  niche  near  to  Wash- 
ington, which  should  be*  occupied  by  the  statue  of  him  who  shall 
save  this  country.  Mr.  Lincoln  has  a  mighty  destiny.  It  is  for 
him,  if  he  will,  to  step  into  that  niche.  It  is  for  him  to  be  but  a 
President  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  there  will  his 
statue  be.  But  if  he  choose  to  be,  in  these  times,  a  mere  sectarian 
and  a  party  man,  that  niche  will  be  reserved  for  some  future  and 
better  patriot.  It  is  in  his  power  to  occupy  a  place  next  to  Wash- 
ington, the  Founder  and  Preserver,  side  by  side. 

On  the  next  day  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in  a  speech 
for  the  same  bill,  Owren  Love  joy  said : 

I,  too,  have  a  niche  for  Abraham  Lincoln;  but  it  is  in  Free- 
dom's holy  fane,  and  not  in  the  blood-besmeared  temple  of 
human  bondage ;  not  surrounded  by  slave-fetters  and  chains,  but 
with  the  symbols  of  freedom;  not  dark  with  bondage,  but  ra- 
diant with  the  light  of  Liberty.  In  that  niche  he  shall  stand 
proudly,  nobly,  gloriously,  with  shattered  fetters  and  broken 
chains,  and  slave-whips  beneath  his  feet.  If  Abraham  Lincoln 
pursues  the  path  evidently  pointed  out  for  him  in  the  Providence 
of  God,  as  I  believe  he  will,  then  he  will  occupy  the  proud  posi- 
tion I  have  indicated.  That  is  a  fame  worth' living  for;  aye, 
more :  that  is  a  fame  worth  dying  for,  though  that  death  led 
through  the  blood  of  Gethsemane  and  the  agony  of  the  accursed 
tree.  .  .  .  Let  Abraham  Lincoln  make  himself  .  .  .  the  emanci- 
pator, the  liberator  .  .  .  and  his  name  shall  not  only  be  enrolled 
in  this  earthly  temple,  but  it  will  be  traced  on  the  living  stones 
of  that  temple  which  rears  itself  amid  the  thrones  and  hierarchies 
of  Heaven. 


134  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  the  early  part  of  the  war  Lincoln  took  very  conservative 
ground  concerning  attempts  to  force  emancipation.  He  rebuked 
Fremont  and  restrained  Hunter,  and  said  in  his  special  message 
to  Congress  on  March  6,  1862,  "In  my  judgment,  gradual,  and 
not  sudden  emancipation  is  better  for  all."  In  this  message  he 
proposed  to  Congress  that  the  United  States  should  give  pecuni- 
ary aid  to  any  state  that  would  provide  for  a  gradual  emancipa- 
tion of  its  slaves,  with  full  compensation  to  the  owners.  It  was 
this  policy  that  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  condemned: 

Pay  ransom  to  the  owner, 

And  fill  up  the  bag  to  the  brim ; 
But  who  is  owner?     The  slave  is  owner 

And  ever  was ;  pay  him ! 

On  March  10,  1862,  the  president  held  a  conference  with  rep- 
resentatives of  the  border  states,  and  earnestly  urged  this  plan 
for  their  consideration.     It  brought  no  practical  result. 

On  May  19,  1862,  in  a  communication  called  forth  by  the 
proclamation  of  General  Hunter,  declaring  slaves  in  the  states  of 
Georgia,  Florida  and  South  Carolina  free,  the  president  again 
alluded  to  this  effort  by  which  he  hoped  to  retain  the  loyalty  of 
the  border  states  to  the  Union,  while  providing  for  gradual  eman- 
cipation.    He  said : 

To  the  people  of  those  states  I  now  earnestly  appeal.  I  do  not 
argue — I  beseech  you  to  make  the  argument  for  yourselves — you 
cannot  if  you  would,  be  blind  to  the  signs  of  the  times.  I  beg 
of  you  a  calm  and  enlarged  consideration  of  them,  ranging,  if  it 
may  be,  far  above  personal  and  partisan  politics.  This  proposal 
makes  a  common  cause  for  a  common  object,  casting  no  re- 
proach upon  any.  It  acts  not  the  Pharisee.  The  change  it  con- 
templates would  come  as  gently  as  the  dews  of  heaven,  not 
rending  or  wrecking  anything.  Will  you  not  embrace  it?  So 
much  good  has  not  been  done  by  one  effort  in  all  past  time,  as,  in 
the  Providence  of  God,  it  is  now  your  high  privilege  to  do.  May 
the  vast  future  not  have  to  lament  that  you  have  neglected  it. 

On  July  12,    1862,  Lincoln  invited  all  the  members  of  Con- 


EMANCIPATION  135 

gress  of  the  border  states  to  meet  him  at  the  White  House.     In 
the  address  made  on  that  occasion  he  said : 

I  intend  no  reproach  or  complaint  when  I  assure  you  that  in 
my  opinion,  if  you  all  had  voted  for  the  resolution  in  the  grad- 
ual emancipation  message  of  last  March,  the  war  would  now  be 
substantially  ended.  And  the  plan  therein  proposed  is  yet  one 
of  the  most  potent  and  swift  means  of  ending  it.  Let  the  states 
which  are  in  rebellion  see  definitely  and  certainly  that  in  no 
event  will  the  states  you  represent  ever  join  their  proposed  con- 
federacy, and  they  cannot  much  longer  maintain  the  contest.  .  .  . 

If  the  war  continues  long,  as  it  must,  if  the  object  be  not 
sooner  attained,  the  institution  in  your  states  will  be  extin- 
guished by  mere  friction  and  abrasion,  by  the  mere  incidents  of 
the  war.  It  will  be  gone,  and  you  will  have  nothing  valuable  in 
lieu  of  it.  Much  of  its  value  is  gone  already.  How  much  better 
for  you  and  for  your  people  to  take  the  step  which  at  once 
shortens  the  war  and  secures  substantial  compensation  for  that 
which  is  sure  to  be  wholly  lost  in  any  other  event !  How  much 
better  to  thus  save  the  money  which  else  we  sink  forever  in  the 
war!  How  much  better  to  do  it  while  we  can,  lest  the  war  ere 
long  render  us  pecuniarily  unable  to  do  it !  How  much  better  for 
you  as  seller,  and  the  nation  as  buyer,  to  sell  out  and  buy  out 
that  without  which  the  war  could  never  have  been,  than  to  sink 
both  the  thing  to  be  sold  and  the  price  of  it  in  cutting  one  an- 
other's throats! 

I  do  not  speak  of  emancipation  at  once,  but  of  a  decision  to 
emancipate  gradually.  .  .  . 

Upon  these  considerations  I  have  again  begged  your  attention 
to  the  message  of  March  last.  Before  leaving  the  Capitol,  con- 
sider and  discuss  it  among  yourselves.  You  are  patriots  and 
statesmen,  and  as  such  I  pray  you  consider  this  proposition  and 
at  the  least  commend  it  to  the  consideration  of  your  states  and 
people.  As  you  would  perpetuate  popular  government  for  the 
best  people  in  the  world,  I  beseech  you  that  you  do  in  nowise 
omit  this.  Our  common  country  is  in  great  peril,  demanding  the 
loftiest  views  and  boldest  action  to  bring  a  speedy  relief.  Once 
relieved,  its  form  of  government  is  saved  to  the  world,  its  be- 
loved history  and  cherished  memories  are  vindicated,  and  its 
happy  future  fully  assured  and  rendered  inconceivably  grand. 
To  you,  more  than  to  any  others,  the  privilege  is  given  to  as- 


136  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sure  that  happiness  and  swell  that  grandeur,  and  to  link  your 
own  names  therewith  forever. 

To  the  president's  bitter  disappointment  the  border  state  rep- 
resentatives did  not  accept  his  suggestion.  He  believed  then, 
and  said  later,  that  their  refusal  to  follow  his  advice  in  this  mat- 
ter brought  nearer  the  necessity  for  emancipation. 

Lincoln  had  believed  that  he  understood  the  border  states,  and 
that  they  understood  him.  Perhaps  he  was  never  more  bitterly 
disappointed  than  in  their  refusal  to  accept  his  plan. 

"Oh,  how  I  wish  the  Border  States  would  accept  my  propo- 
sition," he  said  to  Isaac  N.  Arnold  and  Owen  Lovejoy  one  day; 
"then  you,  Lovejoy,  and  you,  Arnold,  and  all  of  us  would  not 
have  lived  in  vain.  '  The  labor  of  your  life,  Lovejoy,  would  be 
crowned  with  success.  You  would  live  to  see  the  end  of  slavery." 

"Could  you  have  seen  the  President,"  wrote  Sumner  once  to  a 
friend,  "as  it  was  my  privilege  often — while  he  was  considering 
the  great  questions  on  which  he  has  already  acted — the  invita- 
tion to  emancipation  in  the  States,  emancipation  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  and  the  acknowledgment  of  the  independence  of 
Haiti  and  Liberia,  even  your  zeal  would  have  been  satisfied. 

"His  whole  soul  was  occupied,  especially  by  the  first  proposi- 
tion, which  was  peculiarly  his  own.  In  familiar  intercourse  with 
him,  I  remember  nothing  more  touching  than  the  earnestness 
and  completeness  with  which  he  embraces  this  idea.  To  his 
mind  it  was  just  and  beneficent,  while  it  promised  the  sure  end 
of  slavery." 

All  these  efforts  failed.  To  Lincoln  it  then  seemed  clear  that 
the  alternative  was  a  proclamation  of  emancipation.  He  him- 
self has  fixed  the  time  of  this  decision  in  his  letter  to  A.  G. 
Hodges,  of  Kentucky,  written  April  4,  1864: 

When  in  March.  May  and  July,  1862,  I  made  earnest  and  suc- 
cessive appeals  to   the  border   States  in   favor  of  compensated 


eman 


cipation,  I  believed  the  indispensable  necessity  for  military 


EMANCIPATION  i37 

emancipation  and  arming  of  blacks  would  come,  unless  arrested 
by  that  measure.  They  declined  the  proposition,  and  I  was,  in 
my  best  judgment,  driven  to  the  alternative  of  either  surrender- 
ing the  Union,  or  issuing  the  emancipation  proclamation. 

On  July  22,  1862,  just  ten  days  after  his  futile  meeting  with 
the  representatives  of  the  border  states,  Mr.  Lincoln  called  to- 
gether his  Cabinet  and  read  to  them  a  proclamation  of  emanci- 
pation. He  proposed  to  free  all  slaves  that  were  held  in  the 
states  then  in  rebellion,  the  proclamation  to  become  effective  on 
January  1,  1863. 

An  excellent  account  of  this  Cabinet  meeting  was  preserved 
by  Frank  B.  Carpenter,  the  artist  who  painted  the  life-size  pic- 
ture commemorative  of  the  event,  and  who  recorded  the  story 
while  all  members  of  the  Cabinet  we're  living.  He  related  that 
Lincoln  read  his  proposed  proclamation  and  that  after  some  sug- 
gestions from  others,  Secretary  Seward  said  in  substance: 

"Mr.  President,  I  approve  of  the  proclamation,  but  I  question 
the  expediency  of  its  issue  at  this  juncture.  The  depression  of 
the  public  mind,  consequent  upon  our  repeated  reverses,  is  so 
great  that  I  fear  the  effect  of  so  important  a  step.  It  may  be 
viewed  as  the  last  measure  of  an  exhausted  government,  a  cry 
for  help;  the  government  stretching  forth  its  hands  to  Ethiopia, 
instead  of  Ethiopia  stretching  forth  her  hands  to  the  govern- 
ment." His  idea  was  that  it  would  be  considered  our  last  shriek, 
on  the  retreat.  "Now,"  continued  Mr.  Seward,  "while  I  approve 
the  measure,  I  suggest,  sir,  that  you  postpone  its  issue,  until  you 
can  give  it  to  the  country,  supported  by  military  success,  instead 
of  issuing  it,  as  would  be  the  case  now,  upon  the  greatest  dis- 
asters of  the  war!"  The  wisdom  of  the  view  of  the  Secretary 
of  State  struck  me  with  very  great  force.  It  was  an  aspect  of 
the  case  that,  in  all  my  thoughts  upon  the  subject,  I  had  entirely 
overlooked.  The  result  was  that  I  put  the  draft  of  the  proclama- 
tion aside,  as  you  do  your  sketch  for  a  picture,  waiting  for  a 
victory.  From  time  to  time  I  added  or  changed  a  line,  touching 
it  up  here  and  there,  anxiously  waiting  the  progress  of  events.* 

*Carpenter,  Six  Months  in  the  White  House,  p.  21. 


138  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Seward's  suggestion  that  the  time  was  inopportune  had  weight 
with  Lincoln.  He  felt  the  force  of  the  proposal  to  delay  it  until 
there  was  a  decisive  Union  victory.  On  this  account  he  waited, 
hoping  more  earnestly  than  ever  for  some  turn  in  the  military 
situation  to  indicate  to  him  and  his  Cabinet  that  a  fit  time  for 
issuing  the  proclamation  had  come. 

Lincoln  never  contemplated  with  satisfaction  the  prospect  of  a 
liberated  negro  race  living  side  by  side  with  the  white  race. 
Emancipation  in  his  mind  was  logically  joined  to  colonization. 
Soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  war,  it  became  evident  that  the 
progress  of  that  struggle  would  free  many  slaves,  perhaps  all  of 
them.  He  earnestly  desired  Congress  to  appropriate  money  for 
the  colonization  of  such  slaves  as  should  be  freed,  and  who  might 
willingly  accept  colonization  with  their  freedom.  He  carefully 
considered  whether  it  might  be  wise  to  make  it  a  condition  of 
emancipation  that  the  liberated  slaves  should  leave  America.  At 
his  earnest  solicitation  Congress  in  1862  appropriated  six  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  and  left  it  to  be  expended  by  the  president 
in  removing,  with  their  own  consent,  free  persons  of  African 
descent  to  some  country  which  they  might  select  as  adapted  to 
their  condition  and  necessities.  He  appointed  a  negro  commis- 
sioner of  emigration,  Reverend  O.  J.  Mitchell,  to  promote  the  ob- 
ject of  this  appropriation.  We  are  familiar  with  the  office  of  com- 
missioner of  immigration,  but  Mr.  Mitchell's  office  was  of 
quite  another  sort.  To  Mr.  Mitchell  we  owe  the  report  of  an 
extended  conference  which  the  president  held  on  Thursday, 
August  14,  1862,  with  a  group  of  free  colored  men  who  were 
believed  to  be  leaders  of  their  race.  The  president  did  most  of 
the  talking.  He  admitted  at  the  outset  the  great  wrongs  which 
the  negro  race  in  America  had  endured  at  the  hands  of  white 
men,  but  said  that  the  presence  of  the  negro  in  America  had  been 
the  occasion  of  much  injury  to  the  other  race.  "But  for  your 
race  among  us,  there  could  be  no  war,"  he  said.  There  was  a 
war,  and  white  men  were  cutting  each  other's  throats  and  no  one 
knew  where  it  would  end.     The  negroes  in  America  suffered 


EMANCIPATION  139 

inevitable  disadvantages,  whether  free  or  slave,  and  the  white 
men  suffered  on  their  account.  He  said  to  them  that  it  would 
be  far  better  for  both  races  if  the  two  were  separated,  and  that 
he  had  available  a  large  sum  of  money  to  assist  in  the  separation. 
He  said  it  was  important  that  the  newly  emancipated  slaves,  with 
minds  clouded  by  slavery,  should  have  the  leadership  of  men  of 
their  own  race  who  had  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  freedom.  He 
recognized  that  those  who  were  already  free  might  prefer  not  to 
leave  America.  "This  is  (I  speak  in  no  unkind  sense)  an  ex- 
tremely selfish  view  of  the  case.  You  ought  to  do  something 
to  help  those  who  are  not  so  fortunate  as  yourselves."  He  said 
that  if  the  white  people  could  know  that  emancipated  slaves  were 
to  leave  America,  one  chief  objection  to  emancipation  would  be 
removed.  Free  negroes,  therefore,  who  refused  to  be  leaders  in 
a  movement  for  colonization,  obstructed  the  freedom  of  their 
own  people.  Those  colored  people  whom  the  war  had  freed,  had 
gained  their  liberty  at  the  cost  of  white  men's  blood:  were  they 
to  do  nothing  themselves  by  way  of  sacrifice  for  their  own  peo- 
ple? If  they  remained  in  this  country  when  they  might  honor- 
ably go  elsewhere,  they  purchased  physical  comfort  at  the  cost  of 
self-respect. 

But  where  were  they  to  go  ?  The  first  answer  was,  to  Liberia. 
The  president  had  been  in  conference  with  "the  old  president'' 
of  Liberia,  Roberts.  There  was  much  to  be  said  for  Liberia  as 
the  ultimate  home  of  the  American  negro.  But  he  was  favorable 
to  a  nearer  situation  on  this  side  of  the  ocean.  He  recommended 
the  purchase  of  a  tract  in  Central  America,  within  the  republic 
of  Xew  Granada.  It  was  well  adapted  in  climate  to  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  American  negro,  and  favorable  to  the  growing  of 
cotton  and  other  crops  to  which  the  negro  was  accustomed. 

The  president  appears  to  have  made  an  impression  on  some  of 
the  colored  leaders.  An  agreement  was  entered  into  between  the 
president  and  A.  W.  Thompson  for  the  settlement  of  a  tract  in 
New  Granada,  and  Senator  S.  E.  Pomeroy,  of  Kansas,  proposed 
to  accompany  and  oversee  the  establishment  of  the  colonists.   But 


140  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  government  of  New  Granada  objected  to  the  settlement  of  a 
large  colony  of  negroes  in  that  republic  and  this  plan  had  to  be 
abandoned. 

Then  the  president  turned  to  Hayti,  whose  government  was 
found  to  be  willing  to  receive  the  colonists.  In  April,  1863,  a 
group  of  honest  contractors  began  the  export  of  negroes,  receiv- 
ing fifty  dollars  for  each  American  negro  deported,  on  official 
certificate  of  his  having  been  landed  in  Hayti.  After  about 
eighty  thousand  dollars  had  been  expended,  it  was  found  that 
the  region  set  apart  for  this  colony  was  wholly  unsuitable,  and 
the  negroes  were  brought  back  at  the  expense  of  the  original 
agents  who  had  given  a  fraudulent  description  of  the  country.* 

Reluctantly,  and  with  deep  sorrow,  Lincoln  faced  the  problem 
of  emancipation  without  the  correlative  plan  of  the  removal  of 
the  free  negroes  from  America. 

On  August  20,  1862,  Horace  Greeley  addressed  a  long  open 
letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln  through  the  Tribune,  complaining  'That  a 
large  proportion  of  our  regular  army  officers,  with  many  of  the 
volunteers,  evinced  far  more  solicitude  to  uphold  slavery  than  to 
put  down  the  rebellion."  He  accused  Lincoln  of  undue  tender- 
ness toward  southern  slaveholders,  and  demanded  from  him  a 
statement  of  his  own  policy  and  purpose.  Lincoln  answered  in 
a  memorable  letter  which  was  given  to  the  public : 

Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  August  22,  1862. 
Hon.  Horace  Greeley. 

Dear  Sir:  I  have  just  read  yours  of  the  19th  addressed  to 
myself  through  the  "New  York  Tribune.1'  If  there  be  in  it  any 
statements,  or  assumptions  of  fact,  which  I  may  know  to  be 
erroneous,  I  do  not,  now  and  here,  controvert  them.  If  there  be 
in  it  any  inferences  which  I  may  believe  to  be  falsely  drawn,  I 

*The  report  of  the  commissioner  of  emigration  in  the  Department  of 
the  Interior  for  1863  records  these  attempts  of  the  president  to  provide  for 
the  emigration  of  free  negroes.  The  report  of  the  conference  of  August  14, 
1862,  presumably  written  for  the  New  York  Times,  is  in  Raymond's  Life  of 
Lincoln,  pp.   505-508. 


EMANCIPATION  141 

do  not.  now  and  here,  argue  against  them.  If  there  be  percep- 
tible in  it  an  impatient  and  dictatorial  tone,  I  waive  it  in  defer- 
ence to  an  old  friend,  whose  heart  I  have  always  supposed  to  be 
right.  As  to  the  policy  I  ''seem  to  be  pursuing,"  as  you  say,  I 
have  not  meant  to  leave  any  one  in  doubt.  I  would  save  the 
Union.  I  would  save  it  the  shortest  way  under  the  Constitution. 
The  sooner  the  national  authority  can  be  restored,  the  nearer 
the  Union  will  be — "the  Union  as  it  was."  If  there  be  those  who 
would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they  could  at  the  same  time 
destroy  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them.  My  paramount  ob- 
ject in  this  struggle  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  is  not  either  to 
save  or  to  destroy  slavery.  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without 
freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do  it ;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing 
all  the  slaves,  I  would  do  it ;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing 
some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that.  What  I  do 
about  slavery,  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  because  I  believe  it 
helps  to  save  the  Union ;  and  what  I  forbear,  I  forbear  because  I 
do  not  believe  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union.  I  shall  do  less 
whenever  I  shall  believe  what  I  am  doing  hurts  the  cause,  and  I 
shall  do  more  whenever  I  shall  believe  doing  more  will  help  the 
cause.  I  shall  try  to  correct  errors  when  shown  to  be  errors, 
and  I  shall  adopt  new  views  so  fast  as  they  shall  appear  to  be 
true  views.  I  have  here  stated  my  purpose  according  to  my  view 
of  official  duty ;  and  I  intend  no  modification  of  my  oft-ex- 
pressed personal  wish  that  all  men  everywhere  could  be  free. 

Yours,  A.  Lincoln. 

If  any  present-day  reader  thinks  that  this  letter  to  Greeley 
satisfied  either  Greeley  or  those  for  whom  Greeley  spoke,  he  is 
mistaken.  On  the  contrary,  it  seemed  to  very  many  that  Lin- 
coln had  utterly  abandoned  his  own  principles  with  respect  to 
slavery.  He  had  entered  his  campaign  against  Douglas  with  the 
determination  to  force  the  slavery  issue  as  a  moral  question  on 
which  no  man  had  a  right  to  be  neutral.  He  had  mercilessly 
hammered  Douglas  for  his  incautious  declaration  that  if  the 
principle  of  popular  sovereignty  were  preserved  he  cared  not 
whether  slavery  was  voted  up  or  voted  down.  To  very  many  it 
seemed  that  in  this  letter  to  Horace  Greeley,  Lincoln  had  gone 
squarely  over  to  the  position  which  he  had  so  vigorously  con- 


142  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

demned  in  Douglas.  What  did  Lincoln  mean  if  not  this,  that  if 
the  Union  was  preserved,  he  cared  not  whether  slavery  was  voted 
up  or  voted  down  ?  It  is  little  wonder  that  Greeley  was  not  sat- 
isfied with  Lincoln's  answer,  and  that  many  others  were  dis- 
quieted. 

On  September  thirteenth,  a  deputation  of  ministers  from  Chi- 
cago called  on  Lincoln  to  urge  on  him  the  duty  of  immediate 
emancipation.  Lincoln  did  not  inform  them  that  such  a  proc- 
lamation was  already  written  and  awaiting  a  suitable  opportunity 
to  promulgate  it.  He  set  forth  to  them  the  practical  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  an  immediate  movement  of  this  sort : 

What  good  would  a  proclamation  of  emancipation  from  me 
do,  especially  as  we  are  now  situated?  I  do  not  want  to  issue  a 
document  that  the  whole  world  will  see  must  necessarily  be  in- 
operative, like  the  Pope's  bull  against  the  comet.  Would  my 
word  free  the  slaves,  when  I  cannot  even  enforce  the  Constitu- 
tion in  the  rebel  States?  Is  there  a  single  court,  or  magistrate, 
or  individual  that  would  be  influenced  by  it  there?  And  what 
reason  is  there  to  think  it  would  have  any  greater  effect  upon 
the  slaves  than  the  late  law  of  Congress,  which  I  approved,  and 
which  offers  protection  and  freedom  to  the  slaves  of  rebel  mas- 
ters who  come  within  our  lines?  Yet  I  cannot  learn  that  the 
law  has  caused  a  single  slave  to  come  over  to  us.  And  suppose 
they  could  be  induced  by  a  single  proclamation  of  freedom  from 
me  to  throw  themselves  upon  us,  what  should  we  do  with  them? 
How  can  we  feed  and  care  for  such  a  multitude?  ...  If  we  were 
to  arm  them,  I  fear  that  in  a  few  weeks  the  arms  would  be  in 
the  hands  of  the  rebels;  and,  indeed,  thus  far  we  have  not  had 
arms  enough  to  equip  our  white  troops.  I  will  mention  another 
thing,  though  it  meets  only  your  scorn  and  contempt.  There 
are  fifty  thousand  bayonets  in  the  Union  armies  from  the  border 
slave  States.  It  would  be  a  serious  matter  if,  in  consequence  of 
a  proclamation  such  as  you  desire,  they  should  go  over  to  the 
rebels. 

Then  came  the  battle  of  Antietam,  which  was  fought  Septem- 
ber 17,  1862.  It  was  far  from  being  as  decisive  a  victory  as  Lin- 
coln had  hoped  for,  but  it  was  a  victory.     Lee  was  driven  out 


EMANCIPATION  143 

of  Maryland.  Lincoln  hesitated  no  longer.  Indeed,  Stanton  is 
authority  for  the  statement  that,  after  the  visit  of  the  Chicago 
ministers,  Lincoln  moved  with  a  stronger  assurance  of  certainty. 
He  summoned  the  Cabinet,  not  to  discuss  the  proclamation  on 
its  merits,  for  this  he  quietly  told  them,  was  a  matter  he  had  al- 
ready settled ;  he  had  promised  his  God  that  if  General  Lee  was 
driven  out  of  Maryland  he  would  free  the  slaves. 

The  account  of  Secretary  Chase  was  recorded  in  his  diary  on 
the  night  of  September  22,  1862,  the  day  on  which  the  meeting 
had  been  told.     He  recorded  the  president  as  saying  in  substance : 

I  have,  as  you  are  aware,  thought  a  great  deal  about  the  rela- 
tion of  this  war  to  slavery;  and  you  all  remember  that,  several 
weeks  ago,  I  read  to  you  an  order  I  had  prepared  on  this  sub- 
ject, which,  on  account  of  objections  made  by  some  of  you, 
was  not  issued.  Ever  since  then  my  mind  has  been  much  occu- 
pied with  this  subject,  and  I  have  thought,  all  along,  that  the 
time  for  acting  on  it  might  probably  come.  I  think  the  time 
has  come  now.  I  wish  it  was  a  better  time.  I  wish  that  we  were 
in  a  better  condition.  The  action  of  the  army  against  the  rebels 
has  not  been  quite  what  I  should  have  best  liked.  But  they  have 
been  driven  out  of  Maryland,  and  Pennsylvania  is  no  longer  in 
danger  of  invasion.  When  the  rebel  army  was  at  Frederick,  I 
determined,  as  soon  as  it  should  be  driven  out  of  Maryland,  to 
issue  a  proclamation  of  emancipation,  such  as  I  thought  most 
likely  to  be  useful.  I  said  nothing  to  any  one,  but  I  made  the 
promise  to  myself  and  [hesitating  a  little]  to  my  Maker.  The 
rebel  army  is  now  driven  out,  and  I  am  going  to  fulfill  that 
promise.  I  have  got  you  together  to  hear  what  I  have  written 
down.  I  do  not  wish  your  advice  about  the  main  matter,  for 
that  I  have  determined  for  myself.  This,  I  say  without  intend- 
ing anything  but  respect  for  any  one  of  you.  But  I  already 
know  the  views  of  each  on  this  question.  They  have  been  here- 
tofore expressed,  and  I  have  considered  them  as  thoroughly 
and  carefully  as  I  can.  What  I  have  written  is  that  which  my 
reflections  have  determined  me  to  say.  If  there  is  anything  in 
the  expressions  I  use,  or  in  any  minor  matter,  which  any  of  you 
thinks  had  best  be  changed,  I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  the  sug- 
gestions.    One  other  observation  I  will  make.     I  know  very  well 


144  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  many  others  might,  in.  this  matter  as  in  others,  do  better 
than  I  can ;  and  if  I  was  satisfied  that  the  public  confidence  was 
more  fully  possessed  by  any  one  of  them  than  by  me,  and  knew 
of  any  constitutional  way  in  which  he  could  be  put  in  my  place, 
he  should  have  it.  I  would  gladly  yield  it  to  him.  But,  though 
I  believe  that  I  have  not  so  much  of  the  confidence  of  the  people 
as  I  had  some  time  since,  I  do  not  know  that,  all  things  consid- 
ered, any  other  person  has  more ;  and,  however  this  may  be,  there 
is  no  way  in  which  I  can  have  any  other  man  put  where  I  am.  1 
am  here ;  I  must  do  the  best  I  can,  and  bear  the  responsibility  of 
taking  the  course  which  I  feel  I  ought  to  take. 

An  independent  account  was  preserved  in  the  diary  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Honorable  Gideon  Welles : 

September  22. 

A  special  Cabinet  meeting.  The  subject  was  the  proclama- 
tion for  emancipating  the  slaves,  after  a  certain  date,  in  States 
that  shall  then  be  in  rebellion.  For  several  weeks  the  subject 
has  been  suspended,  but  the  President  says  never  lost  sight  of. 
When  it  was  submitted,  and  now  in  taking  up  the  proclamation, 
the  President  stated  that  the  question  was  finally  decided, — the 
act  and  the  consequences  were  his, — but  that  he  felt  it  due  to  us 
to  make  us  acquainted  with  the  fact  and  to  invite  criticisms  on 
the  paper  which  he  had  prepared.  There  were,  he  had  found, 
not  unexpectedly,  some  differences  in  the  Cabinet;  but  he  had, 
after  ascertaining  in  his  own  way  the  views  of  each  and  all,  in- 
dividually and  collectively,  formed  his  own  conclusions  and 
made  his  own  decisions.  In  the  course  of  the  discussion  on  this 
paper,  which  was  long,  earnest,  and,  on  the  general  principle  in- 
volved, harmonious,  he  remarked  that  he  had  made  a  vow — a 
covenant — that  if  God  gave  us  the  victory  in  the  approaching 
battle  he  would  consider  it  an  indication  of  Divine  will,  and  that 
it  was  duty  to  move  forward  in  the  cause  of  emancipation.  It 
might  be  thought  strange,  he  said,  that  he  had  in  this  way  sub- 
mitted the  disposal  of  matters  when  the  way  was  not  clear  to  his 
mind  what  he  should  do.  God  had  decided  this  question  in 
favor  of  the  slaves.  He  was  satisfied  it  was  right — was  con- 
firmed and  strengthened  in  his  action  by  the  vow  and  results. 
His  mind  was  fixed,  his  decision  made,  but  he  wished  his  paper 


EMANCIPATION  145 

announcing  his  course  as  correct  in  terms  as  it  could  be  made 
without  any  change  in  his  determination. 

Mr.  Chase  also  summarized  the  discussion  which  followed  the 
presentation  of  the  document : 

The  President  then  proceeded  to  read  his  Emancipation  Proc- 
lamation, making  remarks  on  the  several  parts  as  he  went  on, 
and  showing  that  he  had  fully  considered  the  whole  subject,  in 
all  the  lights  under  which  it  had  been  presented  to  him.  After  he 
had  closed,  Governor  Seward  said :  "The  general  question  hav- 
ing been  decided,  nothing  can  be  said  farther  about  that.  Would 
it  not,  however,  make  the  proclamation  more  clear  and  decided 
to  leave  out  all  reference  to  the  act  being  sustained  during  the 
incumbency  of  the  present  President;  and  not  merely  say  that 
the  Government  'recognizes,'  but  that  it  will  maintain,  the  free- 
dom it  proclaims?"  I  followed,  saying:  "What  you  have  said, 
Mr.  President,  fully  satisfies  me  that  you  have  given  to  every 
proposition  which  has  been  made  a  kind  and  candid  considera- 
tion. And  you  have  now  expressed  the  conclusion  to  which  you 
have  arrived  clearly  and  distinctly.  This  it  was  your  right,  and, 
under  your  oath  of  office,  your  duty,  to  do.  The  proclamation, 
does  not,  indeed,  mark  out  exactly  the  course  I  would  myself 
prefer.  But  I  am  ready  to  take  it  just  as  it  is  written,  and  to 
stand  by  it  with  all  my  heart.  I  think,  however,  the  suggestions 
of  Governor  Seward  very  judicious,  and  shall  be  glad  to  have 
them  adopted."  The  President  then  asked  us  severally  our  opin- 
ions as  to  the  modification  proposed,  saying  that  he  did  not  care 
much  about  the  phrases  he  had  used.  Every  one  favored  the 
modification,  and  it  was  adopted.  Governor  Seward  then  pro- 
posed that  in  the  passage  relating  to  colonization  some  language 
should  be  introduced  to  show  that  the  colonization  proposed  was 
to  be  only  with  the  consent  of  the  colonists  and  the  consent  of 
the  States  in  which  colonies  might  be  attempted.  This,  too,  was 
agreed  to,  and  no  other  modification  was  proposed.  Mr.  Blair 
then  said  that,  the  question  having  been  decided,  he  would  make 
no  objection  to  issuing  the  proclamation ;  but  he  would  ask  to 
have  his  paper,  presented  some  days  since,  against  the  policy, 
filed  with  the  proclamation.  The  President  consented  to  this 
readily.  And  then  Mr.  Blair  went  on  to  say  that  he  was  afraid 
of  the  influence  of  the  proclamation  on  the  border  States  and  on 


146  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  army,  and  stated,  at  some  length,  the  grounds  of  his  appre- 
hensions. He  disclaimed  most  expressly,  however,  all  objection 
to  emancipation  per  se,  saying  he  had  always  been  personally  in 
favor  of  it — always  ready  for  immediate  emancipation  in  the 
midst  of  slave  States,  rather  than  submit  to  the  perpetuation  of 
the  system. 

The  statement  of  Mr.  Welles  which  relates  the  Cabinet  pro- 
ceedings is  as  follows : 

All  listened  with  profound  attention  to  the  reading,  and  it 
was,  I  believe,  assented  to  by  every  member.  Mr.  Bates  re- 
peated the  opinions  he  had  previously  expressed  in  regard  to  the 
deportation  of  the  colored  race.  Mr.  Seward  proposed  two 
slight  verbal  alterations,  which  were  adopted.  A  general  dis- 
cussion then  took  place,  covering  the  whole  ground — the  consti- 
tutional question,  the  war  power,  the  expediency  and  the  effect 
of  the  movement.  After  the  matter  had  been  very  fully  debated, 
Mr.  Stanton  made  a  very  emphatic  speech  sustaining  the  meas- 
ure, and  in  closing  said  the  act  was  so  important,  and  involved 
consequences  so  vast,  that  he  hoped  each  member  would  give  dis- 
tinctly and  unequivocally  his  own  individual  opinion,  whatever 
that  opinion  might  be.  Two  gentlemen,  he  thought,  had  not 
been  sufficiently  explicit,  although  they  had  discussed  the  ques- 
tion freely,  and  it  was  understood  that  they  concurred  in  the 
measure.  He  referred,  he  said,  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury and  (hesitating  a  moment)  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  It 
was  understood,  I  believe,  by  all  present  that  he  had  allusion  to 
another  member,  with  whom  he  was  not  in  full  accord.  Mr. 
Chase  admitted  that  the  subject  had  come  upon  him  unexpectedly 
and  with  some  surprise.  It  was  going  a  step  further  than  he 
had  ever  proposed,  but  he  was  prepared  to  accept  and  support  it. 
He  was  glad  the  President  had  made  this  advance,  which  he 
should  sustain  from  his  heart,  and  he  proceeded  to  make  an 
able  impromptu  argument  in  its  favor.  I  stated  that  the  Presi- 
dent did  not  misunderstand  my  position,  nor  any  other  member ; 
that  I  assented  most  unequivocally  to  the  measure  as  a  war  neces- 
sity, and  had  acted  upon  it.  Mr.  Blair  took  occasion  to  say  that 
he  was  an  emancipationist  from  principle ;  that  he  had  for  years, 
here  and  in  Missouri,  where  he  formerly  resided,  openly  advo- 
cated it;  but  he  had  doubts  of  the  expediency  of  this  executive 


EMANCIPATION  147 

action  at  this  particular  juncture.  We  ought  not,  he  thought,  to 
put  in  jeopardy  the  patriotic  element  in  the  border  States,  al- 
ready severely  tried.  This  proclamation  would,  as  soon  as  it 
reached  them,  be  likely  to  carry  over  those  States  to  the  seces- 
sionists. There  were  also  party  men  in  the  free  states  who  were 
striving  to  revive  old  party  lines  and  distinctions,  into  whose 
hand  we  were  putting  a  club  to  be  used  against  us.  The  meas- 
ure he  approved,  but  the  time  was  inopportune.  He  should  wish,, 
therefore,  to  file  his  objections.  This,  the  President  said,  Mr. 
Blair  could  do.  He  had,  however,  considered  the  danger  to  be 
apprehended  from  the  first  objection  mentioned,  which  was  un- 
doubtedly serious,  but  the  difficulty  was  as  great  not  to  act  as  to 
act.  There  were  two  sides  to  that  question.  For  months  he 
had  labored  to  get  those  States  to  move  in  this  matter,  convinced 
in  his  own  mind  that  it  was  their  true  interest  to  do  so,  but  his 
labors  were  vain.  We  must  make  the  forward  movement.  They 
would  acquiesce,  if  not  immediately,  soon ;  for  they  must  be 
satisfied  that  slavery  had  received  its  death-blow  from  slave- 
owners— it  could  not  survive  the  rebellion.  As  regarded  the 
other  objection,  it  had  not  much  weight  with  him;  their  clubs 
would  be  used  against  us  take  what  course  we  might. 

When  Congress  convened  in  December,  1862,  Lincoln  com- 
municated the  proclamation  to  that  body  in  a  message  reaffirm- 
ing in  the  strongest  possible  terms,  his  faith  in  the  indivisibility 
of  the  Union,  and  of  the  righteousness  of  his  proclamation  as  a 
means  of  saving  the  Union.    He  said : 

I  do  not  forget  the  gravity  which  should  characterize  a  paper 
addressed  to  the  Congress  of  the  nation  by  the  Chief  Magistrate 
of  the  nation.  Nor  do  I  forget  that  some  of  you  are  my  seniors, 
nor  that  many  of  you  have  more  experience  than  I  in  the  con- 
duct of  public  affairs.  Yet  I  trust  that  in  view  of  the  great  re- 
sponsibility resting  upon  me,  you  will  perceive  no  want  of 
respect  to  yourselves  in  any  undue  earnestness  I  may  seem  to  dis- 
play. .  .  .  The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are  inadequate  to  the 
stormy  present.  The  occasion  is  piled  high  with  difficulty,  and 
we  must  rise  with  the  occasion.  As  our  case  is  new,  so  we 
must  think  anew  and  act  anew.  We  must  disenthrall  ourselves, 
and  then  we  shall  save  our  country. 


148  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Fellow  citizens,  we  cannot  escape  history.  We,  of  this  Con- 
gress and  this  administration,  will  be  remembered  in  spite  of  our- 
selves. No  personal  significance,  or  insignificance,  can  spare 
one  or  another  of  us.  The  fiery  trial  through  which  we  pass 
will  light  us  down,  in  honor  or  dishonor,  to  the  latest  genera- 
tion. We  say  we  are  for  the  Union.  The  world  will  not  forget 
that  we  say  this.  We  know  how  to  save  the  Union.  The  world 
knows  we  do  know  how  to  save  it.  We — even  we  here — hold 
the  power  and  bear  the  responsibility.  In  giving  freedom  to  the 
slave  we  assure  freedom  to  the  free — honorable  alike  in  what  we 
give  and  what  we  preserve.  We  shall  nobly  save,  or  meanly 
lose,  the  last,  best  hope  of  earth.  Other  means  may  succeed, 
this  could  not  fail.  The  way  is  plain,  peaceful,  generous,  just — 
a  way  which,  if  followed,  the  world  will  forever  applaud,  and 
God  must  forever  bless. 


The  question  of  the  employment  of  negro  troops  gave  concern 
to  both  armies.  General  Lee  favored  enlisting  negroes  in  the 
Southern  Army,  and  so  did  Jefferson  Davis,  but  the  South  had 
reason  to  pause  before  putting  uniforms  on  the  backs  of  slaves 
and  giving  them  guns  with  which  to  fight  against  soldiers  of  the 
white  race.  Negroes  thus  fighting  in  the  Confederate  Army 
would,  of  course,  receive  their  freedom  as  a  reward,  and  they 
would  thereafter  live  in  the  South,  after  having  been  taught  to 
shoot  white  men.  In  the  North  there  was  much  disinclination  to 
employ  negroes  as  soldiers,  but  a  growing  conviction  that  there 
was  no  good  reason  why  white  men  should  die  to  make  black 
men  free  and  the  black  men  be  sheltered  from  the  perils  of  the 
war.  Soon  after  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  went  into  ef- 
fect, the  enlistment  of  negro  soldiers  began.  On  January  20, 
1863,  twenty  days  after  the  proclamation  became  effective,  Gov- 
ernor John  A.  Andrew,  of  Massachusetts,  was  authorized  to  enlist 
negro  soldiers,  to  be  formed  into  a  separate  corps.  How  well 
he  did  his  work,  and  how  well  he  was  aided  by  George  L.  Stearns 
and  others,  the  monument  to  Colonel  Robert  Gould  Shaw,  which 
stands  on  Boston  Common,  fronting  the  state-house,  attests. 
In  August  of  that  year,  Honorable  Joseph  Holt,  Judge  Advocate 


EMANCIPATION  149 

General,  sent  to  the  president  an  official  opinion  that  the  president 
was  authorized  to  enlist  slaves  as  soldiers,  remunerating  such 
masters  as  were  loyal  for  property  thus  taken  from  them  for  the 
uses  of  the  government  in  time  of  wrar. 

Lincoln's  desire  to  provide  if  possible  a  gradual  method  of 
emancipation  with  compensation  would  naturally  have  restrained 
him  even  longer  from  issuing  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation 
had  not  existing  conditions  made  any  such  provisions  impossible. 
But  Lincoln  had  to  deal  not  only  with  conservative  but  with 
very  radical  elements  in  his  own  party.  Through  all  the  months 
of  his  administration  he  had  been  careful  in  testing  out  the  sen- 
timents of  the  country,  to  determine  whether  it  would  bear  such 
a  proclamation.  The  time  had  come  when  in  some  respects  it 
was  safer  to  issue  the  proclamation  than  not  to  do  so.  There 
was  a  growing  conviction  that  Webster  was  right  in  his  declara- 
tion that  liberty  and  Union  were  one  and  inseparable.  The 
divided  house  had  not  stood.  Could  it  be  reunited  and  rebuilt 
upon  the  foundation  of  liberty?  This  was  the  stone  which  the 
builders  had  rejected:  Lincoln  made  it  the  headstone  of  the 
cornet. 


CHAPTER  XII 


If  Lincoln  supposed  that  his  Emancipation  Proclamation 
would  be  a  popular  political  move,  he  was  doomed  to  cruel  dis- 
appointment. The  proclamation  succeeded  in  rousing  the  most 
bitter  hostility  of  the  pro-slavery  element  of  the  North,  and  by 
a  singular  inconsistency  it  seemed  to  give  some  of  the  extreme 
anti-slavery  advocates  a  new  ground  for  their  attacks  upon  Lin- 
coln. 

The  North  contained  a  very  strong  element  which  had  little 
or  no  sympathy  with  the  conduct  of  the  war.  The  so-called 
"Copperhead"  movement,  which  later  manifested  itself  in  de- 
liberate plans  for  the  overthrow  of  the  government,  was  in  1862 
a  strongly  entrenched  political  power  opposed  to  the  president. 
The  friends  of  McClellan  turned  against  Lincoln,  alleging  that 
he  had  first  failed  to  cooperate  with  this  brilliant  general,  and 
then  ruthlessly  removed  him  from  command  for  reasons  of  po- 
litical jealousy.  Haters  of  the  negro  professed  to  see  in  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  the  menace  of. negro  equality  and  of 
social  demoralization.  Extremes  met.  There  was  a  considerable 
element  in  the  North  composed  of  those  who  were  bitterly  op- 
posed to  slavery,  and  who  blamed  Lincoln  severely  for  not  free- 
ing the  slaves  earlier.  Indeed,  there  were  not  a  few  who  declared 
that  the  president,  with  what  they  called  his  customary  vacilla- 
tion, would  find  a  pretext  for  recalling  his  proclamation  before 
January  I,  1863.  These  people  found  common  ground  with  those 
who  blamed  him  for  freeing  the  slaves  at  all. 

The  Democratic  Party  declared  that  the  Emancipation  Proc- 

150 


"HE  SAID  HE  WAS  MASTER"  151 

lamation  had  now  made  abolition  the  actual  purpose  of  the  war. 
Xo  longer,  they  affirmed,  was  the  preservation  of  the  Union  the 
paramount  object;  the  real  purpose  for  which  white  men  were 
expected  to  lay  down  their  lives  was  to  give  freedom  and  social 
equality  to  the  black  man.  This  distinctly  was  not  what  they 
had  undertaken  to  do,  nor  did  they  propose  to  do  it. 

The  congressional  election  in  Maine  occurred  early  in  Septem- 
ber, 1862.  Then,  as  in  subsequent  elections,  the  results  of  that 
state  were  closely  watched.  "As  goes  Maine,  so  goes  the  Union," 
had  already  become  a  proverb.  Maine  usually  elected  a  Re- 
publican governor  by  a  majority  of  from  10,000  to  19,000.  In 
1862,  Maine  chose  a  Republican  governor  by  a  majority  of  only 
4,000,  and,  for  the  first  time  since  there  had  been  a  Republican 
Party,  Maine  sent  one  Democrat  to  Congress. 

Ohio  voted  in  October,  and  sent  to  the  National  House  of 
Representatives  fourteen  Democrats  and  only  five  Republicans. 
The  Democratic  vote  in  that  state  exceeded  the  Republican  by 
a  majority  of  7,000.  In  Pennsylvania,  where  two  years  before 
Lincoln  had  had  a  majority  of  60,000,  the  Democratic  vote  ex- 
ceeded the  Republican  by  about  4,000,  and  the  congressional 
delegation  was  divided.  Indiana  sent  to  Congress  only  three 
Republican  representatives  and  eight  Democrats.  Xew  York 
went  Democratic  by  a  majority  of  nearly  10,000,  electing  Hora- 
tio Seymour  as  governor.  Xew  Jersey,  which  had  voted  Re- 
publican in  i860,  went  Democratic  in  1862.  Michigan  re- 
mained Republican,  but  its  majority  was  reduced  from  20.000  to 
6,000.  Wisconsin  divided  its  delegation  evenly.  Illinois,  Lin- 
coln's own  state,  went  Democratic  by  a  majority  of  17,000,  and 
her  congressional  delegation  was  eleven  Democrats  to  three  Re- 
publicans. New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indi- 
ana and  Illinois  all  failed  to  support  Lincoln  in  1862. 

To  their  everlasting  honor  the  Xew  England  States,  and 
Iowa,  Kansas,  Minnesota,  California  and  Oregon,  stood  better 
in  their  support  of  the  president.  But  when  the  returns  were 
all   in.   the   Democrats,   who   had   only   forty-four   votes   in   the 

24 


152  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

House  in  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress,  had  seventy-five  in  the 
Thirty-eighth. 

In  that  crisis  the  border  states  stood  by  the  president.  He  had 
not  underestimated  the  importance  of  holding  them  loyally  with- 
in the  Union,  and  true  in  their  support  of  the  administration. 
They  in  1862  furnished  a  sufficient  number  of  pro-administra- 
tion members  to  save  Congress  from  going  over  to  the  opposi- 
tion. 

But  among  the  Republicans  were  not  a  few  members  so  bitter- 
ly hostile  to  Lincoln  for  his  cautious  policy  that  it  could  hardly 
be  said  that  the  president  had  in  Congress  any  more  than  a  bare 
working  majority. 

The  elections  of  1862  were  "off-year"  elections.  Off-years 
are  often  fatal  years.  The  elections  of  1862  were  not  fatal  to 
Lincoln's  hopes,  but  they  weakened  his  support,  and  prepared 
the  way  for  a  bitter  and  painful  campaign  in  1864. 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  went  into  effect  on  January 
1,  1863.  There  was  a  great  celebration  in  Music  Hall  in  Boston, 
and  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  read  his  Boston  Hymn  on  that  occa- 
sion. In  many  other  places  there  were  enthusiastic  meetings 
and  warm  expressions  of  approval.  But  that  is  not  the  whole 
story.  There  was  much  emphatic  disapproval,  also.  On  the 
day  following  the  proclamation's  taking  effect,  Senator  O.  H. 
Browning  recorded: 

Friday,  Jany.  2,  1863.  At  Mr.  Seward's  for  dinner  at  6.  No 
one  else  there.  I  asked  him  why  the  Cabinet  did  so  useless  and 
so  mischievous  a  thing  as  to  issue  the  proclamation  which  had 
been  issued,  the  only  effect  of  which  was  to  unite  and  exasperate 
them  in  the  South  and  divide  and  distract  us  in  the  North.  He 
replied  by  telling  me  an  anecdote  of  a  man  who  after  the  termina- 
tion of  the  Revolutionary  War  could  not  rest  till  he  had  a  liberty 
pole  erected  in  his  village ;  when  asked  by  his  neighbors  what  he 
wanted  with  a  pole,  and  whether  he  was  not  as  free  without  it 
as  with  it,  he  would  always  answer,  "What  is  liberty  without  a 
pole?"  And  what  is  war  without  a  proclamation?  We  played 
whist  with  Mrs.  Seward  and  Miss  Fanny  till  9  o'clock,  and  then 


"HE  SAID  HE  WAS  MASTER"  153 

Seward  and  I  went  over  to  the  President's.  We  found  General 
Butler  there  who  had  just  arrived  from  Xew  Orleans.  He  read 
to  us-his  parting  address  to  the  people  of  Xew  Orleans,  and  Gen- 
eral Banks'  proclamation  upon  assuming  command.  His  con- 
versation indicated  that  he  was  a  very  ultra  abolitionist.  He 
gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  only  way  to  put  clown  the  rebel- 
lion was  to  destroy  slavery.  This  class  of  people  do  not  seem 
to  know  that  armed  rebellion  stands  between  us  and  slavery,  and 
that  to  get  at  the  latter  we  must  first  crush  the  former. 

There  had  been  a  time  when  the  president  and  Browning 
seemed  to  be  of  one  accord  in  this  matter,  but  that  time  was  past, 
and  it  never  came  back.  Browning  still  supported  the  president, 
but  confessed  this  sharp  dissent  from  his  view  of  the  way  to  deal 
with  slavery.  And  Browning  was  one  of  many  scores  of  thou- 
sands. Browning  hated  slavery,  as  Lincoln  did,  but  wholly  dis- 
approved of  Lincoln's  way  of  getting  rid  of  it. 

If  Lincoln  was  at  first  disposed  to  attribute  his  rebuke  at  the 
polls  to  any  other  cause  than  the  unpopularity  of  his  methods,  he 
was  not  lacking  in  friends  who  told  him  with  entire  and  almost 
brutal  frankness  their  view  of  the  case.  We  are  making  con- 
siderable use  of  the  Diary  of  Senator  Browning.  It  is  our  latest 
and  in  some  respects  most  intimate  authority  upon  the  life  of  the 
president  in  those  days.  Browning  was  at  the  White  House  al- 
most daily.  When  the  Lincoln  family  was  in  trouble,  as  it  was 
when  Willie  died,  Senator  and  Mrs.  Browning  spent  not  only 
their  days  but  their  nights  at  the  White  House.  Perhaps  Lin- 
coln never  had  any  intimate  friends,  but  if  he  had  any  in  this 
period,  Browning  was  one  of  the  closest.  Shortly  after  the  No- 
vember elections  in  1862,  Browning  had  a  long  visit  with  the 
president : 

He  was  apparently  very  glad  to  see  me,  and  received  me  with 
much  cordiality.  We  had  a  long  familiar  talk.  When  speaking 
of  the  results  of  the  recent  elections  I  told  him  that  his  proclama- 
tions had  been  disastrous  to  us.  That  prior  to  issuing  them,  all 
loyal  people  were  united  in  support  of  the  war  and  the  admin- 


154  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

istration.  That  the  masses  of  the  Democratic  Party  were  sat- 
isfied with  him,  and  warmly  supporting  him,  and  that  their  dis- 
loyal leaders  could  not  rally  them  in  opposition.  They  had  no 
issue  without  taking-  ground  against  the  war,  and  that  we  would 
annihilate  them.  But  the  proclamations  had  revived  old  party 
issues,  given  them  a  rallying  cry,  capital  to  operate  upon,  and 
that  we  had  the  results  in  our  defeat.  To  this  he  made  no  reply. 
I  added  that  the  Republican  Party  could  not  put  down  the  rebel- 
lion— that  no  party  could  do  it — that  it  required  a  union  of  all 
loyal  men  in  the  free  states  to  give  us  success,  and  without  that 
union  we  must  disastrously  fail.     To  all  this  he  fully  assented. 

About  this  time  the  president's  support  in  Congress  seemed 
almost  totally  to  disappear.  A  visitor  to  the  capitol  called  upon 
Thaddeus  Stevens  and  asked  to  be  introduced  to  some  of  the 
president's  adherents.  Stevens  led  him  over  to  the  desk  of  Isaac 
N.  Arnold,  saying  that  this  man  wanted  to  meet  the  members  of 
Congress  who  were  in  sympathy  with  the  president,  and  that  so 
far  as  Stevens  knew,  Arnold  was  the  only  man  in  the  lower 
House  who  belonged  in  that  group.  This,  of  course,  was  put- 
ting the  matter  too  strongly,  but  it  was  uncomfortably  near  the 
truth. 

Misfortunes  never  come  singly.  Soon  after  the  elections  of 
November,  1862,  came  the  appalling  news  of  the  battle  of  Fred- 
ericksburg. On  December  13,  1862,  General  Burnside,  with 
125,000  men,  crossed  the  Rappahannock  on  three  pontoon 
bridges  and  made  a  frontal  attack  on  Lee,  who*  had  80,000  men 
well  entrenched  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  his  right  com- 
manded by  Stonewall  Jackson  and  his  left  by  Longstreet.  If 
geography  has  anything  to  say  about  battles,  that  was  a  fool- 
hardy proceeding  on  Burnside's  part,  and  bitterly  did  his  army 
pay  for  his  folly.  The  Federal  loss  was  12,800  against  Lee's 
loss  of  4,300.  The  Federal  Army  retreated  north  of  the  Rappa- 
hannock, and  the  country  was  compelled  to  be  thankful  that  the 
army  was  able  to  get  back  without  being  captured  or  destroyed. 

The  country  was  well-nigh  desperate.  On  the  afternoon  of 
Tuesday,  December  16,  1862,  the  Senate  adjourned  about  half- 


"HE  SAID  HE  WAS  MASTER"  155 

past  one,  and  the  Republican  members  held  a  caucus.  We  have 
an  account  of  it  in  Browning's  Diary.  Lyman  Trumbull  bitterly 
assailed  the  administration,  denouncing  the  president  and  Sew- 
ard. Ben  Wade  declared  that  the  Senate  ought  to  go  in  a  body 
to  the  White  House  and  demand  the  resignation  of  Seward.  He 
favored  the  creation  of  a  lieutenant  general,  "with  absolute  and 
despotic  powers/"  and  he  must  be  a  Republican  in  politics.  "He 
said  a  member  of  the  Cabinet*  informed  him  that  there  was  a 
backstairs  and  malign  influence  which  controlled  the  President, 
and  overruled  all  the  decisions  of  the  Cabinet,  and  he  understood 
Mr.  Seward  to  be  meant.  He  was  for  demanding  his  removal." 
Browning  and  others  spoke  in  defense  of  Lincoln,  if  not  of 
Seward.  A  motion  to  adjourn  was  offered,  and  was  opposed 
by  Trumbull  and  others,  but  prevailed.  The  caucus  took  recess 
for  a  day  without  violent  action.  Browning's  comment  on  the 
speeches  of  Trumbull,  Wade,  Grimes,  Fessenden  and  the  others 
who  had  attacked  Seward,  and  with  him  the  president,   is  in- 


These  ultra-radical,  unreasoning  men,  who  raised  the  insane 
cry  of  "On  to  Richmond"  in  July,  1861,  and  have  kept  up  a  war 
on  our  generals  ever  since,  who  forced  through  the  confiscation 
bills,  and  extorted  from  the  President  the  Proclamations  and  lost 
him  the  support  of  the  country,  are  now  his  bitterest  enemies, 
and  doing  all  in  their  power  to  break  him  down. 

The  next  day,  the  caucus  assembled  again.  "Many  speeches 
were  made,"  says  Browning,  "all  expressive  of  a  want  of  confi- 
dence in  the  President  and  his  Cabinet.  Some  of  them  de- 
nouncing the  President  and  expressing  a  willingness  to  vote  for 
a  resolution  asking  him  to  resign.  Most  of  those  who  spoke 
were  the  partisans  of  Mr.  Chase,  and  excepted  him  from  the 
censure  they  bestowed  upon  the  Cabinet." 

Browning  wrote  : 


*It  is  apparent  from  subsequent  speeches  in  the  caucus  that  the  member 
of  the  Cabinet  who  furnished  Wade  his  information  was  Chase. 


156  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  my  remarks  on  yesterday  I  said  I  knew  there  was  no  more 
honest,  upright,  conscientious  man  than  the  President,  and  that 
I  knew  him  to  be  in  favor  of  the  most  vigorous  prosecution  of 
the  war,  and  that  he  intended  to  prosecute  until  every  state  was 
restored  to  the  Union  and  every  rebel  compelled  to  submit  to  the 
authority  of  the  government. 

Apparently  Browning  did  not  speak  on  the  second  dav. 
Charles  Sumner  moved  that  a  committee  be  appointed  "to  wrait 
on  the  President  and  represent  to  him  the  necessity  for  a  change 
in  men  and  measures."  This  motion  prevailed  almost  without 
dissent.  The  committee  was  composed  of  Senators  Jacob  Col- 
lamer,  of  Vermont,  B.  F.  Wade,  of  Ohio,  William  Pitt  Fessen- 
den,  of  Maine,  Ira  Harris,  of  New  York,  James  W.  Grimes,  of 
New  Hampshire,  Charles  Sumner,  of  Massachusetts,  Lyman 
Trumbull,  of  Illinois,  Jacob  M.  Howard,  of  Michigan,  and  Sam- 
uel C.  Pomeroy,  of  Kansas.  It  was  not  a  committee  wdiose  com- 
position could  afford  much  comfort  to  the  president. 

That  Lincoln  was  heart-broken  over  this  revolt  of  the  Senate, 
and  for  a  time  almost  in  despair,  we  might  assure  ourselves  if 
we  had  no  record  of  the  fact;  but  we  have  a  record  again  in 
Browning's  Diary  of  Thursday,  December  18,  1862: 

In  the  evening  went  with  Mr.  D.  W.  Wise  of  Boston  to  the 
President's.  The  servant  at  the  door  reported  that  he  was 
not  in  his  office — was  in  the  house,  but  had  directed  them  to  say 
that  he  would  not  be  seen  to-night.  I  told  the  boy  to  tell  him  I 
wished  to  see  him  a  moment  and  went  up  into  his  room.  He 
soon  came  in.  I  saw  in  a  moment  that  he  was  in  distress — that 
more  than  usual  trouble  was  pressing  upon  him.  I  introduced 
Mr.  Wise  wrho  wished  to  get  some  items  for  the  preparation  of  a 
biography,  but  soon  discovered  that  the  President  was  in  no 
mood  to  talk  upon  the  subject.  We  took  our  leave.  When  we 
got  to  the  door  the  President  called  to  me  saying  he  wished  to 
speak  to  me  a  moment.  He  asked  me  if  I  was  at  the  caucus 
yesterday.  I  told  him  I  was,  and  the  day  before  also.  Said  he, 
"What  do  those  men  want?"  I  answered,  "I  hardly  know,  Mr. 
President,  but  they  are  exceedingly  violent  against  the  admin- 


"HE  SAID  HE  WAS  MASTER"  157 

istration,  and  what  we  did  yesterday  was  the  gentlest  thing  that 
could  be  done.  It  had  to  be  that  or  worse."  Said  he,  "They 
wish  to  get  rid  of  me,  and  I  am  sometimes  half  disposed  to  grat- 
ify them."  I  replied.  "Some  of  them  do  wish  to  get  rid  of  you, 
but  the  fortunes  of  the  country  are  bound  up  with  your  fortunes; 
and  you  must  stand  firmly  at  your  post  with  a  steady  hand.  To 
relinquish  it  now  would  bring  upon  us  certain  and  inevitable 
ruin."  Said  he,  "We  are  now  on  the  brink  of  destruction.  It- 
appears  to  me  the  Almighty  is  against  us,  and  I  can  hardly  see 
a  ray  of  hope."  .  .  .  He  added,  "The  committee  is  to  be  up  and 
see  me  at  7  o'clock.  Since  I  heard  last  night  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  caucus,  I  have  been  more  distressed  than  by  any  event  of 
my  life."     I  bade  him  good-night  and  left  him. 

The  days  that  followed  were  no  better.  On  the  very  next  day 
"old  Francis  P.  Blair  came  into  the  marble  room"  and  sent  for 
Browning.  The  country  was  very  nearly  ruined,  he  told  Brown- 
ing, and  advised  Browning  to  go  to  the  president  and  tell  him  to 
get  rid  of  Stanton  and  Halleck.  A  little  later  Reverdy  Johnson 
came  to  Browning's  seat  in  the  Senate  and  told  him  the  country 
was  going  to  the  devil,  and  that  there  must  be  a  newT  Cabinet. 

Browning  recorded  that  he  did  not  wish  to  thrust  his  advice 
upon  the  president,  but  he  met  the  president  that  afternoon  and 
the  president  told  him  he  was  trying  "to  keep  things  along." 
But  Browning  declared  in  his  Diary  that  things  could  not  be 
kept  along  much  longer  at  this  rate. 

Lincoln  met  the  committee  first  alone,  and  then  invited  them 
to  come  again  and  meet  in  person  the  members  of  the  Cabinet 
and  tell  them  frankly  what  they  were  saying  to  him.  They  came 
again,  and  the  entire  Cabinet  was  present  except  Seward.  Sena- 
tor Collamer  presented  to  the  president  in  writing  the  view  of 
the  Republican  caucus.  The  president  invited  the  members  of 
the  Cabinet  to  reply.  Their  answer  took  the  wind  out  of  the 
sails  of  the  report : 

Chase,  Blair  and  Bates  made  speeches — the  others  said  noth- 
ing. The  purport  of  the  speeches  was  to  prove  that  the  Cabinet 
did  hold  meetings,  and  that  there  were  no  dissensions  among 


158  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

them — Mr.  Chase  among-  others  stating  that  they  were  all  har- 


monious. 


That  must  have  been  a  surprising  statement  for  Chase  to  make 
in  the  presence  of  Wade!  The  committee  could  not  say  very 
much  after  that,  nor  does  it  appear  that  Lincoln  said  much  of 
anything.     He  had  no  need  to  say  much. 

If  the  committee  was  astonished  at  this  information,  so  was 
the  caucus  when  the  committee  made  its  report.  "I  asked  Judge 
Collamer,"  wrote  Browning,  "how  Mr.  Chase  could  venture  to 
make  such  a  statement  in  the  presence  of  senators  to  whom  he 
had  said  that  Seward  exercised  a  backstairs  and  malign  in- 
fluence upon  the  president  and  thwarted  all  the  measures  of  the 
Cabinet."  Collamer  could  only  growl  out  an  angry  answer  con- 
cerning Chase.     That  answer  was  in  two  words — "He  lied." 

With  such  a  report  before  it,  what  could  the  Republican  cau- 
cus do?  It  did  not  see  that  it  could  do  anything.  It  heard  the 
report  of  the  committee,  learned  that  it  could  not  depend  on 
Chase  to  repeat  in  the  presence  of  the  president  and  the  rest  of 
the  Cabinet  what  he  had  said  to  Wade,  and  the  caucus  inglori- 
ously  adjourned. 

That  night  Browning  called  again  at  the  White  House.  He 
was  ready  with  suggestions  for  the  new  Cabinet  which  he  hoped 
Lincoln  would  appoint.  He  suggested  as  secretary  of  state,  first 
Collamer,  of  New  York,  and  then  Ewing,  of  Ohio.  For  secre- 
tary of  war  he  would  have  General  Banks.  If  Lincoln  took  Col- 
lamer as  secretary  of  state,  then  Ewing  would  be  a  good  man  for 
secretary  of  the  treasury.  For  one  of  the  other  places  he  sug- 
gested Guthrie,  of  Kentucky.  He  did  not  propose  himself  as  a 
member,  but  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  he  thought  of  a  new  Cab- 
inet with  himself  out  of  it. 

Lincoln  told  him  frankly  that  he  did  not  propose  to  have  any 
new  Cabinet.  He  said  that  if  he  got  a  new  one,  the  same  men 
would  attack  it  who  were  now  opposing  the  old  one.  He  said  he 
would  rather  get  along  with  the  one  he  had  than  try  a  new  one. 


"HE  SAID  HE  WAS  MASTER"  159 

By  this  time,  he  had  Browning  half  convinced.  And  then 
Browning  recalled,  and  mentioned  to  the  president,  that  the  men 
who  had  instigated  this  revolt  were  partisans  of  Chase  : 

I  told  him  that  their  game  was  to  drive  all  the  Cabinet  out, 
then  force  upon  him  the  recall  of  Mr.  Chase  as  premier,  and 
form  a.  Cabinet  of  ultra  men  around  him. 

Lincoln  understood  this  quite  as  well  as  Browning  did,  and 
assured  Browning  that  the  Senate  would  not  be  allowed  to  com- 
pel him  to  adopt  any  such  measure.  When  Browning  went  to 
the  White  House  that  night,  December  22,  1862,  he  told  the 
president  "that  this  was  a  time  of  more  peril  than  any  we  had 
encountered"  and  wanted  him  to  make  up  a  new  slate  for  a  Cab- 
inet. He  left  convinced  that  the  president  was  right  in  his  de- 
termination to  keep  the  old  Cabinet,  and  let  his  opponents  howl. 

"He  said  with  a  good  deal  of  emphasis  that  he  was  master," 
wrote  Browning. 

He  said  the  truth.  He  was  master,  and  he  knew  it,  and  those 
who  opposed  him  were  to  learn  it. 

Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  to  consider  this  emergence  and 
ascent  of  Lincoln  from  out  of  the  depths.  Perhaps  in  no  other 
crisis  of  his  presidency  is  there  a  more  complete  and  significant 
example. 

He  had  promised  God  that  if  General  Lee  was  driven  out  of 
Maryland,  he  would  issue  the  proclamation  of  emancipation. 
He  issued  that  proclamation  against  the  judgment  of  several 
members  of  his  Cabinet,  believing  that  it  would  commend  itself 
to  the  favor  of  the  people  and  to  the  blessing  of  God.  Appar- 
ently it  did  neither.  Lincoln  never  felt  more  completely  God- 
forsaken than  in  the  weeks  after  that  proclamation  bore  its  fruit. 
It  seemed  to  him,  as  he  told  Browning,  that  God  was  against 
him,  and  it  seemed  also  that  the  people,  whom  he  trusted  next 
to  God,  had  also  cast  him  adrift.  Repudiated  at  the  polls,  he  was 
deserted  by  Congress  and  betrayed  by  members  of  his  Cabinet. 


160  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  ballot  failed  him;  the  army  failed  him;  the  heavens  above 
him  were  brass.  Never  was  he  nearer  despair  than  on  the  night 
when  the  committee  from  the  Republican  senatorial  caucus  was 
on  its  way  to  the  White  House. 

He  met  that  committee  courteously,  and  received  their  report 
requesting  him  to  dismiss  his  Cabinet  and  change  his  entire 
policy.  He  dismissed  them  with  a  request  that  they  leave  their 
report  with  him  for  consideration,  and  come  again.  When  they 
came  he  had  his  Cabinet  there,  save  only  Seward,  whose  pres- 
ence might  have  provoked  them  and  led  Seward  to  indiscretions. 
He  shrewdly  kept  still  and  let  Chase  speak  for  himself,  follow- 
ing the  wisdom  of  the  Arab  proverb,  "When  the  wind  blows 
your  fire,  save  your  breath."  He  sent  the  committee  back,  dis- 
comfited, but  with  no  occasion  for  anger  against  any  one  but 
Chase.  Again  he  could  chuckle,  as  he  did  when  Buchanan  and 
Douglas  were  fighting  each  other — "Go  it,  husband,  go  it,  bear!" 

Then,  when  the  committee  had  gone  back  to  the  caucus,  and 
the  caucus,  having  exhausted  its  oratory  and  accomplished  noth- 
ing, adjourned,  Browning,  thinking  the  president  would  now 
gladly  do  voluntarily  what  he  could  not  with  good  grace  have 
done  under  compulsion,  went  over  to  assist  Lincoln  with  the  new 
Cabinet,  and  found  Lincoln  adamantine,  and  went  away  more 
than  half  believing  that  Lincoln  was  right.  That  lonely  man,  no 
longer  despairing,  no  longer  forsaken  of  his  God,  no  longer  hesi- 
tating between  opposing  counsels,  calmly  declared  that  he  was 
master  of  the  situation.  Though  his  army  was  defeated  and 
without  a  general,  his  Cabinet  divided  and  without  heart,  his 
Congress  rebellious  and  his  friends  in  despair,  Abraham  Lincoln 
stood  calmly,  with  a  new  faith  in  God  and  the  cause  for  which  he 
was  fighting. 

That  faith  was  justified.  The  proclamation  of  emancipation 
raised  up  new  friends  in  Great  Britain,  and  drove  the  last  nail  in 
the  coffin  of  Europe's  recognition  of  the  Confederate  Govern- 
ment. It  gave  a  new  moral  definition  to  the  conflict.  Again  the 
armies  prepared  for  battle,  singing  as  they  marched : 


"HE  SAID  HE  WAS  MASTER"  161 

We  will  rally  round  the  flag,  boys, 

We'll  rally  once  again, 
Shouting  the  battle-cry  of  freedom. 

The  fortunes  of  the  administration  were  at  a  low  ebb.  One 
thing,  however,  was  becoming  apparent;  so  far  as  any  one  in 
Washington  was  in  control  of  the  situation,  it  was  not  Congress, 
nor  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War,  nor  the  Cabinet, 
nor  the  army,  nor  even,  as  Chief  Justice  Taney  was  to  learn,  the 
Supreme  Court ;  it  was  the  president.  They  who  had  thought 
him  a  weak  man,  easily  controlled  by  stronger  natures,  were 
learning  that  Abraham  Lincoln  could  be  almost  despotic.  They 
did  not  hesitate  to  say  this  of  him,  and  to  declare  that  under  his 
administration  the  United  States  had  become  a  military  des- 
potism. The  country  was  beginning  to  learn  who  was  at  the 
head  of  the  administration.  There  was  one  man  who  never  had 
any  doubt  who  was  master.  That  was  the  man  who  was  ac- 
customed to  receive  stacks  of  letters  and  telegrams  and  edi- 
torials requesting  or  demanding  that  he  do  this  or  refrain  from 
doing  that,  and  to  stuff  them  all  into  a  pigeonhole,  saying,  "I 
know  more  about  it  than  any  of  them."  That  was  the  man 
whom  some  people  thought  self-distrustful  and  many  now  call 
modest,  Abraham  Lincoln. 

"He  said  with  a  good  deal  of  emphasis  that  he  was  master." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

"ABRAHAM   LINCOLN,  GIVE  US  A  MAN  \" 

Military  success  is  much  more  promptly  won  than  is  political 
success.  As  it  is  swiftly  won,  so  is  it  easily  lost.  Before  the 
close  of  the  Civil  War,  Horace  Greeley  published  the  first  vol- 
ume of  his  American  Conflict.  It  was  illustrated  with  steel 
engravings,  each  of  them  a  group  picture  containing  a  number 
of  portraits.  One  of  these  showed  the  faces  of  twelve  Union 
generals  who  had  won  fame  before  the  middle  of  1863.  These 
were,  General  Scott,  who  had  the  central  place,  and  Generals 
Wool,  McClellan,  Butier,  Fremont,  McDowell,  Halleck,  Hooker, 
Burnside,  Hunter,  Anderson  and  Buell.  The  second  volume, 
published  shortly  after  the  close  of  the  war ,  had  as  its  frontis- 
piece a  companion  group.  Not  one  portrait  from  the  first  vol- 
ume appeared  in  the  second.  This  was  not  wholly  because  the 
publishers  and  engravers  desired  a  new  group;  no  general  who 
had  made  his  reputation  in  the  first  half  of  the  war  retained  it 
to  the  end.  Aspirants  for  military  glory  could  find  few  more 
thought-provoking  or  profitable  lessons  than  those  suggested  by 
a  prolonged  study  of  these  two  groups  of  pictures.  With  a  few 
possible  exceptions,  almost  any  one  could  at  a  guess  recall  the 
names  that  of  necessity  must  have  appeared  in  the  second  list. 
General  Grant,  of  course,  had  the  central  place.  Around  him 
were  the  portraits  of  Sherman,  Sheridan,  Thomas,  Meade,  Han- 
cock, Blair,  Howard,  Terry,  Curtis,  Gilmore  and  Banks.  One 
can  not  study  this  list  long  without  the  reflection  that  not  all 
these  names  would  have  survived  to  appear  in  a  third  volume. 

A  large  proportion  of  the  nation's  trained  soldiers  had  gone 

162 


"GIVE  US  A  MAN!"  163 

with  the  South.  It  was  a  fair  question  whether,  after  the  with- 
drawal of  the  southern  generals,  the  North  had  left  a  compe- 
tent military  leader. 

General  Emory  Upton,  in  his  Military  Policy  of  the  United 
States*  says : 

On  the  thirty-first  of  March,  1862,  the  Government  had  in 
service  an  army  of  637,126  men,  nearly  all  of  whom  were  en- 
listed for  the  term  of  three  years. 

The  Confederate  Army,  composed  largely  of  one-year  volun- 
teers, whose  enlistments  were  on  the  eve  of  expiring,  scarcely 
exceeded  200,000  men. 

The  failure  to  subdue  the  Rebellion  in  186 1  has  already  been 
explained  by  our  total  want  of  military  organization  and  prep- 
aration. The  failure  to  subdue  it  in  1862,  with  the  amazing  ad- 
vantages possessed  by  the  Union,  proceeded  from  a  cause  en- 
tirely different — the  mismanagement  of  our  armies. 

Humiliated  and  made  wiser  by  the  defeat  at  Bull  Run,  the 
President,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  people,  were  at  first  disposed  to 
give  the  new  commander  all  the  time  necessary  to  organize  and 
discipline  his  troops ;  but  when  several  months  had  passed  with 
no  indication  of  an  advance,  the  army  in  the  meantime  having 
increased  to  above  200,000  men,  impatience  for  action  returned 
with  accumulated  force. 

When  Gen.  McClellan  assumed  command,  he  found  his  army 
''cowering  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,"  the  troops  and  the 
people  alike  demoralized  by  the  defeat  and  panic  at  Bull  Run. 
He  knew  that  but  two  things,  men,  and  the  time  to  make  them 
soldiers,  were  necessary  to  restore  the  ascendency  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. The  men  were  given  liberally,  but  time  to  drill  them 
could  not  be  accorded.  When  the  armies  throughout  the  coun- 
try, with  scarcely  a  shadow  of  discipline,  had  swelled  to  the  ag- 
gregate of  600,000,  the  expense  of  supporting  them  was  so  great 
that  the  President  was  forced  to  declare  if  something  wras  not 
soon  done  "the  bottom  would  be  out  of  the  whole  affair." 

At  the  time  of  the  appointment  of  Gen.  McClellan  the  fate 
of  the  nation  seemed  to  depend  upon  this  single  individual.     In 

*This  remarkable  book  which  for  years  lay  pigeonholed  in  Washington, 
is  now  published,  in  full  and  in  abbreviated  form,  by  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment for  use  as  a  text-book. 


1 64  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  organization  of  his  army  he  stood  alone.  None  of  his 
brigade,  division,  or  corps  commanders  had  ever  seen  service  as 
such.  None  of  them,  as  in  Europe,  had  exercised  command  at 
maneuvers  or  had  been  practiced  in  handling  large  bodies  of 
troops.  The  colonels,  from  whom  the  future  brigadiers  were 
mostly  to  come,  were  nearly  all  from  civil  life,  with  but  little 
knowledge  of  tactics  or  standard  of  discipline,  by  which  to  gauge 
the  proficiency  of  their  troops.  A  difficulty  of  nearly  equal 
magnitude  confronted  him  in  the  staff.  The  Adjutant  General's 
Department  for  want  of  interchangeability  with  the  line  could 
not,  as  in  European  services,  furnish  competent  chiefs  of  staff 
to  him  or  to  any  of  his  corps  and  division  commanders. 

It  was  during  the  month  lost  by  the  delay  at  Yorktown,  that 
the  Confederate  Congress  abandoned  voluntary  enlistments, 
adopted  conscription,  and  took  away  from  the  governors  the 
power  to  commission  Confederate  officers;  it  was  during  this 
month,  when  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  should  have  been  at  the 
doors  of  Richmond,  that  almost  every  regiment  of  the  Confeder- 
ate Army  was  reorganized ;  it  was  during  this  month  that  Con- 
federate conscripts  began  to  pour  into  the  old  regiments  instead 
of  being  formed  into  new  organizations ;  it  was  during  this  and 
the  two  succeeding  months,  while  McDowell  was  held  back,  that 
these  conscripts,  associated  with  veteran  comrades,  acquired  cour- 
age and  discipline,  and  it  was  by  concentration  during  the  last 
month  that  the  Confederate  Army  was  made  to  equal  its  oppon- 
ent. The  loss  of  battles  was  but  a  trifle  compared  with  the  other 
consequences  of  this  one  month's  delay.  It  arrayed  against  us  a 
military  system,  which  enabled  the  Confederate  Government  to 
call  out  the  last  man  and  the  last  dollar,  as  against  a  system  based 
on  voluntary  enlistment  and  the  consent  of  the  States.  It  was  no 
longer  a  question  of  dealing  a  dissolving  army  its  deathblow. 
We  had  permitted  a  rival  government  to  reorganize  its  forces, 
which  we  now  were  compelled  to  destroy  by  the  slow  process  of 
attrition. 

One  thing  the  nation  learned,  or  should  have  learned,  out  of 
the  tragic  experiences  of  the  first  years  of  the  war,  and  that  was 
that  the  question  of  winning  battles  was  largely  a  question  of 
trained  leadership.  We  have  tried  our  best  not  to  learn  this 
lesson.     The  volunteer  soldier  despised,  or  affected  to  despise. 


UNION  GENERALS  PROMINENT  IN  LAST  HALF  OF  THE  WAR 
From  Second  Volume  of  Greeley's  American  Conflict 


"GIVE  US  A  MAN!"  165 

leaders  who  had  had  military  training".  In  the  Mexican  War, 
General  Taylor,  as  "Old  Rough  and  Ready,"  achieved  a  popu- 
larity which  General  Scott,  "Old  Fuss  and  Feathers,"  coveted 
but  never  attained.  So,  in  the  Civil  War,  the  sympathy  and  en- 
thusiasm of  the  volunteer  soldier  were  for  the  volunteer  officer, 
and  the  volunteer  officer  held  the  West  Point  graduate  in  open 
scorn.  But  it  was  the  West  Point  graduates  on  both  sides  who 
proved  themselves  capable  of  sustained  leadership.  Sending 
soldiers  to  the  front  is  a  hazardous  thing  at  best,  but  sending 
them  to  the  front  under  undisciplined  officers  is  manslaughter, 
and  sometimes  murder.  The  men  who  won  the  war  were  the 
men  trained  at  West  Point.  The  war  did  not  produce  its  leaders 
out  of  raw  material.  All  soldiers  need  disciplined  leaders,  but 
undisciplined  soldiers  especially  need  trained  officers,  or  an  army 
becomes  a  panic-stricken  mob. 

But  where  was  the  general  to  lead  the  Union  Armies  to  vic- 
tory? There  was  no  lack  of  men  or  money,  but  where  wras  the 
leader?  The  Greeks,  having  two  words  to  our  one  for  "man" 
have  a  proverb  which  we  are  incapable  of  translating  literally, 
but  the  spirit  of  it  might  be  suggested  by  the  words,  "We  have 
plenty  of  men,  but  where  is  the  man?" 

On  September  8,  1862,  a  week  after  the  appointment  of  Mc- 
Clellan  and  shortly  before  Antietam,  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman 
published  his  poem  which  echoed  the  pathetic  cry  of  the  North, 
"Abraham  Lincoln,  give  us  a  man!"     We  must  quote  it  in  full: 

WANTED  A    MAN 

Back  from  the  trebly  crimsoned  field 

Terrible  words  are  thunder-tost; 
Full  of  the  wrath  that  will  not  yield, 

Full  of  revenge  for  battles  lost! 

Hark  to  their  echo,  as  it  crost 
The  Capitol,  making  faces  wan : 

"End  this  murderous  holocaust; 
Abraham  Lincoln,  give  us  a  Man! 


1 66  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

"Give  us  a  man  of  God's  own  mould, 

Born  to  marshal  his  fellow-men ; 
One  whose  fame  is  not  bought  and  sold 
At  the  stroke  of  a  politician's  pen; 
Give  us  the  man  of  thousands  ten, 
Fit  to  do  as  well  as  to  plan ; 

Give  us  a  rallying-cry,  and  then, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  give  us  a  Man! 

"No  leader  to  shirk  the  boasting  foe, 

And  to  march  and  countermarch  our  brave, 
Till  they  fall  like  ghosts  in  the  marshes  low, 

And  swamp-grass  covers  each  nameless  grave; 

Nor  another  whose  fatal  banners  wave 
Aye  in  Disaster's  shameful  van ; 

Nor  another,  to  bluster,  and  lie,  and  rave; — ■ 
Abraham  Lincoln,  give  us  a  Man ! 

"Hearts  are  mourning  in  the  North, 

While  the  sister  rivers  seek  the  main, 
Red  with  life-blood  flowing  forth, — 

Who  shall  gather  it  up  again  ? 

Though  we  inarch  to  the  battle-plain 
Firmly  as  when  the  strife  began, 

Shall  all  our  offering  be  in  vain?— 
Abraham  Lincoln,  give  us  a  Man! 

"Is  there  never  one  in  all  the  land, 

One  on  whose  might  the  Cause  may  lean? 
Are  all  the  common  ones  so  grand, 

And  all  the  titled  ones  so  mean? 

What  if  your  failure  may  have  been 
In  trying  to  make  good  bread  from  bran, 

From  worthless  metal  a  weapon  keen? — 
Abraham  Lincoln,  find  us  a  Man ! 

"O,  we  will  follow  him  to  the  death, 
Where  the  foeman's  fiercest  columns  are! 
O,  we  will  use  our  latest  breath, 
Cheering  for  every  sacred  star! 
His  to  marshall  us  high  and  far; 


"GIVE  US  A  MAN!"  167 

Ours  to  battle,  as  patriots  can 

When  a  Hero  leads  to  the  Holy  War! — 
Abraham  Lincoln,  give  us  a  Man !" 

September  8,  1862. 

The  date  of  this  poem  is  significant.  It  was  written  and  pub- 
lished just  after  the  reappointment  of  McClellan. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  distinguish  the  principal  characters 
referred  to  in  the  leaders  so  bitterly  pilloried  in  this  poem.  No 
one  could  doubt  whom  Stedman  meant  by  the  leader  who  shirked 
the  boasting  foe,  and  there  had  been  generals  enough  whose 
banners  flew  in  the  shameful  van  of  retreat,  or  who  blustered 
and  lied  and  raved.  He  who  will  may  try  his  hand  in  deciding 
just  what  officers  the  poet  had  in  mind.  But  the  poem  went  to 
the  heart  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  read  it,  and  as  he  bent  over, 
between  the  knotted  fingers  in  which  he  buried  his  face,  the  tears 
dropped  on  the  poem.     Where  was  he  to  find  that  man? 

He  still  hoped  against  hope  that  he  had  already  found  him. 
He  was  trying  once  more  to  have  faith  in  McClellan.  This  gen- 
eral had  been  recalled  against  the  protests  of  a  portion  of  the 
Cabinet,  and  an  influential  portion  of  the  Congressional  Com- 
mittee on  the  Conduct  of  the  War.  Indeed,  this  very  poem  was 
part  of  that  protest.  How  the  general  had  come  to  impress  cer- 
tain members  of  that  committee,  including  Zachariah  Chandler 
and  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  the  biographers  of  Chandler  have  set 
forth,  and  Chandler  himself  told  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate : 

Originally  Mr.  Chandler  believed  that  McClellan's  selection 
as  the  practical  successor  of  General  Scott  was  a  wise  one,  and 
hoped  to  see  his  organizing  capacity  in  camp  supplemented  by 
enterprise  and  courage  in  the  field.  Distrust  first  sprang  up 
with  the  persistent  effort  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  through- 
cut  the  last  months  of  1861,  and  it  was  strengthened  by  contact 
with  the  man  himself  and  the  study  of  his  character  and  his  plans. 
An  illustration  of  how  this  change  of  opinion  was  brought  about 
is  given  in  an  incident  which  occurred  in  the  room  of  the  Com- 


1 68  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

mittee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War.  That  committee  sent  for  Gen- 
eral McClellan  as  soon  as  they  took  up  matters  relating  to  his 
command,  in  order  to  consult  with  him  informally  as  to  the  situa- 
tion. This  was  in  January,  1862,  while  he  was  in  Washington 
"organizing"  his  army,  and  while  there  was  no  little  impatience 
felt  because  he  did  not  move.  He  was  not  formally  called  be- 
fore the  committee  then,  but  simply  called  in  for  general  con- 
sultation. After  the  regular  business  was  finished,  Mr.  Chan- 
dler asked  him  bluntly  why  he  did  not  attack  the  rebels.  General 
McClellan  replied  that  it  was  because  there  were  not  sufficient 
means  of  communication  with  Washington;  he  then  called  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  there  were  only  two  bridges  and  other 
means  of  transportation  across  the  Potomac. 

Mr.  Chandler  asked  what  the  number  of  bridges  had  to  do 
with  an  advance  movement,  and  McClellan  explained  with  much 
detail  that  it  was  one  of  the  most  important  features  of  skillful 
strategy  that  a  commander  should  have  plenty  of  room  to  re- 
treat before  making  an  attack.  To  this  Mr.  Chandler's  response 
was : 

"General  McClellan,  if  I  understand  you  correctly,  before  you 
strike  at  the  rebels  you  want  to  be  sure  of  plenty  of  room  so  that 
you  can  run  in  case  they  strike  back!" 

"Or  in  case  you  get  scared,"  added  Senator  Wade. 

The  commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Po'tomac  manifested  in- 
dignation at  this  blunt  way  of  putting  the  case,  and  then  pro- 
ceeded at  length  to  explain  the  art  of  war  and  the  science  of 
generalship,  laying  special  stress  upon  the  necessity  of  having 
lines  of  retreat,  as  well  as  lines  of  communication  and  supply, 
always  open.  He  labored  hard  to  make  clear  all  the  methods  and 
counter-methods  upon  which  campaigns  are  managed  and  battles 
fought,  and,  as  he  was  an  accomplished  master  of  the  theory 
of  war,  succeeded  in  rendering  himself  at  least  interesting.  After 
he  had  concluded,  Mr.  Wade  said : 

"General,  you  have  all  the  troops  you  have  called  for,  and  if 
you  haven't  enough,  you  shall  have  more.  They  were  well  or- 
ganized and  equipped,  and  the  loyal  people  of  this  country  ex- 
pect that  you  will  make  a  short  and  decisive  campaign.  Is  it 
really  necessary  for  you  to  have  more  bridges  over  the.  Potomac 
before  you  move?" 

"Not  that,"  was  the  answer,  "not  that  exactly,  but  we  must* 
bear  in  mind  the  necessity  of  having  everything  ready  in  case  of 
a  defeat,  and  keep  our  lines  of  retreat  open." 


"GIVE  US  A  MAN!"  169 

With  this  remark  General  McClellan  left  the  room,  where- 
upon Mr.  Wade  asked : 

"Chandler,  what  do  you  think  of  the  science  of  generalship?" 
"I  don't  know  much  about  war,"  was  the  reply,  "but  it  seems 
to  me  that  this  is  infernal,  unmitigated  cowardice." 

When  it  was  proposed  to  reinstate  McClellan  as  commander 
of  the  armies  around  Washington,  four  members  of  the  Cabinet 
protested,  among  them  Stanton,  who  wrote  for  their  signatures 
this  dignified  protest,  and  unofficially  expressed  his  dissent  in 
far  stronger  language : 

The  undersigned,  who  have  been  honored  with  your  selection 
as  part  of  your  confidential  advisers,  deeply  impressed  with  our 
great  responsibility  in  the  present  crisis,  do  but  perform  a  painful 
duty  in  declaring  to  you  our  deliberate  opinion  that  at  this  time 
it  is  not  safe  to  intrust  to  Major-General  McClellan  the  com- 
mand of  any  army  of  the  United  States.  And  we  hold  ourselves 
ready  at  any  time  to  explain  to  you  in  detail  the  reasons  upon 
which  this  opinion  is  based. 

But  on  September  2,  1862,  Lincoln  had  reappointed  McClel- 
lan, and  accepted  with  gratitude  for  small  mercies  the  meager 
victory  of  Antietam.  After  that,  Lincoln  could  not  coax,  com- 
mand or  threaten  McClellan  with  sufficient  earnestness  to  force 
that  general  to  move.  Patience  ceased  to  be  a  virtue,  and  Lin- 
coln removed  McClellan  from  his  command. 

It  would  be  good  to  know  that  in  the  appointment  of  generals 
and  the  winning  of  victories  no  political  consideration  had  any 
weight  either  in  the  army,  in  the  Congress,  in  the  Cabinet  or  in 
the  White  House.  Unfortunately,  this  was  not  the  case.  If  any 
general  in  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  been  able 
to  win  decisive  victories  against  forces  of  equal  or  nearly  equal 
strength,  he  could  have  held  his  military  position,  and  gone  for- 
ward to  victory  upon  the  battle-field,  and  more  than  possibly 
have  gone  from  there  into  the  White  House.  Lincoln  was  far 
from  being  too  popular  to  need  to  fear  the  rivalry  of  a  successful 


170  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

winner  of  battles,  and  it  is  to  his  immortal  honor  that,  desirous 
as  he  was  of  succeeding  himself,  he  would  willingly  have  been 
defeated  by  a  general  who  could  have  saved  the  country  in  a  de- 
cisive victory  and  carried  his  success  into  politics.  But  no  such 
general  was  in  sight.  McClellan  had  failed.  Pope  had  failed. 
McClellan  had  failed  again.  Burnside  had  failed,  and  the  cry 
was  loud  and  long  for  still  another  restoration  of  "Little  Mac." 
But  the  Cabinet  was  united  against  him.  His  known  idea  of  a 
"military  dictatorship,"  together  with  his  record  in  battle  or  the 
avoiding  of  it,  made  certain  that  if  McClellan  achieved  any  fur- 
ther success  he  must  do  it  at  the  polls,  and  he  was  not  unwilling 
to  undertake  that  adventure.  If  McClellan  had  been  selected  as 
the  successor  to  Burnside  and  had  won  the  battle  of  Gettysburg, 
he  would  have  been  elected  president  in  1864. 

There  was  a  prominent  member  of  Lincoln's  Cabinet  who*  was 
very  desirous  that  Hooker  should  be  appointed,  and  that  he 
should  win.  That  was  Salmon  P.  Chase,  who  sincerely  believed 
that  he  himself  ought  to  be  elected  president  in  1864.  If  Hooker 
won,  he  would  keep  his  ambitions  within  the  bounds  of  military 
advancement,  and  Chase  might  expect  to  reap  the  political  bene- 
fits of  Hooker's  military  success.  In  an  important  and  appar- 
ently reliable  paper  by  Charles  F.  Benjamin,  published  in  the 
Century  War  Book,*  it  is  confidently  affirmed  that  Hooker  was 
appointed  because  Lincoln  was  compelled  to  recognize  the  power 
of  the  Chase  interests.  The  effort  to  secure  the  appointment  of 
Hooker  against  the  distrust  of  Lincoln  and  the  open  hostility  of 
Stanton  was  impossible,  he  affirms,  until  connection  was  made 
with  a  powerful  faction  which  had  for  its  object  the  elevation  of 
Mr.  Chase  to  the  presidency  at  the  end  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  term. 

Making  every  allowance  for  the  strength  and  availability  of 
Mr.  Chase  as  against  Mr.  Lincoln  or  any  other  civilian  candi- 
date, his  friends  did  not  conceal  from  themselves  that  the  gen- 
eral who  should  conquer  the  rebellion  would  have  the  disposal  of 

^Hooker's  Appointment  and  Removal,  by  Charles  F.  Benjamin;  Battles 
and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,  iii,  239-243. 


"GIVE  US  A  MAN!"  171 

the  next  presidency,  and  they  were  on  the  lookout  for  the  right 
military  alliance,  when  they  came  into  communication  with 
Hooker's  friends,  and  received  their  assurances  that,  if  it  should 
be  his  good  fortune  to  bring  the  war  to  a  successful  close,  noth- 
ing could  possibly  induce  him  to  accept  other  than  military  hon- 
ors in  recognition  of  his  services.  General  Hooker  thereupon 
became  the  candidate  of  Mr.  Chase's  friends.  Hooker  probably 
knew  of  these  dickerings.  Certainly  Stanton  did,  through  a 
friend  in  Chase's  own  circle.  ...  At  this  critical  moment  the 
needed  impulse  in  the  direction  of  Hooker  was  supplied  by  a  per- 
son of  commanding  influence  in  the  counsels  of  the  administra- 
tion, and  Mr.  Lincoln  directed  the  appointment  to  be  made. 

Who  this  person  was,  whose  influence  overbore  the  caution  of 
Lincoln  and  the  determined  opposition  of  Stanton,  and  caused 
Lincoln  to  make  an  appointment  which  he  knew  to  be  dictated 
by  the  men  who  were  opposing  his  own  reelection,  is  a  matter  of 
conjecture.  Certainly  it  was  not  a  selfish  action  of  Lincoln's 
part  that  made  Hooker  commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 

Lincoln's  letter  to  Hooker,  appointing  him  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  is  one  of  the  classics  of  the 
war.  Was  ever  another  such  letter  written  by  a  president  to  a 
man  appointed  to  an  important  position  ?  It  is  a  marvel  of  kind- 
ness mingled  with  blunt  and  stern  reproof  :* 

Executive  Mansion,  Washington,  D.  C, 

January  26,  1863. 
Major  General  Hooker. — General :  I  have  placed  you  at 
the  head  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac.  Of  course  I  have  done 
this  upon  what  appear  to  me  to  be  sufficient  reasons ;  and  yet  I 
think  it  best  for  you  to  know  that  there  are  some  things  in  re- 
gard to  which  I  am  not  satisfied  with  you.  I  believe  you  to  be  a 
brave  and  skillful  soldier,  which  of  course  I  like.  I  also  believe 
that  you  do  not  mix  politics  with  your  profession,  in  which  you 
are  right.  You  have  confidence  in  yourself,  which  is  a  valuable 
if  not  indispensable  quality.  You  are  ambitious,  which,  within 
reasonable  bounds,  does  good  rather  than  harm ;  but  I  think  that, 

*The  original  of  this  letter  was  sold  at  auction  in  the  autumn  of  1924. 
The  Library  of  Congress  sent  in  a  bid  of  $1,000;  the  letter  sold  for  $10,000. 


172  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

during  General  Burnside's  command  of  the  army>  you  have 
taken  counsel  of  your  ambition,  and  thwarted  him  as  much  as 
you  could,  in  which  you  did  a  great  wrong  to  the  country,  and 
to  a  most  meritorious  and  honorable  brother  officer.  I  have 
heard,  in  such  a  way  as  to  believe  it,  of  your  recently  saying  that 
both  the  army  and  the  government  needed  a  dictator.  Of  course, 
it  was  not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it,  that  I  have  given  you  the 
command.  Only  those  generals  who  gain  success  can  be  dicta- 
tors. What  I  now  ask  of  you  is  military  success,  and  I  will  risk 
the  dictatorship.  The  government  will  support  you  to  the  ut- 
most of  its  ability,  which  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  it  has 
done  and  will  do  for  all  commanders.  I  much  fear  that  the 
spirit  which  you  have  aided  to  infuse  into  the  army,  of  criti- 
cizing their  commander  and  withholding  confidence  from  him, 
will  now  turn  upon  you.  I  shall  assist  you  as  far  as  I  can  to  put 
it  down.  Neither  you  nor  Napoleon,  if  he  were  alive  again, 
could  get  any  good  out  of  an  army  while  such  a  spirit  prevails 
in  it.  And  now,  beware  of  rashness.  Beware  of  rashness,  but, 
with  energy  and  sleepless  vigilance,  go  forward  and  give  us 
victories. 

Yours,  very  truly,  A.  Lincoln. 

Hooker  spent  three  months  in  organizing  his  army,  and  then 
advanced  toward  Richmond.  He  met  Lee  at  a  small  place  called 
Chancellorsville,  and  a  terrific  battle  was  fought  on  May  2  and 
3,  1863,  with  a  loss  of  about  17,000  men.  In  this  battle  Stone- 
wall Jackson  was  killed  by  the  mistaken  fire  of  his  own  men. 

Hooker  was  so  severely  criticized  for  this  defeat  and  so  an- 
noyed by  the  orders  which  he  received  from  Washington,  that  he 
asked  to  be  relieved  of  his  command. 

Hooker  was  succeeded  by  General  George  G.  Meade,  of  Penn- 
sylvania. Meade  was  a  graduate  of  West  Point,  and  had  served 
in  the  Mexican  War.  He  came  to  the  command  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  just  in  time  to  have  the  honor  of  winning  the  battle 
of  Gettysburg.  That  victory  kept  this  cautious  officer  in  his 
position  as  commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  until  the 
end  of  the  war ;  but  his  failure  to  follow  Lee  was  a  bitter  disap- 
pointment to  Lincoln,  who  could  not  relieve  himself  from  the  im- 


"GIVE  US  A  MAN!"  173 

pression  that  Meade  had  been  willing  that  Lee  should  escape 
rather  than  that  Meade  then  should  risk  a  second  battle.  Meade's 
fame  is  secure  in  the  winning  of  one  superb  victory,  but  he  did 
not  justify  the  faith  that  would  have  been  involved  in  delegating 
to  him  any  larger  responsibility. 

The  man  whom  the  nation  needed  and  whom  Lincoln  was 
seeking,  was  even  then  merging  into  view.  The  very  day  on 
which  Meade  won  his  victory  at  Gettysburg,  and  in  the  very 
winning  of  it  displayed  a  lack  of  those  qualities  which  made  it 
sure  that  he  could  win  another  one,  another  general  came  into 
public  notice,  and  from  that  time  on  until  the  end  of  the  war 
was  seldom  out  of  the  public  mind,  though  seldom  visible  to 
public  view.  It  is  not  necessary  at  this  time  to  name  him.  In 
time  the  nation  found  the  man  who  could  lead  its  armies  to 
victory. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

GETTYSBURG  :     WHAT  THEY  DID  THERE 

An  incident  occurred  in  the  autumn  of  1863  which  seemed  at 
the  time  to  be  of  little  importance,  but  which  has  become  one  of 
the  outstanding  events  of  Lincoln's  public  career.  The  battle  of 
Gettysburg  was  the  one  important  battle  fought  on  northern  soil. 
The  field  lay  within  a  state  wholly  outside  of  the  borders  of 
Confederacy.  The  system  of  national  cemeteries  controlled  by 
the  Federal  Government  had  not  as  yet  been  devised.  A  portion 
of  the  battle-field  at  Gettysburg  was  purchased  and  held  by  a 
commission  in  which  the  several  northern  states  that  had  partici- 
pated in  the  battle  were  represented.  This  cemetery  was  set 
apart  with  solemn  services  on  November  19,  1863.  There  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  delivered  an  address  whose  words  have  become  im- 
mortal. The  importance  of  the  battle,  and  the  world's  interest 
in  the  address,  require  some  description  of  the  conflict.  Before 
we  consider  what  Lincoln  said  there,  let  us  visit  Gettysburg  and 
remind  ourselves  as  we  travel  over  the  field,  what  they  did  there. 

One's  first  surprise  on  reaching  Gettysburg  is  the  discovery 
that  it  is  not  a  hill  town.  The  visitor  has  at  least  two  reasons 
to  expect  to  find  it  in  the  heart  of  the  mountains.  One  is  that 
the  battle  is  described  in  terms  of  elevations — Seminary  Ridge, 
Cemetery  Ridge,  Culp's  Hill,  Round  Top  and  Little  Round  Top. 
The  other  is  that  he  travels  through  hills  to  reach  Gettysburg. 
When  the  train  leaves  Highfield,  the  junction  point  for  the  main 
line  of  the  Western  Maryland  Railroad,  he  knows  that  he  is  on 
top  of  the  mountain.  The  train  moves  slowly  around  horseshoe 
curves  among  cement-factories  and  saw-mills.   After  a  few  miles, 

174 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  THEY  DID  THERE         175 

the  farms,  which  have  been  discovered  in  the  bottoms  of  the  val- 
leys, appear  more  nearly  on  the  level  of  the  track.  Before  the 
train  reaches  Gettysburg,  the  hills  have  been  left  behind  and 
above.  The  distance  is  only  twenty-two  miles  from  Highfield 
to  Gettysburg,  but  the  last  seven  or  eight  miles  find  the  train 
upon  the  floor  of  a  wide  valley.  The  hills  have  stepped  back. 
The  land  rises  and  falls  in  graceful  undulations.  The  railroad 
plows  through  the  famous  ridges  described  in  the  battle,  and  the 
cuts  are  only  ten  to  twenty  feet  deep.  Cemetery  Ridge  and  Sem- 
inary Ridge  are  native  to  the  locality.  Culp's  Hill,  the  Round 
Tops  and  the  Devil's  Den  are  intruders :  they  are  formed  of 
trap  rock,  thrust  up  through  the  floor  of  the  valley.  These  are 
real  hills,  but  they  are  not  very  high.  The  public  square  at 
Gettysburg — the  people  of  the  town  call  it  "the  Diamond," — is 
only  four  hundred  and  twelve  feet  above  sea  level.  Seminary 
Ridge  is  a  gentle  rise  of  ground,  about  forty  feet  higher,  and 
Cemetery  Ridge  at  its  highest  point  is  some  fifty  feet  higher 
than  the  Seminary  Ridge.  Culp's  Hill  is  five  hundred  eight  feet 
above  sea  level ;  Little  Round  Top  is  five  hundred  forty-eight, 
and  Round  Top — the  highest  elevation  in  the  battle — is  six  hun- 
dred sixty-four  feet.  The  highest  land  that  figured  in  the  battle 
is  only  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above  the  plain.  The  hill  up 
which  Pickett's  Brigade  charged  is  a  very  gentle  slope.  Mission- 
ary Ridge  and  Lookout  Mountain  are  real  mountains,  but  the 
fighting  at  Gettysburg  had  to  do  with  very  modest,  though  very 
important,  elevations. 

It  is  not  easy  to  understand  a  battle,  and  still  less  easy  to  de- 
scribe it  so  that  others  can  understand  the  description.  But  it 
is  important  to  gain  an  intelligent  idea  of  this  one. 

In  the  summer  of  1863,  General  Lee  undertook  an  invasion  of 
the  North.  It  was  a  desperate  and  mistaken  undertaking.  But 
it  did  not  seem  so  at  the  time.  There  appeared  to  be  opportunity 
for  a  bold,  successful  strike.  The  war  had  been  going  on  for 
two  years,  and  in  the  main  the  advantage  in  the  east  was  on  the 
side  of  the  South.     In  the  West  it  was  not  so.     Vicksburg  was 


176  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

about  to  fall,  and  the  army  of  General  Grant  would  be  released 
for  service  east  or  south.  It  was  desirable  to  accomplish  some- 
thing significant  in  the  East  as  early  as  possible.  The  southern 
boast,  that  one  Confederate  could  whip  three  or  more  northern 
soldiers,  did  not  seem  extravagant  after  Fredericksburg  and 
Chancellorsville.  And  Lee  had  to  do  something.  Either  he 
must  continue  on  the  defensive  and  see  his  army  gradually  worn 
down,  or  he  must  make  a  courageous  advance.  He  decided  on 
the  latter  policy.  The  southern  armies  were  nearly  destitute  of 
shoes  and  clothing,  and  in  sore  need  of  medicine.  But  the  men 
were  hardy  and  seasoned.  If  Lee  could  make  a  successful  inva- 
sion of  the  North,  he. might  penetrate  the  rich  state  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, obtain  clothing  and  food,  and  replenish  his  supplies.  If 
such  a  venture  succeeded,  he  might  capture  Harrisburg,  and 
quite  possibly  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia.  He  could  threaten 
Washington  and  New  York.  And,  if  he  could  reach  Lake  Erie, 
he  could  control  the  lines  of  communication  east  and  west,  and 
profoundly  influence  European  favor.  It  was  a  gambler's 
chance,  and  it  was  worth  trying. 

Lee  crossed  the  Potomac  and  moved  north  rapidly.  Hooker 
was  in  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  but  since  his  de- 
feat at  Chancellorsville  the  basket  had  been  waiting  for  his  head. 
The  Union  Army,  which  within  a  few  months  had  been  com- 
manded by  McClellan,  Burnside  and  Hooker  successively,  was 
awaiting  another  change.  McClellan  had  been  timid,  Burnside 
rash,  and  Hooker  boastful  and  intemperate.  Politics  and  mili- 
tary mismanagement  had  done  their  work,  and  the  army  had  ex- 
perienced McClellan  s  indecisive  victory  at  Antietam,  Burnside's 
futile  slaughter  at  Fredericksburg  and  Hooker's  defeat  at  Chan- 
cellorsville. The  spirit  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  crushed : 
and  now,  another  experiment  in  leadership  was  impending. 

To  Hooker's  lasting  credit  let  it  be  remarked  that  he  followed 
Lee  promptly,,  and,  marching  by  parallel  roads,  managed  to  keep 
his  own  army  between  that  of  Lee  and  the  capital  at  Washing- 
ton.   Just  on  the  eve  of  battle,  Hooker  was  removed,  and  Meade 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
Thotograph  by  Gardner,  November  8,  1863 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  THEY  DID  THERE         177 

reluctantly  took  his  place.  Whatever  Meade's  deficiencies  as  a 
general,  he  was  a  gentleman,  and  a  man  of  strength  of  character. 
The  responsibility  of  command  in  that  crisis  was  one  which  he 
had  not  sought,  and  if  he  was  so  overwhelmed  by  his  new  and 
heavy  responsibilities  as  to  show  too  great  caution,  there  was 
much  to  excuse  him.  Continuing  the  movement  of  Hooker,  he 
pursued  Lee,  intending  to  overtake  Lee's  rear,  compel  him  to 
fall  back,  and  fight  a  decisive  battle.  The  field  for  this  battle 
Meade  selected  at  Pipe  Creek  in  Maryland. 

Neither  Meade  nor  Lee  expected  or  desired  to  fight  a  battle 
at  Gettysburg.  As  Meade  was  selecting  a  favorable  spot  for  the 
battle  at  Pipe  Creek,  Lee  was  preparing  for  a  fight  near  Cash- 
town,  toward  Harrisburg.  It  was  the  fate  of  these  two  skilled 
officers  each  to  propose  a  trap  so  inviting  that  he  was  confident 
the  other  would  step  into  it,  and  then  to  leave  both  traps  baited 
and  unsprung.  The  battle  occurred  where  neither  general  de- 
sired it;  and  each  one  was  so  sure  that  Gettysburg  was  no  place 
for  a  battle  that  neither  general  arrived  on  the  field  until  after 
the  first  day's  fight. 

The  two  armies  moved  with  singularly  little  knowledge  of 
each  other's  exact  movements.  Lee  was  worried  because  Stuart's 
Cavalry,  on  which  he  depended  for  information,  was  roving 
about,  swapping  sore-backed  horses  for  fresh  ones,  and  trading 
wornout  shoes  for  new  ones,  so  that  Lee  could  not  keep  track  of 
their  movements.*  To  this  day  it  is  easily  possible  to  stir  the 
blood  of  a  white-haired  member  of  Jeb  Stuart's  merry  company 
of  horse-thieves,  by  whistling  or  fiddling  a  few  bars  from  that 
old  rebel  song — the  very  melody  which  Lincoln's  marching-clubs 
had  used  in  honor  of  the  Wide-awakes : 

If  you  want  to  have  a  good  time,  jine  the  cavalry, 
Jine  the  cavalry,  jine  the  cavalry. 


*It  is  not  meant  to  imply  that  the  cavalry  rendered  no  effective  service, 
but  only  that  Lee  did  not  know  what  it  was  doing.  See  Stuart's  Cavalry  in 
the  Gettysburg  Campaign,  by  General  John  S.  Mosby,  New  York,  1908. 


178  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Major  General  J.  E.  B.  Stuart's  cavalry  were  having  their 
promised  good  time.  They  were  moving  rapidly,  here  and 
there,  and 

Though  they  had  a  tolerable  notion  of  aiming  at  progressive 

motion, 
'Twasn't  direct ;  'twas  serpentine. 

Like  Monsieur's  corkscrew,  worming  through  a  cork, 
Not  like  corkscrew's  proxy — stiff,  down-pronged  fork. 

They  were  certain  to  reach  Harrisburg  by  the  time  Lee  did, 
and  would  be  freshly  mounted  and  in  fine  fettle  for  a  fight.  It 
is  hard  to  make  an  infantryman,  who  carried  his  gun  and  thirty 
pounds  of  baggage,  believe  that  a  cavalry  soldier  was  ever  any- 
thing more  than  a  jolly  raider  of  stables  and  hen-roosts.  To  the 
men  who  plodded  through  the  mud,  it  seemed  that  he  whose 
happy  fate  permitted  him  to  "join  the  cavalry"  had  few  cares. 
But  if  the  infantry  bugle  in  the  early  dawn  blew  the  confession : 

I  can't  get  'em  up, 
I  can't  get  'em  up, 
I  can't  get  'em  up  in  the  morning — 

the  cavalry  bugle  trumpeted  the  stern  command : — 

Get  up  and  water  your  horses, 

You  dirty  beggars,  get  up  out  of  bed. 

Stuart,  a  young  and  brilliant  officer,  had  succeeded  to  the 
command  of  Stonewall  Jackson  on  the  death  of  the  latter.  Where 
was  Stuart  with  his  cavalry  ?    For  eight  days,  Lee  did  not  know. 

And  what  was  Hooker  doing  all  this  time  ?  Still  on  the  south 
side  of  the  Potomac,  no  doubt,  answering  the  criticisms  of  the 
Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War.     So  Lee  hoped. 

At  the  end  of  June,  when  Lee  was  about  to  descend  upon  Har- 
risburg, and  capture  the  capital  of  Pennsylvania,  he  heard  alarm- 
ing news.     Hooker's  whole  army  was  across  the  Potomac,  and 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  THEY  DID  THERE         179 

was  so  placed  as  to  cut  off  all  hope  that  Lee  could  damage  Wash- 
ington, and  was  also  where  it  might  easily  cut  off  Lee's  line  of 
communication  with  the  South.  Greatly  disturbed,  Lee  decided 
to  stop  and  meet  Hooker,  to  invite  him  into  the  pleasant  trap  he 
had  set  for  him,  and  by  the  defeat  of  Hooker's  army  to  clear 
his  way  for  advance  and  at  the  same  time  keep  his  lines  of  com- 
munication open.  It  seemed  a  wise  plan.  So  he  moved  his  army 
toward  the  south ;  his  returning  advance  and  the  Federal  advance 
meeting  at  Gettysburg,  and  each  presenting  to  the  other  a  cour- 
teous invitation  to  fight  somewhere  else. 

And  that  was  how  it  came  to  pass  that  the  Southern  Army 
entered  Gettysburg  from  the  north,  and  the  Union  Army  entered 
it  from  the  south,  and  Lee  encountered  not  Hooker  but  Meade, 
and  each  general  fought  when  and  where  he  did  not  intend  to 
fight. 

Perhaps  it  would  have  worked  out  otherwise  if  General  Rey- 
nolds, who  commanded  the  Federal  advance,  had  not  been  killed 
at  the  very  beginning  of  the  battle,  north  of  Gettysburg  on  the 
morning  of  July  1,  1863.  But  the  Federal  command  shifted 
more  than  once  that  day,  and  meantime,  the  Confederates,  push- 
ing south,  were  crowding  hard  on  the  Federal  lines,  and  driv- 
ing them  back  through  and  beyond  the  town.  General  Lee,  ar- 
riving after  the  day's  fighting  was  done,  gave  up  all  thought  of 
battle  at  Cashtown.  And  General  Meade,  arriving  at  about  one 
o'clock  the  next  morning,  still  hoped  that  the  real  battle  might 
be  fought  at  Pipe  Creek,  but  prepared  for  the  bloody  engage- 
ment which  was  soon  to  come  that  day. 

There  still  is  dispute  as  to  who  selected  the  permanent  position 
of  the  Union  Army.  It  was  well  selected.  Its  line  was  a  fish- 
hook. The  ring  was  at  Round  Top  far  south  and  east;  the 
shank  extended  north  through  Little  Round  Top  and  on  to  the 
Cemetery  Hill,  which  curved  south  of  the  village ;  the  point  was 
Gulp's  Hill.  Meade  found  his  forces  in  possession  of  this  favor- 
able ground,  and  he  proceeded  to  strengthen  his  position,  A 
mile  away,  the  Confederates  posted  themselves  on  a  larger  and 

25 


180  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

parallel  curve,  their  main  positions  being  on  a  hill  where  stood 
and  still  stands,  the  Lutheran  Theological  Seminary  for  which 
it  is  named.     The  Confederates  had  the  seminary  and  the  town. 

The  fighting  on  the  second  day  began  after  noon.  General 
Sickles,  who  ought  to  have  had  his  soldiers  on  the  ring  and 
shank  of  the  fish-hook,  placed  them  in  an  exposed  position  in  a 
peach-orchard  and  wheat-field,  nearer  the  Confederate  lines. 
The  story  of  that  day's  fight  is  a  sad  one ;  the  most  fortunate 
thing  that  ever  happened  to  General  Sickles  was  that  he  got  shot. 
His  loss  of  a  leg  saved  him  from  a  court-martial,  and  enabled 
him  ever  afterward  to  revisit  Gettysburg-  as  a  hero.  The  peach- 
orchard  and  the  wheat-field  bore  a  sad  crop  that  day.  But  the 
ground  lost  was  recovered,  though  dearly  bought,  and  the  two 
Round  Tops  were  carried  by  the  LTiion  troops,  and  the  line  of 
the  fish-hook  was  preserved  intact. 

It  had  been  Lee's  plan  that  a  simultaneous  attack  should  be 
made  on  both  flanks,  that  is  to  say,  at  the  peach-orchard  toward 
the  ring  of  the  fish-hook,  and  at  Culp's  Hill,  at  the  point.  But 
simultaneous  attacks  are  seldom  simultaneous.  Something  al- 
most invariably  occurs  to  slow  up  one  or  the  other  movement. 
So  the  attack  on  Culp's  Hill  came  later  than  was  intended,  and 
while  it  met  with  immediate  success,  it  came  too  late  for  per- 
manent advantage.  Night  fell,  and  while  the  day's  fighting  had 
been  to  the  advantage  of  the  Confederates,  the  Union  lines  held 
the  ridge.  Meade,  still  sorrowing  over  the  waste  of  his  excellent 
unused  battle-field  at  Pipe's  Creek,  found  that  he  had  a  fairly 
good  position  where  he  was.  He  could  send  messages  or  troops 
from  any  part  of  his  fish-hook  to  any  other  part,  out  of  sight 
and  gun-fire  of  the  Confederates,  while  all  the  movements  of 
the  Confederates  had  to  be  conducted  in  the  rear  of  a  much 
larger  curve,  and  there  were  fewer  of  the  Confederates  than  of 
the  Union  soldiers.  So  the  two  armies  waited  for  the  next  day. 
But  if  the  two  attacks  of  the  Confederates  had  been  simultaneous 
as  was  planned,  the  shank  of  the  fish-hook  would  have  been 
cut  off,  its  point  broken  and  the  Union  Army  divided  and  de- 
feated. 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  THEY  DID  THERE         181 

"Cave  TertvUm"  the  old  Romans  said.  "Beware  the  third." 
The  third  day  at  Gettysburg  was  the  decisive  day.  General  Lee 
inspected  the  whole  line,  and  decided  that  the  weakest  point  held 
by  the  Union  Army  was  just  west  of  the  cemetery,  where  the 
low  ridge  sloped  down  and  offered  the  invitation  of  an  easy 
ascent.  General  Lee  knew  that  after  two  days  of  hard  fighting 
and  heavy  losses  there  was  an  advantage  to  the  side  that  would 
take  the  initiative.  Thoughtfully  he  laid  his  plans  for  the  third 
day.  It  was  possible  so  to  group  his  cannon  along  Seminary 
Ridge  as  to  focus  their  fire  upon  that  one  weakest  spot.  He 
would  open  with  a  heavy  cannon  fire,  and  would  follow  with  a 
charge.  He  had  an  entirely  fresh  division  of  infantry.  Xo  army 
ever  had  a  finer  body  of  troops  than  Pickett  commanded.  They 
had  seen  service  on  many  battle-fields,  but  had  not  fired  a  shot  at 
Gettysburg.  That  division  was  to  be  posted  behind  the  guns,  and 
as  soon  as  the  fire  of  the  cannon  ceased,  they  would  move  across 
the  plain  and  capture  and  hold  that  almost  central  position  in 
the  Union  lines.  Meantime,  he  would  send  a  force  of  cavalry 
? round  the  point  of  the  fish-hook  to  make  a  simultaneous  attack 
m  the  rear. 

Some  of  General  Lee's  division  commanders  protested  against 
this  plan.  It  was  impossible,  they  declared,  to  capture  and  hold 
this  place  at  the  curve  of  the  fish-hook,  when  it  was  so  strongly 
guarded  not  only  at  the  ring  and  point,  but  by  the  heavy  guns 
along  the  curve  at  the  cemetery.  General  Lee  believed  his  plan  a 
wise  one.  So  far  as  the  cannonade  of  the  charge  was  con- 
cerned, his  orders  were  carried  out  to  the  letter.  But  he  was 
disappointed  again  in  the  matter  of  simultaneous  movement. 
The  cavalry  did  not  arrive  in  time  to  do  what  he  expected  them 
to  do.  It  is  doubtful  if,  even  with  their  help,  he  could  have  car- 
ried out  so  bold  an  undertaking. 

General  Lee  massed  one  hundred  forty  cannon  along  Semi- 
nary Ridge  and  they  are  there  to-day.  They  are  placed  as  they 
were  placed  at  the  time  of  the  battle  and  each  battery  is  plainly 
designated.     At  one  o'clock  on  the  third  day  they  laid  down  a 


182  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

barrage,  as  we  now  have  learned  to  call  it.  Such  a  roar  of  can- 
non had  never  at  that  time  been  heard  on  earth.  The  point  at 
which  he  directed  his  fire  was  well  chosen.  The  Union  sol- 
diers lay  behind  a  low  stone  wall.  They  never  turned  a  sod  by 
way  of  fortification,  for  it  never  occurred  to  them  that  a  charge 
would  be  made  against  that  point.  After  a  little  more  than  an 
hour  of  heavy  cannonading,  the  Confederate  guns  being  an- 
swered by  a  nearly  equal  number  on  the  Union  side,  the  firing 
ceased.  For  a  few  moments  it  was  uncertain  whether  the  Con- 
federates had  stopped  to  cool  their  guns  or  because  their  am- 
munition was  exhausted  or  because  this  was  the  prelude  of 
something  yet  to  occur.  Not  long  was  any  one  left  in  doubt.  Gen- 
eral Pickett's  division  of  Longstreet's  corps  had  arrived  the 
night  before  and  borne  no  share  in  the  battle.  For  this  division 
was  reserved  what  might  have  been  under  other  conditions  the 
glory  of  achieving  the  final  victory.  These  men,  numbering  in  all 
about  fourteen  thousand,  experienced,  seasoned  and  disciplined, 
had  lain  concealed  behind  the  Confederate  batteries.  When  the 
firing  ceased,  they  formed  in  double  line  of  battle  and  charged 
the  Union  left  center,  their  objective  being  a  clump  of  trees 
which  stood  and  still  stands  prominently  behind  the  low  stone 
,wall  which  formed  the  Federal  front.  They  did  not  run.  They 
moved  at  a  quick  walk,  or  easy  trot,  their  guns  at  right  shoulder 
shift.  They  reserved  their  breath  and  their  fire  for  the  hand  to 
hand  struggle  which  they  knew  was  coming.  A  braver  charge 
has  never  been  seen  on  any  battle-field.  For  three-quarters  of  a 
mile  across  an  open  field,  with  very  little  to  give  them  protec- 
tion, these  men  moved.  The  Federal  cannon  opened  upon  them 
and  tore  gaps  in  their  ranks.  They  went  on  until  they  came 
within  musket  range  and  were  shot  down  by  the  men  behind  the 
wall.  How  any  man  among  them  lived  to  reach  the  wall  is  a 
mystery.  They  not  only  reached  it,  but  fought  with  clubbed 
muskets  across  the  wall,  and  many  of  them  leaped  the  wall  and 
fought  on  the  other  side.  There  the  Confederacy  reached  its 
high  water  mark.     The  wave  which  dashed  to  that  height  did 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  THEY  DID  THERE         183 

not  roll  back ;  it  broke  and  fell,  and  the  waters  flowed  again  into 
their  place. 

General  Lee  assumed  sole  responsibility  for  this  charge.  "It 
is  all  my  fault,"  he  said.  He  believed,  and  with  reason,  that  the 
point  he  attacked  was  the  weakest  point  in  the  Union  position 
and  that  by  assaulting  the  tired  Federal  troops  with  fresh 
and  vigorous  ones  he  could  cut  entirely  through.  He  also  de- 
pended upon  the  cooperating  movement  of  cavalry  which  was  to 
have  swung  around  the  Union  right  and  attacked  simultaneously 
from  the  rear.  If  only  the  cavalry  had  done  its  duty,  Lee  still 
believed  that  the  movement  might  have  succeeded.  As  it  was, 
the  judgment  of  Longstreet  was  vindicated.  He  had  refused  to 
speak  the  word  of  command  to  Pickett,  but  silently  bowed  his 
head  and  turned  away.  Like  the  charge  of  the  six  hundred  at 
Balaklava,  Pickett's  men  went  to  their  death  although  their  im- 
mediate commander,  Pickett,  and  his  commander,  Longstreet, 
firmly  believed  that  "some  one  had  blundered." 

These  American  officers  were  not  the  only  ones  who  blun- 
dered. Colonel  Freemantle  of  Queen  Victoria's  Coldstream 
Guards  was  visiting  General  Lee's  army,  and  was  near  General 
Longstreet  when  Pickett's  charge  was  made.  Standing  with  his 
back  to  the  sun  and  thrilled  with  admiration  as  he  viewed  that 
heroic  charge,  he  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  the  attacking  column 
completely  victorious.  The  men  moved  across  the  open  space 
tmterrified  by  cannon  and  musketry.  They  reached  the  wall  and 
crossed  it.  Only  a  few  of  them  straggled  back.  Colonel  Free- 
mantle  rushed  up  to  Longstreet  and  heartily  congratulated  him 
on  his  glorious  victor}-.  Longstreet  knew  better.  Those  men 
were  remaining  on  the  other  side  of  the  wall,  not  because  they 
had  captured  the  position,  but  because  they  were  either  killed  or 
prisoners. 

General  Meade  is  hardly  to  be  blamed  for  the  fact  that  he 
could  not  at  once  comprehend  or  believe  the  magnitude  of  his 
victory.  He  had  been  compelled  against  his  will  to  assume  the 
command  of  an  army  to  which  he  was  practically  a  stranger,  at 


1 84  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

a  time  when  it  was  divided  by  heated  discussion  concerning  past 
commanders  and  had  lost  faith  in  all  commanding  generals.  To 
him  it  hardly  seemed  credible  that  the  repulse  of  Pickett's  divi- 
sion was  the  great  victory  for  which  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
had  been  praying  for  more  than  two  bloody  and  disastrous  years. 
If  General  Meade  be  blamed  for  excessive  caution  in  not  follow- 
ing Lee,  it  is  at  least  to  be  remembered  to  his  credit  that  under 
him  for  the  first  time  Lee  met  an  army  capable  of  inflicting  upon 
him  an  incurable  loss.  Meade  did  not  know  how  great  a  victory 
he  had  won.    But  General  Lee  knew. 


CHAPTER  XV 


GETTYSBURG  !     WHAT    HE   SAID  THERE 

It  is  impossible  to  study  the  career  of  Abraham  Lincoln  dur- 
ing the  Civil  War  and  avoid  the  conviction  that  during  those 
anxious  months  when  the  president  was  bearing  a  burden  of  re- 
sponsibility and  grief  such  as  few  men  have  ever  borne,  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  grew  largely  in  his  own  spiritual  nature. 

On  the  fourth  of  July,  1863,  the  president  issued  an  announce- 
ment of  the  success  of  Gettysburg  in  the  following  words : 

The  President  of  the  United  States  announces  to  the  country, 
that  the  news  from  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  up  to  10  o'clock 
P.  M.  of  the  3d,  is  such  as  to  cover  the  army  with  the  highest 
honor — to  promise  great  success  to  the  cause  of  the  Union — and 
to  claim  the  condolence  of  all  for  the  many  gallant  fallen :  and 
that  for  this,  he  especially  desires  that  on  this  day,  "He  whose 
will,  not  ours,  should  ever  be  done,"  be  everywhere  remembered 
and  reverenced  with  the  profoundest  gratitude. 

On  that  evening  the  president  was  serenaded  at  the  White 
House,  and  said :  "I  do  most  sincerely  thank  Almighty  God  for 
the  occasion  of  this  call." 

Remembering  that  it  was  the  fourth  of  July,  and  the  president 
not  then  having  precisely  in  mind  the  exact  number  of  years 
since  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  he  asked : 

How  long  ago  is  it?  Eighty-odd  years  since,  on  the  fourth 
of  July,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world,  a  nation  by 
its  representatives  assembled,  declared  as  a  self-evident  truth 
that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

185 


1 86  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

It  will  be  noted  that  he  recurred  to  this  same  thought  in  the 
following  November  when  he  delivered  the  address  at  Gettys- 
burg, but  that  in  the  meantime  he  had  looked  up  the  exact  num- 
ber of  years  between  1776  and  1863,  and  found  it  ''four-score 
and  seven  years."  On  this  night  of  the  fourth  of  July,  he  went 
on  to  allude  to  other  extraordinary  events  in  American  historv 
which  had  occurred  on  that  same  month  and  day,  notably  the 
death  of  Jefferson  and  Adams  in  1826,  and  then  said : 

And  now  on  this  last  fourth  of  July  just  past,  we  have  a  gigan- 
tic rebellion,  at  the  bottom  of  which  is  an  effort  to  overthrow 
the  principle  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  We  have  the  sur- 
render of  a  most  important  position  and  an  army  on  that  very 
day. 

He  was  speaking  of  the  fall  of  Vicksburg ;  and  he  then  alluded 
gratefully  and  with  expressions  of  joy  to  the  battle  in  Pennsyl- 
vania as  a  victory  over  the  cohorts  of  those  who  opposed  the 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

The  president  did  not  stop  with  expressions  of  congratulation. 
A  few  days  afterward  he  called  for  a  national  day  of  thanksgiv- 
ing and  praise,  appointing  the  fourth  of  August  as  the  day  for 
the  expression  of  gratitude  to  God  for  these  victories,  and  in- 
vited them  to  call  upon  God  by  his  Holy  Spirit  to  subdue  the 
anger  which  had  produced  and  too  long  sustained  a  cruel  rebel- 
lion ;  to  guide  the  councils  of  the  government ;  to  visit  with  ten- 
der care  and  consolation  those  who  had  been  brought  to  suffer, 
and  finally,  to  lead  the  whole  nation  through  paths  of  repentance 
and  submission  to  the  Divine  will,  to  unity  and  fraternal  peace. 
A  portion  of  this  proclamation  read : 

It  has  pleased  Almighty  God  to  hearken  to  the  supplications 
and  prayers  of  an  afflicted  people,  and  to  vouchsafe  to  the  army 
and  the  navy  of  the  United  States,  victories  on  the  land  and  on 
the  sea,  so  signal  and  so  effective,  as  to  furnish  reasonable 
ground  for  augmented  confidence  that  the  Union  of  these  States 
will  be  maintained,  their  Constitution  preserved,  and  their  peace 


THE  GETTYSBURG  SPEECH  MONUMENT 


THE  CEMETERY  AT  GETTYSBURG 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         187 

and  prosperity  permanently  restored.  But  these  victories  have 
been  accorded  not  without  sacrifice  of  life,  limb,  health,  and  lib- 
erty, incurred  by  brave,  loyal,  and  patriotic  citizens.  Domestic 
affliction,  in  every  part  of  the  country,  follows  in  the  train  of 
these  fearful  bereavements.  It  is  meet  and  right  to  recognize 
and  confess  the  presence  of  the  Almighty  Father,  and  the  power 
of  His  hand,  equally  in  these  triumphs  and  these  sorrows. 

These  are  the  words  of  a  man  who,  already  a  man  of  deep  re- 
ligious sensibility,  had  passed  through  experiences  that  baptized 
his  soul  in  solemnity  and  attained  a  new  sense  of  reliance  upon 
the  help  of  God. 

I       THE   CEMETERY 

When  General  Lee  withdrew  from  Gettysburg  on  July  4, 
1863,  he  left  behind  him  at  least  twenty-five  hundred  Confed- 
erate dead,  and  the  Union  Army  had  lost  more  than  as  many 
men  killed  in  battle.  Besides  these  some  twenty  thousand  men, 
Confederate  and  Union,  were  in  hospitals.  The  churches,  the 
theological  seminary,  and  many  houses  and  barns  were  utilized 
for  the  care  of  the  wounded.  Many  of  the  men  brought  in  had 
received  no  attention  since  they  were  first  injured  three  or  four 
days  previously.  Lee  endeavored  to  take  with  him  those  of  his 
own  wounded  who  were  likely  to  recover,  leaving  behind  him 
those  who  were  judged  to  be  mortally  wounded.  In  many  cases, 
those  fared  better  who  were  left  behind.  In  the  days  following 
the  battle  hundreds  died.  These  and  those  already  lying 
dead  on  the  battle-field  were  hastily  buried.  In  many  cases  there 
was  no  attempt  at  the  digging  of  a  grave.  Sufficient  earth  to 
cover  the  body  was  hastily  scooped  and  thrown  over  it.  In  a 
short  time  portions  of  these  bodies  were  exposed.  Honorable 
David  Wills,  who  had  been  acting  by  appointment  for  Governor 
Andrew  G.  Curtin,  as  representative  of  the  state  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, in  the  care  of  the  wounded,  proposed  that  all  the  Union 
bodies  should  be  gathered  and  buried  in  one  place.     He  secured 


1 88  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

an  option  at  two  hundred  dollars  an  acre  on  the  seventeen  acres 
of  land  immediately  adjacent  to  the  village  cemetery,  being  the 
angle  which  had  resisted  the  attack  of  the  Louisiana  Tigers  and 
the  spot  where  some  of  the  heaviest  Union  batteries  had  been 
posted.  This  land  was  purchased  by  the  state  of  Pennsylvania, 
acting  as  trustee  for  the  eighteen  states  that  had  Union  soldiers 
buried  there.  The  cost  of  the  purchase  and  improvement  of  the 
grounds  and  of  the  burial  of  the  soldiers  was  apportioned  to 
the  several  states,  not  on  the  basis  of  the  number  of  their 
soldiers  engaged  or  buried  there,  but  in  the  ratio  of  their  repre- 
sentation in  Congress.  Thus  Illinois,  that  had  few  soldiers  in 
the  battle  and  only  six  burials  in  the  cemetery,  paid  nearly 
twelve  thousand  dollars,  while  other  states  with  a  smaller  pop- 
ulation but  more  soldiers  in  that  army  paid  much  smaller  sums. 
The  Cemetery  Association  which  held  the  ground,  was  incor- 
porated after  the  general  plan  of  cemetery  corporations.  Up  to 
that  time  the  Federal  Government  had  not  inaugurated  the  policy 
of  maintaining  soldiers'  cemeteries.  When  that  plan  developed, 
Gettysburg  Cemetery  was  passed  over  to  the  government,  and  is 
now  owned  and  operated  by  it. 

The  cemetery  was  laid  out  in  a  half-circle  with  a  center  re- 
served for  an  imposing  monument,  since  built  by  the  United 
States  Government  at  a  cost  of  $50,000. 

The  work  of  removing  the  bodies  of  dead  Union  soldiers  from 
their  temporary  graves  was  begun  at  once,  but  sickness  devel- 
oped in  Gettysburg  and  was  attributed  to  this  cause.  The  work 
of  removal  ceased,  therefore,  until  November.  A  limited  num- 
ber of  bodies  was  in  the  new  and  permanent  location  at  the  time 
of  the  dedication. 

II      THE    PLAN    FOR   DEDICATION 

It  occurred  to  the  commission  that  it  was  desirable  to  arrange 
for  a  formal  dedication  of  this  ground.  Edward  Everett,  who 
was  believed  to  be  the  foremost  orator  of  America,  was  invited 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         189 

tc  deliver  the  oration.  The  date  named  in  his  invitation  was 
October  23,  1863,  and  Mr.  Everett  replied  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  him  to  prepare  adequately  for  such  an  address  in  the 
limited  time  available.  He  proposed  as  a  date  at  which  he  could 
come  Thursday,  November  nineteenth.  To  meet  his  conven- 
ience the  dedication  was  postponed  nearly  a  month. 

The  date  being  now  fixed,  formal  invitations  were  sent  to  the 
president  and  Cabinet,  to  General  Meade  and  the  venerable  Gen- 
eral Winfield  Scott,  to  the  diplomatic  corps,  to  all  members  of 
both  Houses  of  Congress  and  to  many  other  distinguished  citi- 
zens, requesting  them  to  attend.  Few  comparatively  of  those 
invited  accepted  the' invitation.  It  was  hardly  expected  that  any 
large  portion  of  them  could  attend.  General  Scott  declined  on 
account  of  his  age  and  infirmities.  General  Meade,  smarting 
under  the  rebuke  of  President  Lincoln  for  not  following  Lee 
after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  declined  to  attend,  giving  as  his 
reason  his  duties  to  the  army.  It  was  a  surprise  when  the  presi- 
dent accepted.  The  invitation  first  sent  to  him  was  not  an  invi- 
tation to  speak,  but  only  such  an  invitation  as  went  to  other 
prominent  men  requesting  attendance  at  the  dedication. 

in   Lincoln's  invitation 

Colonel  Clark  E.  Carr,  who  represented  Illinois  in  the  mem- 
bership of  the  commission,  and  at  whose  suggestion  the  invita- 
tion to  Mr.  Lincoln  to  speak  was  subsequently  sent,  says : 

The  proposition  to  ask  Mr.  Lincoln  to  speak  at  the  Gettysburg 
ceremonies  was  an  afterthought.  The  President  of  the  United 
States  had,  like  the  other  distinguished  personages,  been  invited 
to  be  present,  but  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not,  at  that  time,  invited  to 
speak.  In  fact,  it  did  not  seem  to  occur  to  any  one  that  he 
could  speak  on  such  an  occasion. 

Scarcely  any  member  of  the  Board,  excepting  the  member 
representing  Illinois,  had  ever  heard  him  speak  at  all,  and  no 
other  member  had  ever  heard,  or  read  from  him,  anything  ex- 
cept political  discussions.     When  the  suggestion  was  made  that 


igo  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

he  be  invited  to  speak,  while  all  expressed  high  appreciation  of 
his  great  abilities  as  a  political  speaker,  as  shown  in  his  debate 
with  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  and  in  his  Cooper  Institute  address, 
the  question  was  raised  as  to  his  ability  to  speak  upon  such  a 
grave  and  solemn  occasion  as  that  of  the  memorial  services.  Be- 
sides, it  was  said  that,  with  his  important  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities, he  could  not  possibly  have  the  leisure  to  prepare  an  ad- 
dress for  such  an  occasion.  In  answer  to  this,  it  was  urged  that 
he  himself,  better  than  anyone  else,  could  determine  as  to  these 
questions,  and  that,  if  he  were  invited  to  speak,  he  was  sure  to  do 
what  under  the  circumstances,  would  be  right  and  proper. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  proved  to 
the  world  his  ability  to  speak  upon  such  an  occasion.  He  had 
not  yet  made  a  Gettysburg  address,  and  he  had  not  then  made 
that  other  great  address,  which  for  sublimity  and  pathos  ranks 
next  to  it,  his  second  inaugural. 

It  was  finally  decided  to  ask  President  Lincoln  "after  the  ora- 
tion" (that  is  to  say,  after  Mr.  Everett's  oration)  as  chief  execu- 
tive of  the  nation,  "to  set  apart  formally  these  grounds  to  their 
sacred  use  by  a  few  appropriate  remarks."  This  was  done  in  the 
name  of  the  Governors  of  the  States,  as  was  the  case  with  others, 
by  Mr.  Wills ;  but  the  invitation  was  not  settled  upon  and  sent 
to  Mr.  Lincoln  until  the  second  of  November,  more  than  six 
weeks  after  Mr.  Everett  had  been  invited  to  speak,  and  but  a  lit- 
tle more  than  two  weeks  before  the  exercises  were  held. — Lin- 
coln at  Gettysburg,  by  Clark  E.  Carr,  pp.  21-25. 

Colonel  Carr  does  not  distinctly  affirm,  in  this  account,  that  it 
was  he  who,  representing  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  state  upon  the 
board,  suggested  that  the  president  be  invited;  but  it  appears 
that  this  was  the  case.  He  had  heard  Lincoln  and  Douglas  at 
Galesburg,  had  been  present  and  heard  Lincoln  at  his  first  in- 
augural, and  it  "was  he  who  insisted,  against  the  misgivings  of 
some  of  the  other  commissions,  that  Lincoln  be  requested  to 
make  "a  few  appropriate  remarks,"  following  the  oration  by 
Governor  Everett. 

There  was  one  other  possible  reason  why  the  invitation  was 
not  given  earlier.  A  year  previous,  on  October  1,  1862,  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  had  visited  the  battle-field  of  Antietam.     The  battle 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         191 

had  been  fought  just  two  weeks  earlier,  on  September  seven- 
teenth. The  story  soon  after  became  current,  and  was  widely 
circulated  in  the  campaign  of  1864,  that  when  the  ambulance  in 
which  the  president  was  riding  with  General  McClellan  and 
others  "reached  the  neighborhood  of  the  old  stone  bridge,  where 
the  dead  were  piled  highest,  Mr.  Lincoln  suddenly  slapped  Mar- 
shall Lamon  on  the  knee,  and  called  on  Lamon  to  sing  a  comic 
song."  The  following  bit  of  doggerel  found  a  place  in  the  New 
York  World: 

Abe  may  crack  his  jolly  jokes 

O'er  bloody  fields  of  stricken  battle, 

While  yet  the  ebbing  life-tide  smokes 
From  men  that  die  like  butchered  cattle. 

There  were  many  who  were  not  reluctant  to  believe  this  libel ; 
and,  indeed,  it  contained  just  enough  of  truth  to  make  it  difficult 
to  deny.  General  McClellan  certainly  owed  it  to  Lincoln  that  he 
should  have  denied  it,  but  McClellan  did  not  do  so.  Lincoln 
himself  wrote  out  an  account  of  the  incident  as  it  actually  oc- 
curred, but  decided  not  to  publish  it.*  The  story  was  believed 
by  many  people  at  the  time  of  Lincoln's  visit  to  Gettysburg. 

Certain  newspapers  of  the  opposition  believed,  or  professed 
to  believe,  that  Lincoln's  desire  to  attend  the  celebration  grew 
out  of  his  wish  to  use  the  event  in  the  interests  of  the  approach- 
ing presidential  campaign.  There  were  thousands  of  people,  and 
not  all  of  them  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  who  held  Lin- 
coln personally  responsible  for  the  death  of  the  men  who  died 
at  Gettysburg. 

IV      THE   JOURNEY  TO   GETTYSBURG 

The  railway  authorities  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  who  fur- 
nished the  special  train,  planned  at  first  that  the  president 
should  leave  Washington  early  in  the  morning  of  the  day   of 


*Lamon,  in  his  Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  gives  Lincoln's  version 
of  this  incident  in  facsimile.  Lincoln  wrote  it  in  his  own  hand,  in  the  third 
person,  intending  that  Lamon  should  copy  it  and  give  it  to  the  press  as  his 
own.     Later  he  decided  that  it  wis  better  to  say  nothing  about  it. 


192  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

dedication,  and  return  that  night.  Lincoln  himself,  with  char- 
acteristic caution,  informed  the  secretary  of  war  that  he  did  not 
like  this  arrangement.  At  Lincoln's  suggestion,  Secretary  Stan- 
ton procured  a  change  of  schedule.  Instead  of  leaving  Wash- 
ington at  six  o'clock  on  Thursday  morning,  the  presidential  train 
left  at  noon  on  Wednesday,  November  eighteenth.  The  train 
contained  four  coaches.  The  fourth  coach,  in  which  the  president 
rode,  was  a  directors'  car,  the  rear  portion  of  which  was  par- 
titioned off  into  a  separate  compartment  with  seats  around  the 
walls.  In  this  car  rode  with  the  president,  his  secretary,  John 
G.  Nicolay,  his  assistant  secretary,  John  Hay,  the  three  mem- 
bers of  his  Cabinet  who  accompanied  him,  Messrs.  Seward, 
Usher  and  Blair,  several  foreign  officials  and  others.  The  train 
reached  Gettysburg  at  dusk.  Lincoln  went,  according  to  the  in- 
vitation previously  received,  to  the  home  of  Mr.  Wills,  which 
faced  the  public  square. 

V      THE  NIGHT  AT  GETTYSBURG 

The  authorities  in  charge  of  the  dedication  assumed  a  perilous 
risk  of  bad  weather  when,  to  give  Mr.  Everett  time  for  prep- 
aration of  his  oration,  they  postponed  the  date  from  October 
twenty-third  to  November  nineteenth.  But  the  weather  was  pro- 
pitious. The  night  preceding  the  celebration  was  clear  and 
warm,  and  the  moon  shone  brightly.  Gettysburg's  usual  popu- 
lation of  about  1,300  was  multiplied  many  fold.  Never,  except 
during  the  battle,  had  so  many  people  gathered  there.  Esti- 
mates of  the  crowd  vary  all  the  way  from  fifteen  thousand  to 
one  hundred  thousand.  The  former  figure  is  probably  nearer 
correct  than  the  latter,  and  is  large  enough  to  suggest  a  crowd 
of  embarrassing  proportions.  Several  military  bands  had  come 
with  the  different  delegations,  and  they  proceeded  to  give  out- 
door concerts  in  the  evening.  The  diary  of  John  Hay  tells  how 
he  found  congenial  spirits  who  made  up  a  musical  party,  singing 
John  Brown  and  other  songs. 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         193 

Lincoln  was  serenaded,  and  spoke  a  few  words,  which  clearly 
and  perhaps  not  very  tactfully  showed  that  he  was  unwilling  to 
be  tormented  before  the  time.  It  was  late  that  night  wThen  quiet 
resumed  its  wonted  reign  in  Gettysburg. 

VI      THE  PROCESSION 

The  event  of  the  day  was  to  have  been  introduced  by  a  formal 
procession ;  and  there  was  a  procession  of  a  sort.  The  United 
States  Marine  Band,  of  Washington,  the  second*  United  States 
Artillery  Band  of  Baltimore,  the  Birgfield  Band  of  Philadelphia, 
and  the  band  of  the  Fifth  Xew  York  Heavy  Artillery,  were  in 
line  and  furnished  music,  and  certain  military  organizations  took 
their  assigned  places  in  line ;  the  Cemetery  Commissions  from 
the  several  states  were  in  their  places;  and  the  president  and 
the  three  members  of  his  Cabinet  present  appeared  on  horseback. 
But  the  vast  concourse  of  people  did  not  join  the  procession. 
They  wTere  too  much  interested  in  seeing  the  procession  to  be- 
come a  part  of  it.  They  either  stood  on  the  sidewalks  or  ha- 
stened to  the  cemetery  to  secure  advantageous  positions  there. 

The  procession  was  to  have  started  at  ten  o'clock.  At  that 
hour,  Mr.  Lincoln,  dressed  in  black,  and  wearing  a  tall  hat  and 
white  gauntlets,  emerged  from  the  home  of  Mr.  Wills  and 
mounted  a  waiting  horse.  The  crowd  pressed  in  upon  him 
and  he  was  compelled  to  hold  an  informal  reception  on  horse- 
Lack.  It  was  eleven  o'clock  before  the  procession  got  under  way. 
The  president's  horse  was  too  small,  and  the  president  did  not 
appear  to  good  advantage. 

When  the  president  reached  the  cemetery,  there  was  another 
delay.  Mr.  Everett  had  not  arrived.  He  did  not  arrive  for 
half  an  hour.     The  exercises  began  at  noon,  an  hour  late. 

Colonel  Carr,  who  rode  just  behind  the  president,  stated  that 
when  the  procession  started,  the  president  sat  erect  on  his  horse, 
and  looked  the  part  of  commander-in-chief  of  the  army;  but  as 
the  procession  moved  on,   his  body  leaned   forward,   his   arms 


194  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

hung  limp,  and  his  head  was  bowed.  He  seemed  absorbed  in 
thought.  The  route  of  the  procession  was  only  three-quarters 
of  a  mile,  and  the  march  was  over  in  little  more  than  a  quarter 
of  an  hour.  The  tedium  of  the  wait  for  Mr.  Everett  was  partly 
relieved  by  the  music  of  the  band.  Noon  arrived,  and  with  it 
Governor  Everett ;  and  the  formal  proceedings  began.  There  was 
more  music;  a  prayer  described  as  eloquent;  and  then  Edward 
Everett  delivered  his  masterly  oration. 

vn    edward  Everett's  oration 

Edward  Everett  was  in  his  day  America's  foremost  orator. 
He  had  been  a  noted  Boston  minister;  had  followed  his  work  in 
the  pulpit  with  ten  years  as  a  professor  of  Greek ;  had  then  been 
successively  president  of  Harvard,  governor  of  Massachusetts, 
United  States  senator,  minister  to  England  and  secretary  of 
state.  He  was  a  cultured  scholar,  and  an  orator  whose  produc- 
tions, based  on  the  best  Greek  models,  displayed  American 
scholarship  at  its  best  upon  the  platform.  He  had  delivered  mem- 
orable orations  at  historic  spots  in  New  England,  notably  in 
connection  with  semi-centennial  celebrations  of  battles  in  the  Rev- 
olutionary War.  His  oration  on  Washington,  a  hundred  times 
repeated  in  many  parts  of  the  country,  had  brought  in  the  money 
that  purchased  and  saved  Mount  Vernon.  He  had  been  a  can- 
didate for  vice-president  on  one  of  the  tickets  opposed  to  Lin- 
coln; but  was  a  hearty  supporter  of  Lincoln's  administration. 
America  had  no  orator  in  his  generation,  and  has  produced  none 
since,  who  could  more  worthily  represent  the  nation  in  a  classic 
oration  on  such  an  occasion  as  that  which  he  met  at  Gettysburg. 

Very  properly,  he  had  insisted  upon  sufficient  time  to  pre- 
pare his  address.  Having  carefully  written  it,  he  committed  it 
to  memory,  and  doubtless  carefully  rehearsed  it.  Every  sentence 
was  thoroughly  wrought  out  and  balanced.  Even  the  gestures 
seemed  to  have  been  arranged  in  advance.  Leaving  nothing  to 
chance,  he  had  spent  three  days  at  Gettysburg  before  the  dedica- 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         195 

tion,  the  guest  of  Mr.  Wills,  and  had  thoroughly  studied  the 
field.  Every  local  and  topographical  allusion  was  accurate ;  ev- 
ery reference  to  the  battle  was  historically  correct.  He  spoke 
without  manuscript  or  notes.  His  voice  was  clear,  resonant  and 
musical. 

The  speakers'  platform  was  approximately  where  the  central 
monument  now  stands.  The  people  stood  where  the  graves  now 
are  but  not  many  graves  were  then  filled. 

Mr.  Everett  spoke  for  an  hour  and  fifty-seven  minutes,  or  as 
some  hearers  affirm,  a  trifle  over  two  hours.  From  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end  he  held  the  attention  of  the  thoughtful  among 
his-  hearers.  His  white  hair,  his  erect  form,  his  graceful  pose, 
his  faultless  gesticulation,  his  becoming  attire,  his  poise,  his  self- 
control,  his  clear  rich  voice,  his  knowledge,  precision  and  ora- 
torical power,  held  his  audience  for  two  hours  after  he  began, 
which  was  three  hours  after  most  of  the  people  had  taken  their 
places  before  the  platform.  The  idle  and  the  restless  moved 
away,  but  the  more  thoughtful  ones  in  the  assembly  heard  him 
with  interest  unabated  until  the  very  end  of  his  eloquent  perora- 
tion. 

At  length  the  peerless  orator  took  his  seat.  A  dirge,  com- 
posed by  B.  B.  French,  was  sung.  Then  Ward  Hill  Lamon 
introduced  the  president  of  the  United  States,  who  proceeded 
to  make  the  "few  remarks"  suggested  in  his  belated  invitation. 
And  the  world  that  thought  it  would  little  note  has  long  re- 
membered what  he  said. 

viii    Lincoln's  preparation 

When  and  where  did  Lincoln  make  his  preparation  for  the 
Gettysburg  Address?  The  answers  to  this  question,  given  by 
men  who  heard  the  address,  number  not  less  than  five  or  six. 

The  first  answer  is  that  the  address  was  wholly  extempore. 
I  have  been  assured  in  Gettysburg  itself  that  Lincoln  said,  "I 
shall  have  to  trust  to  the  inspiration  of  the  occasion/'  and  that 


196  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

he  made  no  other  preparation.  Professor  Draper,  in  his  History  of 
the  American  Civil  War,  says  that  when  Lincoln  rose  to  speak, 
"he  unpremeditatedly  and  solemnly  said,  Tt  is  intimated  to  me 
that  this  assemblage  expects  me  to  say  something  on  this  occa- 
sion.' " 

Honorable  Cornelius  Cole,  ex-Senator  from  California,  in  an 
address  at  Wesleyan  University,  Middletown,  Connecticut,  in 
June,  1922,  said:* 

It  has  been  stated  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  prepared  his  speech 
in  writing,  that  he  had  done  so  on  the  way  from  Washington. 
There  is  no  foundation  for  a  statement  of  that  kind.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln probably  made  not  a  word  or  note  in  preparation  for  that 
address.  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  that  it  was  wholly  extempore 
and  called  forth  by  the  circumstances  of  the  occasion. 

Senator  Cole  heard  the  address  and  he  is  a  reputable  man. 

The  second  answer  is  that  Lincoln  wrote  the  address  on  the 
cars,  on  his  way  to  Gettysburg.  Honorable  Wayne  MacVeagh 
declared  that  he  saw  Lincoln  write  it  then.  Honorable  Isaac  N. 
Arnold  should  have  known  whereof  he  wrote,  and  he  said : 

Edward  Everett,  late  Secretary  of  State,  and  Senator  from 
Massachusetts,  an  orator  and  scholar  whose  renown  had  ex- 
tended over  the  world,  was  selected  to  pronounce  the  oration. 
He  was  a  polished  and  graceful  speaker,  and  worthy  of  the 
theme  and  the  occasion.  President  Lincoln,  while  in  the  cars  on 
his  way  from  the  White  House  to  the  battlefield,  was  notified 
that  he  would  be  expected  to  make  some  remarks  also.  Asking 
for  some  paper,  a  rough  sheet  of  foolscap  was  handed  to  him, 
and,  retiring  to  a  seat  by  himself,  with  a  pencil,  he  wrote  the  ad- 
dress which  has  become  so  celebrated;  an  address  which  for  ap- 
propriateness and  eloquence,  for  pathos  and  beauty,  for  sublimity 
in  sentiment  and  expression,  has  hardly  its  equal  in  English  or 
American  literature.  Everett's  oration  was  a  polished  specimen 
of  consummate  oratorical  skill.  It  was  memorized,  and  recited 
without   recurring  to  a  note.      It  was  perhaps  too  artistic;   so 


♦Senator   Cole  died  in   November,   1924,  while  the  proof-sheets  of  this 
book  were  undergoing  revision. 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         197 

much  so,  that  the  audience  sometimes  during  its  delivery  forgot 
the  heroic  dead  to  admire  the  skill  of  the  speaker  before  them. 
When  at  length  the  New  England  orator  closed,  and  the  cheers 
in  his  honor  had  subsided,  an  earnest  call  for  Lincoln  was  heard 
through  the  vast  crowd  in  attendance.  Slowly,  and  very  deliber- 
ately, the  tall,  homely  form  of  the  President  arose ;  simple,  rude, 
his  careworn  face  now  lighted  and  glowing  with  intense  feeling. 
All  unconscious  of  himself,  absorbed  with  recollections  of  the 
heroic  dead,  he  adjusted  his  spectacles,  and  read  with  the  most 
profound  feeling  the  address.* 

Ben  Perley  Poore,  whose  experiences  as  a  shorthand  reporter 
should  have  made  him  exceedingly  careful  to  be  accurate,  wrote 
in  his  Reminiscences  that  President  Lincoln's  "remarks  at 
Gettysburg  were  written  in  the  car  on  the  way  from  Washington 
to  the  battlefield,  upon  a  piece  of  pasteboard  held  on  his  knee." 

It  is  unfortunate  that  so  much  of  what  is  accepted  as  history 
is  given  to  the  world  by  writers  of  fiction,  not  all  of  whom  ad- 
mit that  it  is  fiction  they  are  writing.  Mrs.  Mary  Shipman 
Andrews  has  made  no  pretense  that  the  story  she  gave  in  her 
The  Perfect  Tribute  was  meticulously  accurate  in  its  historical 
portions.  It  is  unfortunate  that  it  is  not  accurate,  for  it  is  ac- 
cepted by  many  as  being  so.  She  related  that  on  the  train  the 
president  looked  across  the  car  at  Edward  Everett,  and  asked 
Secretary  Seward  for  the  brown  paper  which  he  had  just  re- 
moved from  a  package  of  books,  "May  I  have  this  to  do  a 
little  writing?"  the  president  is  alleged  to  have  said;  and  on 
that  paper,  with  a  stump  of  a  pencil,  he  wrote  the  Gettysburg 
Address. 

We  know  that  Edward  Everett  was  not  on  that  train,  having 
already  been  for  several  days  in  Gettysburg,  and  the  address  was 
certainly  not  written  on  wrapping  paper. 

The  third  answer  is  that  Lincoln  wrote  the  address  in  Gettys- 
burg. Judge  Wills,  who  was  Lincoln's  host  at  Gettysburg,  be- 
lieved that  Lincoln  wrote  the  entire  address  in  his  house.     In  a 


*  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  328. 


198  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

letter  written  for  a  Lincoln  celebration  in  Philadelphia  on  the 
centenary  of  Lincoln's  birth,  Judge  Wills  wrote : 

It  was  on  my  official  invitation  that  the  President  came  to 
Gettysburg-.  Between  9  and  10  o'clock  of  the  evening  of  the 
18th  of  November,  1863,  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  for  me  to  come  to  his 
room,  he  being  my  guest.  I  went  and  found  him  writing,  and 
he  said  he  had  just  sat  clown  to  put  upon  paper  a  few  thoughts 
for  the  next  day's  exercises,  and  wanted  to  know  of  me  what 
part  he  was  to  take  in  it,  and  what  was  expected  of  him.  We 
talked  over  it  all  very  fully.  About  1 1  o'clock  he  sent  for  me 
again,  and  when  I  went  into  his  room  he  had  the  same  paper 
in  his  hand  and  asked  me  whether  he  could  see  Mr.  Seward.  I 
told  him  Mr.  Seward  was  staying  with  my  neighbor  next  door, 
and  I  would  go  and  bring  him  over.  He  said,  "No,  I'll  go  and 
see  him."  I  went  with  him,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  carried  the  paper 
on  which  he  had  written  his  speech  with  him,  and  we  found  Mr. 
Seward,  and  I  left  him  with  him.  In  less  than  half  an  hour  Mr. 
Lincoln  returned.  The  next  day  I  sat  by  him  when  he  delivered 
his  immortal  address,  and  he  read  it  from  the  same  paper  on 
which  I  had  seen  him  write  it  the  night  before. 

Honorable  Edward  McPherson,  whose  home  was  in  Gettys- 
burg, and  who  was  for  many  years  clerk  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives in  Washington,  and  who  compiled  an  excellent 
documentary  history  of  the  Civil  War,  in  a  newspaper  communi- 
cation in  1875  declared  that  on  the  night  when  the  president  was 
a  guest  in  the  home  of  Mr.  Wills,  he  sent  for  his  host,  "and 
inquired  the  order  of  exercises  for  the  next  day  and  began  to 
put  in  writing  what  he  called  some  stray  thoughts  to  utter  on 
the  morrow." 

Honorable  Horatio  King,  in  his  volume,  Turning  on  the  Light, 
stated  that  in  1885,  Governor  Andrew  Curtin  said  to  him  at 
Gettysburg : 

"I  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  writing  this  address  in  Mr.  Wills'  house 
on  a  long  yellow  envelope.  He  may  have  written  some  of  it  be- 
fore. He  said,  T  will  go  and  show  it  to  Seward,'  who  stopped 
at  another  house,  which  he  did  and  then  returned  and  copied  his 
speech  on  a  foolscap  sheet." 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE        199 

Governor  Curtin's  account  is  amplified  in  Mowry's  History  of 
the  United  States  for  Schools.  It  states  that  the  president, 
sitting  with  the  members  of  his  Cabinet  who  were  present,  Ed- 
ward Everett,  Governor  Curtin  and  others,  in  "the  hotel"  but 
presumably  in  the  Wills  house,  remarked  that  he  understood  he 
was  expected  to  say  something  on  the  following  day,  and  that  if 
they  would  excuse  him  he  would  withdraw  and  prepare  his  re- 
marks. He  withdrew  to  an  adjacent  room,  and  soon  returned 
with  a  large-sized  yellow  government  envelope.  He  sat  down, 
and  remarked  that  he  had  written  something,  and  with  their  per- 
mission would  like  to  read  it  to  them  and  invite  them  to  criticize 
it.  He  read  to  them  from  the  envelope  what  he  had  written 
there.  Secretary  Seward  offered  one  or  two  suggestions,  which 
Lincoln  accepted.  Then  he  said,  "Now,  gentlemen,  if  you  will 
excuse  me  again.  I  will  copy  this  off."  He  then  retired  to  his 
room,  and  made  a  fair  copy  on  foolscap  paper,  from  which  next 
day  he  read  the  address. 

The  fourth  answer  is  that  it  was  written  in  Washington  be- 
fore the  president  left  for  Gettysburg.  Senator  Cameron,  in 
a  newspaper  item  which  had  wide  currency,  was  declared  to 
have  said  that  he  himself  saw  the  address  in  Washington  a  day 
or  two  prior  to  the  president's  departure  for  the  celebration. 

Major  William  H.  Lambert,  in  what  is  in  some  respects  the 
most  carefully  wrought  out  account  of  the  address,  says : 

Whatever  revision  may  have  been  given  to  the  address  en 
route  or  at  Gettysburg,  whatever  changes  or  additions  may  have 
been  made  in  its  delivery,  the  Address  existed  in  substantially 
completed  form  before  the  president  left  Washington.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  he  had  given  prolonged  and  earnest  thought 
to  the  preparation  of  this  Address ;  he  had  had  more  than  two 
weeks'  notice  that  he  was  desired  to  speak ;  and  although  the 
demands  upon  his  time  and  attention  were  such  as  to  allow  him 
little  opportunity  for  uninterrupted  thought,  he  appreciated  the 
momentousness  of  the  occasion,  he  knew  how  much  was  ex- 
pected of  him,  and  what  was  due  to  the  honored  dead,  and  he 


200  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

did  not  trust  to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment  or  rely  upon  his 
readiness  as  an  impromptu  speaker  when  he  dedicated  the  Sol- 
diers' Cemetery  at  Gettysburg,  for  he  had  wrought  and  re- 
wrought  until  there  came  there  into  perfect  form  the  noblest 
tribute  to  a  cause  and  its  heroes  ever  rendered  by  human  lips.* 

Major  Lambert  believed  that  both  the  two  manuscripts  in 
the  Library  of  Congress  which  came  from  the  president's  secre- 
taries were  written  before  the  president  left  Washington,  but 
that  the  fair  copy  was  inadvertently  left  in  Washington. 

Not  one  of  the  authorities  cited  in  this  list,  or  of  the  large 
number  of  others  that  might  be  quoted,  is  to  be  treated  with  dis- 
respect. If  we  had  any  one  of  these  accounts,  and  no  other,  we 
should  be  disposed  to  accept  it  as  correct.  The  conflict  of  testi- 
mony on  the  part  of  honest  men  who  had  opportunity  to  know 
is  one  of  the  sobering  facts  which  an  author  must  face  who 
undertakes  to  tell  the  true  story  of  the  Gettysburg  Address,  or 
of  the  life  of  Lincoln  either  in  part  or  in  whole. 

The  fifth  answer  is  that  the  major  part  of  the  address  was 
written  in  Washington,  and  that  the  president  may  have  made 
a  few  notes  on  the  train,  but  that  he  completed  the  address  in 
the  Wills  house  in  Gettysburg. 

Edward  Everett  sent  to  Lincoln  in  advance  a  copy  of 
his  address.  Lincoln  read  and  admired  it.  Noah  Brooks,  in  his 
Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time  states  that  six  days  before  his 
visit  to  Gettysburg  the  president  took  Everett's  address  with  him 
on  a  visit  to  a  photographer's,  and  read  it  between  the  sittings. 
Isaac  Markens  in  his  Lincoln's  Masterpiece  adduces  a  number  of 
interesting  parallels  between  Everett's  address  and  Lincoln's. 
That  Lincoln  was  impressed  by  Everett's  oration  is  attested  by 
his  letter  a  year  later,  when,  acknowledging  a  gift  of  flowers 
from  the  Gettysburg  battle-field,  he  made  a  reference  which  was 
virtually  a  quotation.  It  appears  possible  that  Everett's  manu- 
script was  one  of  the  sources  of  Lincoln's  inspiration. 


^Pennsylvania  Magazine  of  History  and  Biography,   October,    1909,  pp. 
385-408. 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         201 

Honorable  James   Speed,    in   an   interview    in   the   Louisville 

Commercial,  in  November,  1870,  stated  that  Lincoln  told  him 
that,  on  the  day  before  his  departure  for  Gettysburg,  he  found 
time  to  write  about  half  of  it.  This  probably  is  true.  The  first 
sheet  is  carefully  written  with  a  pen,  on  ordinary  executive 
mansion  stationery,  and  ends  with  an  incomplete  sentence.  The 
original  second  sheet,  in  which  the  sentence  was  presumably 
completed,  was  not  used.  Lincoln  erased  the  last  three  words  on 
the  first  page, — the  only  erasure  in  the  address, — and  com- 
pleted the  sentence,  and  finished  the  address  in  pencil  on  a  half- 
sheet  of  pale  blue  wide-lined  legal  cap,  such  as  Lincoln  was 
accustomed  to  use,  and  such  as  he  employed  in  writing  the  sec- 
ond inaugural.  John  G.  Xicolay  declares  that  he  was  present, 
after  breakfast,  on  the  morning  of  the  nineteenth,  when  Lin- 
coln completed  the  writing  of  his  address. 


It  was  after  the  breakfast  hour  on  the  morning  of  the  19th 
that  the  writer,  Mr.  Lincoln's  private  secretary,  went  to  the 
upper  room  in  the  house  of  Mr.  Wills  which  Ml  Lincoln  occu- 
pied, to  report  for  duty,  and  remained  with  the  President  while 
he  finished  writing  the  Gettysburg  address,  during  the  short 
leisure  he  could  utilize  for  this  purpose  before  being  called  to 
take  his  place  in  the  procession,  which  was  announced  on  the 
program  to  move  promptly  at  ten  o'clock. 

There  is  neither  record,  evidence,  nor  well-founded  tradition 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  did  any  writing,  or  made  any  notes,  on  the 
journey  between  Washington  and  Gettysburg.  The  train  con- 
sisted of  four  passenger-coaches,  and  either  composition  or 
writing  would  have  been  extremely  troublesome  amid  all  the 
movement,  the  noise,  the  conversation,  the  greetings,  and  the 
questionings  which  ordinary  courtesy  required  him  to  undergo 
in  these  surroundings :  but  still  worse  would  have  been  the  rock- 
ings  and  joltings  of  the  train,  rendering  writing  virtually  impos- 
sible. Mr.  Lincoln  carried  in  his  pocket  the  autograph  manuscript 
of  so  much  of  his  address  as  he  had  written  at  Washington 
the  day  before.  Precisely  what  that  was  the  reader  can  now 
see  by  turning  to  the  facsimile  reproduction  of  the  original  draft, 
which  is  for  the  first  time  printed  and  made  public  in  this  ar- 


202  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tide.  It  fills  one  page  of  the  letter-paper  at  that  time  habitually 
used  in  the  Executive  Mansion,  containing  the  plainly  printed 
blank  heading ;  both  paper  and  print  giving  convincing  testimony 
to  the  simple  and  economic  business  methods  then  prevailing  in 
the  White  House. 

This  portion  of  the  manuscript  begins  with  the  line  "Four 
score  and  seven  years  ago,"  and  ends  "it  is  rather  for  us  the  liv- 
ing,1' etc.  The  whole  of  this  first  page — nineteen  lines — is 
written  in  ink  in  the  President's  strong,  clear  hand,  without  blot 
or  erasure ;  and  the  last  line  is  in  the  following  form :  "It  is 
rather  for  us  the  living  to  stand  here,"  the  last  three  words  be- 
ing, like  the  rest,  in  ink.  From  the  fact  that  this  sentence  is  in- 
complete, we  may  infer  that  at  the  time  of  writing  it  in  Wash- 
ington the  remainder  of  the  sentence  was  also  written  in  ink  on 
another  piece  of  paper.  But  when,  at  Gettysburg  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  ceremonies,  Mr.  Lincoln  finished  his  manuscript,  he 
used  a  lead  pencil  with  which  he  crossed  out  the  last  three  words 
of  the  page,  and  wrote  above  them  in  pencil,  "we  here  be  dedica," 
at  which  point  he  took  up  a  new  half-sheet  of  paper — not  white 
letter  paper  as  before,  but  a  bluish  gray  foolscap  of  large  size 
with  wide  lines,  habitually  used  by  him  for  long  or  formal  docu- 
ments, and  on  this  he  wrote,  all  in  pencil,  the  remainder  of  the 
word,  and  of  the  first  draft  of  the  address,  comprising  a  total  of 
nine  lines  and  a  half. 

The  time  occupied  in  this  final  writing  was  probably  about  an 
hour,  for  it  is  not  likely  he  left  the  breakfast  table  before  nine 
o'clock,  and  the  formation  of  the  procession  began  at  ten.* 

IX      THE  DELIVERY   OF  LINCOLN^   ADDRESS 

As  to  the  manner  of  Lincoln's  delivery,  we  have  further  con- 
flict of  testimony.  Those  who  think  that  his  remarks  were 
purely  extempore  maintain  that  he  used  no  notes.  Others  say 
that  he  held  his  manuscript  in  his  left  hand  but  did  not  read 
from  it.  Others  say  that  he  read  every  word  as  it  was  in  the 
manuscript  before  him.  Others  say,  and  these  I  think  are  cor- 
rect, that  he  held  his  manuscript  in  both  hands,  his  glasses  ad- 
justed as  for  reading,  and  that  he  did  in  part  read  his  address; 


*John  G.  Nicolay  in  Century  Magazine  for  February,  1894,  pp.  601-602 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         203 

but  that  he  was  so  familiar  with  the  greater  part  of  it  that  he 
did  not  need  to  confine  himself  to  his  notes,  and  that  he  did,  in 
fact,  depart  from  the  language  of  the  written  text.  On  one 
point  there  is  no  important  dissent.  He  did  not  gesticulate  with 
his  hands.  He  gave  emphasis  with  a  motion  of  his  head  and 
shoulders,  but  his  hands  were  not  uplifted. 

As  Everett  approached  his  peroration,  Lincoln  grew  visibly 
nervous,  as  he  always  did  when  another  man  was  speaking  and 
he  was  to  follow.  He  took  his  manuscript  from  his  pocket,  ad- 
justed his  spectacles,  and,  during  the  closing  portion  of  Everett's 
oration,  refreshed  his  memory  as  to  the  content  of  his  own 
speech.  Either  then,  or  while  he  was  actually  speaking,  he  made 
a  few  slight  alterations. 

The  statement  in  Morse's  Life  of  Lincoln,  that,  having  fin- 
ished the  manuscript,  he  added  a  quotation  from  Webster's 
Reply  to  Hayne,  is  inexcusably  incorrect.  He  did  nothing  of  the 
kind. 

X      FORMS  OF  THE  ADDRESS 

Xicolay  and  Hay  state  that  there  are  three  sources  of  knowl- 
edge of  the  Gettysburg  Address,  Lincoln's  original  manuscript, 
the  Associated  Press  report,  and  Lincoln's  final  revision,  which 
he  made  with  both  the  earlier  versions  before  him.  Major  Lam- 
bert made  some  more  extended  comparisons.  It  would  appear, 
however,  that  we  might  well  place  first  among  our  sources  of 
knowledge  of  what  Lincoln  actually  said,  the  report  made  by 
Charles  Hale  of  the  Boston  Advertiser.  He  was  one  of  the  three 
Massachusetts  commissioners  present  at  Gettysburg,  and  the  three 
joined  in  the  report  to  Governor  John  A.  Andrew.  In  this  doc- 
ument they  stated  positively  that  the  versions  of  the  address  then 
current  were  all  inaccurate,  but  that  the  form  in  which  they 
gave  it  was  "as  the  words  actually  spoken  by  the  president,  with 
great  deliberation,  were  taken  down  by  one  of  the  undersigned. " 

Six  times  President  Lincoln  is  known  to  have  written  the 
Gettysburg  Address  in  full,   and   five  of  these  copies  are  pre- 


204  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

served.  The  first  of  these  is  the  manuscript  in  which  the  major 
part  of  the  address  is  written  on  the  printed  stationery  of  the 
executive  mansion  and  the  remainder,  being  a  portion  of  the 
last  sentence,  in  pencil  on  another  sheet.  There  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  he  originally  wrote  something  in  ink  on  a  second 
sheet,  which,  however,  did  not  satisfy  him,  and  which  probably 
he  never  completed  on  that  sheet,  but  finished  on  a  new  sheet 
after  arrival  in  Gettysburg.  The  second  text  is  little  more  than 
a  fair  copy  of  the  first,  and  was  quite  certainly  made  before  the 
delivery  of  the  address.  Both  these  are  in  the  Library  of  Con- 
gress, and  the  paper  on  which  the  second  part  of  the  first  ver- 
sion is  written,  and  the  two  sheets  of  the  second  part,  are  both 
the  wide-ruled  paper  which  Lincoln  was  accustomed  to  use  in 
the  White  House  and  on  which  he  later  wrote  the  second  in- 
augural. 

Nicolay's  is  by  far  the  most  direct  testimony  we  have  concern- 
ing the  composition  of  the  address.  Lincoln,  pressed  by  the  heavy 
responsibilities  of  his  position,  and  with  scant  time  in  which  to 
prepare,  did  not,  however,  neglect  his  preparation.  He  had  and 
read  Mr.  Everett's  address  some  six  days  before  the  exercises — 
a  courtesy  on  Mr.  Everett's  part  which  Lincoln  must  have  appre- 
ciated and  by  which  he  profited — and  while  he  felt  the  disparity 
between  Everett's  finished  production  and  his  necessarily  crowd- 
ed opportunity,  he  carefully  used  such  time  as  he  was  able  to 
command,  and  he  came  to  the  platform  at  Gettysburg  with  his 
brief  address  carefully  thought  out  and  painstakingly  written. 
Each  sentence  had  been  framed  in  his  mind  before  it  was  re- 
duced to  writing.  The  part  written  in  ink  in  the  White  House 
contains  no  erasure  in  ink.  The  part  written  in  pencil  at  Gettys- 
burg shows  no  erasure.  The  only  change  is  where  the  two  join, 
at  which  point  Lincoln  modified  his  original  intent  and  erased 
with  his  pencil  three  words  which  he  had  previously  written  in 
ink.  After  this,  as  I  believe,  Lincoln  copied  the  entire  address 
before  delivering  it  and  held  the  corrected  copy  in  his  hand  dur- 
ing the  delivery. 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         205 

Lincoln  made  a  third  copy  which  is  not  known  to  be  in  ex- 
istence. A  few  days  after  the  Gettysburg  dedication,  Mr.  Wills 
wrote  to  him  and  asked  for  the  address  to  be  preserved  with  the 
report  of  the  proceedings.  It  was  then  that  the  president,  not- 
ing the  differences  in  form  between  his  versions  and  those  in  the 
press  reports,  compared  the  several  forms  and  made  a  more  sat- 
isfactory text;  but  what  became  of  this  copy  is  not  known. 

The  fourth,  which  is  the  third  extant  copy,  was  made  in 
February,  1864,  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Everett,  to  be  bound  with 
the  manuscript  of  his  oration  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  letter  to  him 
dated  November  20,  1863,  in  a  volume  to  be  sold  for  the  L^nited 
States  Sanitary  Commission. 

The  fifth  was  made  at  the  request  of  Honorable  George  Ban- 
croft who  desired  it  for  the  benefit  of  the  Soldiers  and  Sailors 
Fair  in  Baltimore.  Lincoln  wrote  it  on  both  sides  of  a  sheet  of 
paper. 

As  the  copy  made  for  Mr.  Bancroft  was  unsuitable  for  repro- 
duction, on  account  of  its  use  of  both  sides  of  the  sheet,  the 
President  made  a  sixth  and  final  copy,  in  March,  1864,  and 
this  was  used  for  the  purposes  of  lithographic  reproduction  in 
facsimile  in  a  book  published  for  the  benefit  of  the  Fair,  entitled 
Autograph  Leaves  of  Our  Country's  Authors.  This  version  em- 
bodies the  results  of  Lincoln's  mature  thought,  and  may  be  ac- 
cepted as  the  final  form. 

Xot  many  of  the  changes  made  in  these  revisions  were  im- 
portant, but  one  calls  for  comment.  It  is  the  insertion  of  the 
words  "under  God."  This  change  occurred,  I  am  confident, 
on  the  platform.  In  the  first  copy,  Lincoln  wrote  the  first 
page  in  ink,  beginning  the  last  paragraph  in  the  last  line 
of  that  page:  "It  is  rather  for  us,  the  living,  to  stand  here," 
but  when  he  came  to  the  completion  of  that  sentence  in  pencil, 
he  crossed  out  the  last  three  words,  and,  in  pencil  on  that  page, 
wrote,  "we  here  be  dedicated."  The  remainder  of  that  closing 
paragraph,  comprised  in  one  long  sentence,  is  in  pencil  on  the 
second  page,  a  ruled  sheet.     The  words  "under  God"  are  not  in 


206  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

it.  The  fair  copy  from  which  he  read,  and  which  he  probably 
made  in  the  Wills'  house  on  the  morning  of  the  dedication,  does 
not  contain  those  words.  My  judgment  is  that  under  the  solemn 
spell  of  the  occasion,  he  determined  to  use  those  words,  for  they 
are  in  the  Hale  report  and  the  Associated  Press  report,  and  Lin- 
coln himself  included  those  words  in  each  revision  of  the  address 
subsequent  to  its  delivery. 

Joseph  L.  Gilbert,  the  reporter  for  the  Associated  Press,  tell- 
ing the  story  in  after  years,  stated  that  he  did  not  take  down  the 
whole  of  Lincoln's  address.  Seeing  that  Lincoln  was  reading  it 
from  manuscript,  he  "unconsciously  stopped  taking  notes"  but 
obtained  the  manuscript  from  Lincoln  before  he  left  the  stand 
and  copied  from  the  manuscript  itself.  The  variations  in  the  ad- 
dress as  thus  given  to  the  world  from  the  form  shown  in  Lin- 
coln's original  manuscript  are  partly  due,  probably,  to  hasty 
copying,  and  partly  to  faulty  telegraphic  transmission.  Frank 
Leslie's  of  New  York,  and  the  Philadelphia  Inquirer  appear  to 
have  had  a  report  of  their  own,  which  varies  still  further,  but 
that  form  need  not  be  given  here.  For  purposes  of  study  and 
comparison,  we  may  take,  first,  Charles  Hale's  report  as  giving 
us  the  best  approach  to  an  accurate  transcript  of  what  Lincoln 
actually  said:  secondly,  Lincoln's  original  manuscript;  thirdly, 
the  Associated  Press  report,  with  its  liberal  intermixture  of  ap- 
plause, not  taken  down  at  the  time  but  inserted  in  the  revision 
by  the  reporter;  and  finally,  Lincoln's  last  revision  of  the  ad- 
dress. 

(Charles  Hale's  Report.)— Four  score  and  seven  years  ago,  our  fathers  brought  forth 
(Autograph  Original  Draft.)— Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  torth, 
(Associated  Press  Report.)— Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth 
(Revised    Autograph    Copy.)— Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth 

upon  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that 
upon  this  continent,  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that 
upon  this  continent  a  new  Nation,  conceived  in  Liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that 
on  this  continent,  a  new  nation,   conceived  in  Liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that 

all  men  are  created  equal. 

"all  men  are  created  equal." 

all  men  are  created  equal.      [Applause.] 

all  men  are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that   nation — or  any  nation  so 

Now  we   are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any   nation  so 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that   Nation  or  any   Nation  so 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war;  testing  whether   that  nation,   or   any  nation  so 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         207 

conceived  and  so  dedicated — can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war. 

conceived,   and  so  dedicated,   can  long  endure.  We  are  met -on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war. 

conceived   and   so    dedicated   can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war. 

conceived  and  so   dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war. 

We    are    met    to    dedicate    a    portion    of    it    as    the    final    resting-place    of    those    who 
We   have  come   to   dedicate  a   portion   of  it,   as  the   final   resting   place   for  those   who   died 
We    are    met    to    dedicate    a    portion    of    it    as    the    final    resting-place    of    those    who 
We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field,   as  a  final  resting  place  for  those  who 

have  given  their   lives  that   that   nation   might  live.     It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we 

here,  that  the   nation  might   live.      This   we   may   in  all   propriety   do. 

here   gave  their   lives  that  that  nation   might  live.     It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we 

here   gave  their   lives  that  that  nation   might  live.     It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we 

should  do  this, 
should  do  this, 
should  do  this. 

But   in   a   larger    sense,    we    cannot    dedicate,      we    cannot   consecrate,      we   cannot   hallow, 
But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  can  not  dedicate — we  can  not  consecrate — we   can   not  hallow — 
But   in   a    larger   sense   we   cannot   dedicate,       we   cannot   consecrate,       we    cannot   hallow 
But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  can  not  dedicate — we  can  not  consecrate — we  can  not  hallow-^ 

this  ground.  The  brave  men,   living  and   dead,   who   struggled   here,  have  consecrated  it 

this  ground.  The    brave    men,    living    and    dead,    who    struggled    here,    have    hallowed    it 

this  ground.  The    brave    men    living    and    dead   who    struggled    here    have    consecrated    it 

this  ground.  The   brave   men,    living  and   dead,   who   struggled  here   have  consecrated   it 

far  above  our  power   to  add   or  detract.  The  world  will  very  little  note   nor   long 

far  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long 

far  above  our  power  to  add  or  detract.  [Applause.]  The  world  will  little  note  nor  long 
fai  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long 

remember  what  we  say  here;  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is 

remember  what  we  say  here;  while  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is 

remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  [Applause]  It  is 
remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is 

for  us,  the  living,   rather  to  be   dedicated,  here,  to  the  unfinished  work  that  they 
rather,  for  us,  the   living, 

for  us,   the  living,   rather  to   be   dedicated   here  to   the  unfinished  work    that   they 
for   us   the   living,    rather,   to   be    dedicated   here    to   the   unfinished   work   which   they    who 

have   thus  far   so   nobly   carried  on.      It  is  rather   for   us  to  be  here   dedicated  to   the   great 

we  here  be  dedicated  to  the  great 
have  thus  far  so  nobly  carried  on.  [Applause.]  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedi- 
fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is   rather  for   us  to   be  here   dedi- 

task  remaining  before  us;  that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to 
task  remaining  before  us — that,  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to 
cated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us,  that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased 
cated   to  the  great  task   remaining  before  us — that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased 

that  cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion;  that  we  here 
that  cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion;  that  we  here 
devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion;  that 
devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion— that 

highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain;  that    the 

highly  resolve  these            dead  shall   not  have   died   in  vain;  vjiat   the 

we   here   highly   resolve  that  the   dead   shall  not  have   died   in   vain     [applause]  :  that   the 

we  here  highly  resolve  that  these   dead  shall  not  have  died  in   vain —  that   this 

nation  shall  under  God,  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the 
nation,    shall  have   a    new   birth   of    freedom,    and    that    government  of   the 

nation  shall,  under  God,  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom;  and  that  governments  of  the 
nation,   under   God,         shall   have   a   new   birth    of   freedom — and    that   government    of   the 

people,   by  the   people,   for  the  people,   shall   not   perish    from  the    earth 
people,   by  the   people,   for  the  people,   shall   not   perish   irom   the    earth, 
people,   by  the   people,    for  the  people,   shall   not   perish    from  the   earth.    [Long   continued 
people  by  the  people  and  for  the  people,   shall   not  perish  from  the  earth.  applause.] 


208  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

XI       THE    SOURCES    OF    THE    ADDRESS 

What  were  the  sources  of  this  notable  address? 

The  first  source  was  Lincoln's  own  little  speech  in  response 
to  a  serenade  on  the  night  of  July  4,  1863.  On  that  occasion  he 
thought  first  of  the  anniversary,  and  did  not  have  in  mind  pre- 
cisely how  many  years  it  had  been  since  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, but  knew  that  it  was  "eighty  odd  years  since,  on 
the  fourth  of  July."  On  that  day,  as  he  then  declared,  "for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world,  a  nation  by  its  represen- 
tatives assembled,  declared  as  a  self-evident  truth  that  all  men 
are  created  equal."  This  was  the  very  thought  with  which  he 
began  at  Gettysburg.  The  thought  was  not  so  precisely  appo- 
site, for  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  not  signed  in  No- 
vember, but  the  idea  still  was  pertinent.  Meantime,  he  had 
looked  up  the  date  and  computed  the  interval.  It  was  eighty- 
seven  years.  It  was  more  sonorous  and  metrical  to  say  "four- 
score and  seven  years  ago." 

In  that  same  little  fourth  of  July  speech  he  made  the  state- 
ment which  he  repeated  at  Gettysburg,  that  the  purpose  of  the 
war  was  to  determine  whether  that  principle  could  survive  as  the 
basis  of  human  government. 

Especial  interest  attaches  to  the  question.  Where  did  Lincoln 
get  the  expression  "government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for 
the  people"?  It  is  frequently  claimed  that  these  words  are 
found  in  the  prologue  of  Wycliff's  Bible;  but  they  are  not  in 
any  version  of  that  Bible  which  I  have  been  able  to  consult. 
Expressions  similar  in  form  and  sentiment  are  found  in  a  num- 
ber of  books  that  might  or  might  not  have  been  familiar  to  Lin- 
coln ;  but  the  probable  origin  of  the  phrase  as  used  by  him  was  a 
sermon  by  Theodore  Parker,  The  Effect  of  Slavery  on  the 
American  People,  delivered  at  Music  Hall,  Boston,  July  4,  1858. 
He  said : 

Democracy  is  direct  self-government,  over  all  the  people,  for 
all  the  people,  and  by  all  the  people. 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         209 

Herndon  declares  that  Lincoln  was  much  impressed  by  these 
words  and  underlined  them. 

Hearers  differed  in  their  memory  as  to  whether  Lincoln  em- 
phasized the  prepositions  or  the  thrice  repeated  noun.  Some 
thought  he  said, 

"Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people." 

Others  remember  him  as  having  said : 

"Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people." 

Whatever  the  source  from  which  Lincoln  obtained  the  lan- 
guage, he  had  already  made  one  important  use  of  it.  In  his  proc- 
lamation immediately  following  the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter,  Lin- 
coln said : 

And  this  issue  embraces  more  than  the  fate  of  these  United 
States.  It  presents  to  the  whole  family  of  man  the  question 
whether  a  constitutional  republic  or  democracy — a  government 
of  the  people  by  the  same  people — can  or  can  not  maintain  its 
territorial  integrity  against  its  own  domestic  foes. 

It  is  remarkably  interesting  to  note  that  thus  early  the  ques- 
tion had  defined  itself  in  Lincoln's  mind  as  a  question  whether 
any  government  established  as  the  American  Government  was 
established  could  long  endure ;  and  that  his  determination  from 
the  hour  of  his  first  call  for  troops  was  to  establish  the  result 
that  government  of  the  people  by  the  same  people,  and  for  the 
common  welfare  of  all  the  people,  should  not  perish  from  the 
earth. 

An  interesting  question  relates  to  the  words  "under  God."  It 
has  been  conjectured  that  Lincoln  inserted  these  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  Seward,  with  whom  he  is  said  on  good  authority  to 
have  had  some  conference  at  Gettysburg  on  the  night  before  the 
dedication.  But  the  documentary  evidence  is  against  this  con- 
jecture. Those  two  words  do  not  appear  in  either  of  the  two 
Library  of  Congress  versions,  which  were  written  before  the  de- 
livery of  the  address,  and  they  do  appear  in  all  the  press  reports, 
however  defective  otherwise,  and  in  all  three  of  Lincoln's  sub- 

26 


210  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sequent  revisions.  My  own  belief  is  that  Lincoln  interpolated 
them  under  the  deep  feeling  of  the  occasion,  and  in  his  revisions 
was  very  glad  to  have  them  appear  as  a  part  of  the  address,  as 
in  very  deed  they  were. 

XII      HOW  THE  ADDRESS  WAS  RECEIVED 

How  was  the  Gettysburg  Address  received?  The  Associated 
Press  report  indicates  that  it  evoked  applause  three  times  during 
its  delivery  and  at  the  close  was  greeted  with  "long  continued 
applause."  However,  the  Associated  Press  reporter,  while  re- 
membering that  there  was  applause,  declared  that  the  word  was 
inserted  where  it  was  thought  it  belonged;  the  report  sent  out 
over  the  wire  was  not  a  verbatim  report. 

Reverend  Doctor  Henry  Eyster  Jacobs,  of  Gettysburg,  says : 

The  fact  of  the  applause  we  well  remember,  although  we  could 
not,  without  the  memoranda  there  [i.e.  the  Associated  Press  re- 
port] venture  to  locate  it. 

Reverend  Doctor  H.  C.  Holloway,  who  heard  the  address, 
says  concerning  it : 

I  am  well  aware  that  a  difference  of  opinion  has  been  ex- 
pressed in  regard  to  the  reception  given  by  the  people  on  the  oc- 
casion of  Mr.  Lincoln's  immortal  speech.  One  writer  in  his  little 
book,  entitled,  "The  Perfect  Tribute,"*  which  purported  to  give 
the  story  of  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  speech,  speaks  of  how  the 
President  for  weeks  was  under  a  cloud  of  remorse  over  his  ad- 
dress, believing  it  to  have  been  a  failure,  etc.  This  is  totally  at 
variance  with  the  facts  in  the  case  as  we  saw  them.  It  is  an  un- 
natural interpretation  of  the  occasion  and  does  not  comport  with 
what  actually  occurred.  The  address  was  received  with  remark- 
able enthusiasm  and  in  a  manner  becoming  the  great  occasion. 

There  was  one  disappointing  feature  about  it — its  marked 
brevity.    The  speaker  had,  as  we  thought,  but  barely  commenced 

*Dr.  Holloway  apparently  did  not  know  the  author  was  a  woman. 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         211 

when  he  stopped.  That  clear,  ringing  voice  ceased  before  we 
were  ready  for  it.  There  was  a  pause  between  the  closing  of  the 
address  and  the  applause  because  the  people  expected  more;  but 
when  it  was  apparent  that  the  address  was  really  concluded,  the 
applause  was  most  hearty,  rising  like  the  sound  of  many  waters. 

Honorable  Wayne  MacVeagh,  later  Attorney  General  of  the 
United  States,  heard  the  address  and  years  afterward  told  of  it 
as  he  thought  he  remembered  it : 

As  he  came  forward  he  seemed  to  me,  and  I  was  sitting  near 
to  him,  visibly  to  dominate  the  scene,  and  while  over  his  plain 
and  rugged  countenance  appeared  to  settle  a  great  melancholy, 
it  was  somehow  lightened  by  a  great  hope.  As  he  began  to 
speak  I  instinctively  felt  that  the  occasion  was  taking  on  a  new 
grandeur,  as  of  a  great  moment  in  history,  and  then  there  fol- 
lowed, in  a  slow  and  very  impressive  and  far-reaching  utterance, 
the  words  with  which  the  whole  world  has  long  been  familiar.  As 
each  word  was  spoken  it  appeared  to  me  so  clearly  fraught  with 
a  message  not  only  for  us  of  his  day,  but  for  the  untold  genera- 
tions of  men,  that  before  he  concluded  I  found  myself  possessed 
of  a  reverential  awe  for  its  complete  justification  of  the  great 
war  he  was  conducting,  as  if  conducted,  as  in  truth  it  was,  in 
the  interest  of  mankind.  Surely  at  that  moment  he  justified  the 
inspired  portraiture  of  LowTell  in  the  "Commemoration  Ode." 

Arnold  obtained  a  part  of  his  information  from  Governor 
Dennison,  Postmaster  General,  who  was  present  and  heard  the 
address,  and  thus  reports  the  effect  of  it : 

Before  the  first  sentence  was  completed,  a  thrill  of  feeling,  like 
an  electric  shock,  pervaded  the  crowd.  That  mysterious  influ- 
ence called  magnetism,  which  sometimes  so  affects  a  popular  as- 
sembly, spread  to  every  heart.  The  vast  audience  was  instantly 
hushed,  and  hung  upon  his  every  word  and  syllable.  When  he 
uttered  the  sentence:  "the  world  will  little  note  nor  long  remem- 
ber what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did 
here,"  every  one  felt  that  it  was  not  the  "honored  dead"  only, 
but  the  living  actor  and  speaker,  that  the  world  for  all  time  to 
come  would  note  and  remember,  and  that  he,  the  speaker,  in  the 
thrilling  words  he  was  uttering,  was  linking  his  name  forever 


212  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

with  the  glory  of  the  dead.  He  seemed  so  absorbed  in  honoring 
the  "heroic  sacrifices"  of  the  soldiers,  as  utterly  to  forget  him- 
self, but  all  his  hearers  realized  that  the  great  actor  in  the  drama 
stood  before  them,  and  that  the  words  he  was  speaking  would 
live  as  long  as  the  language;  that  they  were  words  which  would 
be  recalled  in  all  future  ages,  among  all  peoples ;  as  often  as  men 
should  be  called  upon  to  die  for  liberty  and  country.* 

Among  those  who  listened  to  the  Gettysburg  Address  and 
recorded  at  the  time  a  favorable  impression,  was  Benjamin 
Brown  French,  who  on  Sunday  morning,  November  twenty- 
second,  wrote  an  account  of  the  exercises  at  Gettysburg  which 
had  occurred  on  the  preceding  Thursday.  Mr.  French  wrote  a 
hymn  for  the  occasion  and  it  was  sung  after  Everett's  address 
and  before  that  of  the  president.     Mr.  French  records: 

"Mr.  Everett  was  listened  to  with  breathless  silence  by  all  that 
immense  crowd,  and  he  had  his  audience  in  tears  many  times 
during  his  masterly  effort." 

He  then  quotes  his  own  hymn  which  was  sung,  and  says: 

"I  was  never  so  much  flattered  at  any  production  of  my  own." 

Mr.  French  was  in  a  frame  of  mind  to  write  his  appreciation 
concerning  anything  that  occurred  that  day.  Concerning  Lin- 
coln's address  he  said: 

"As  soon  as  the  hymn  was  sung,  Marshal  Lamon  introduced 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  who  in  a  few  brief  words 
dedicated  the  cemetery." 

He  then  quotes  the  Gettysburg  Address,  as  it  appeared  in  the 
daily  papers,  and  adds : 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  idol  of  the  American  people  at  this 
moment.  Any  one  who  saw  and  heard  the  hurricane  of  applause 
that  met  his  every  word  at  Gettysburg,  would  know  that  he  lived 
in  every  heart.     It  was  no  cold  shadow  of  a  kind  reception.     It 


*Arnold,  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  329. 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         213 

was  a  tumultuous  outpouring  of  exaltation  from  true  and  lov- 
ing hearts  at  the  sight  of  a  man  whom  everyone  knew  to  be  hon- 
est and  sincere  in  every  act  of  his  life  and  every  pulsation  of  his 
heart.  It  was  the  spontaneous  outburst  of  heartfelt  confidence 
in  their  own  President  * 


Two  facts  must  be  noted  concerning  this  account.  One  is  that 
it  was  written  under  the  influence  of  very  marked  enthusiasm 
and  is  manifestly  an  exaggeration.  The  other  is  that  Air.  French 
gives  no  indication  that  this  hurricane  of  applause  was  pro- 
duced by  the  address,  but  by  the  appearance  of  Lincoln  himself. 

Joseph  L.  Gilbert,  of  Philadelphia,  the  Associated  Press  re- 
porter who  first  gave  to  the  world  the  Gettysburg  Address,  told 
the  story  of  it  at  the  National  Shorthand  Reporters'  Associa- 
tion in  August,  1 91 7  : 

President  Lincoln  then  came  forward.  I  stood  immediately  in 
front  of  him  and  was  impressed  by  his  apparent  excellent  physi- 
cal condition.  His  face,  fringed  by  a  newly  grown  beard,  was 
more  rounded  and  less  care  worn  and  haggard  looking  than  for- 
merly. He  stood  for  a  moment  with  hands  clasped  and  head 
bowed  in  an  attitude  of  mourning — a  personification  of  the  sor- 
row and  sympathy  of  the  nation.  Adjusting  his  old-fashioned 
spectacles,  a  pair  with  arms  reaching  to  his  temples,  he  produced 
from  the  pocket  of  his  Prince  Albert  coat  several  sheets  of  paper 
from  which  he  read  slowly  and  feelingly.  His  marvelous  voice, 
careering  in  fullness  of  utterance  and  clearness  of  tone,  was  per- 
fectly audible  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd.  He  made  no  ges- 
tures nor  attempts  at  display,  and  none  were  needed.  Fascinated 
by  his  intense  earnestness  and  depth  of  feeling,  I  unconsciously 
stopped  taking  notes  and  looked  up  at  him  just  as  he  glanced 
from  his  manuscript  with  a  far  away  look  in  his  eyes  as  if  ap- 
pealing from  the  few  thousands  before  him  to  the  invisible  au- 
dience of  countless  millions  whom  his  words  were  to  reach.  Xo 
one  of  the  many  orators  whom,  in  after  years,  I  heard  repeat  the 


*Diary  and  Correspondence  of  Benjamin  Broum  French,  edited  by  his 
grandson,  Amos  Tuck  French.  A  few  copies  printed  for  private  circulation 
only.     New  York,  1904. 


2i4  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

address  ever  made  it  sparkle  with  light  and  meaning  as  its  great 
author  did. 

When  he  began  speaking  the  President  had  comparatively  few 
hearers,  as  hundreds  who  had  come  to  hear  him,  wearied  by 
Everett's  two-hour  oration,  had  wandered  away.  But  his  power- 
ful voice  speedily  recalled  the  wanderers.  Spell-bound  with  the 
majestic  personality  of  the  great  man  of  whom  they  had  heard 
so  much  and  now  saw  for  the  first  time,  the  multitude  stood 
mute — many  with  uncovered  heads — listening  reverently  as  to 
an  inspired  oracle  but  seemingly  unconscious  of  the  spiritual  ex- 
cellence and  moral  grandeur  of  the  great  patriot's  imperishable 
words.  It  was  not  a  demonstrative  nor  even  an  appreciative  au- 
dience. Narratives  of  the  scene  have  described  the  tumultuous 
outbursts  of  enthusiasm  accompanying  the  President's  utterances. 
I  heard  none.  There  were  no  outward  manifestations  of  feeling. 
His  theme  did  not  invite  holiday  applause,  a  cemetery  was  not 
the  place  for  it,  and  he  did  not  pause  to  receive  it. 

Lincoln  wrote  the  address  in  Gettysburg  at  the  residence  of 
Judge  David  Wills,  where  he  was  a  guest  for  a  few  hours.  None 
of  his  attendants,  not  even  his  Secretary  (Hay),  knew  of  its 
preparation  in  advance  of  its  delivery.  At  the  Wills'  mansion 
the  President  asked  for  the  use  of  a  private  room  and  some  writ- 
ing material,  remarking,  "I  suppose  I  will  be  expected  to  make 
some  remarks  out  at  the  Cemetery  this  afternoon."  His  request 
was  complied  with,  and  in  less  than  an  hour  he  completed  the 
address  from  rough  notes  made  by  him  while  on  the  train  from 
Washington  and  others  he  had  made,  several  weeks  earlier,  when 
a  request  from  the  Dedication  Committee  "to  say  a  few  words" 
was  transmitted  to  him  by  Governor  Curtin.  The  letter  sheets 
from  which  he  read  were  from  Judge  Wills'  office.  Before  the 
dedication  ceremonies  closed,  the  President's  manuscript  was 
copied  with  his  permission ;  and  as  the  press  report  was  made 
from  a  copy  no  transcript  from  shorthand  notes  was  necessary. 

It  will  be  noted  that  Gilbert  disclaims  having  made  notes  with 
sufficient  accuracy  to  reproduce  the  speech  from  his  shorthand 
report.  Seeing  that  Lincoln  was  reading*  the  address,  or  at  least 
that  he  had  the  manuscript  in  his  hands,  he  depended  upon  the 
use  of  the  manuscript,  which  later  in  the  day  he  was  permitted 
to  consult.     He  inserted  "Applause"  from  memory,  or  from  his 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         215 

idea  of  the  proper  place  for  it.  Fortunately,  another  reporter 
took  clown  verbatim  the  words  as  Lincoln  uttered  them,  slowly 
and  deliberately.  Through  him  we  may  have  the  precise  words 
of  Lincoln's  address. 

Lest  the  reader  be  too  much  disconcerted  by  these  contradic- 
tions, let  him  read  the  varying  newspaper  accounts  of  the  deliv- 
ery of,  let  us  say,  President  Harding's  inaugural  address,  March 
4,  1 92 1.  There  was  applause,  of  course.  Was  it  hearty  or  per- 
functory? Was  there  much  of  it  or  little?  If  all  the  people  who 
clapped  their  hands  had  been  gathered  into  a  room  of  moderate 
size,  there  would  have  been  no  question  that  the  applause  was 
loud  and  strong.  But  in  proportion  to  so  great  a  company,  out- 
of-doors,  and  most  of  the  people  standing  too  far  back  to  feel 
c'ny  responsibility  for  expressions  of  approbation,  was  the  hand- 
clapping  loud  or  faint,  enthusiastic  or  mildly  complimentary? 
The  answer  depends  upon  the  judgment,  and  somewhat  upon  the 
prejudice  and  the  location  of  the  reporter.  It  was  even  so  at 
Gettysburg.  At  the  time  no  one,  not  even  the  Associated  Press 
reporter,  was  thinking  about  the  precise  places  where  some  mani- 
festation of  approval  occurred,  and  after  that  it  was  a  matter  of 
memory  and  judgment. 

Among  those  who  were  in  the  best  position  to  judge  of  the  ef- 
fect of  Lincoln's  address  upon  the  audience  that  listened  to  it, 
was  Ward  Hill  Lamon.  He  had  entire  charge  of  the  special 
train  that  conveyed  Lincoln  and  his  party  to  Gettysburg,  and  the 
essential  truth  of  his  statement  is  confirmed  by  many  who  heard 
Lincoln's  few  remarks : 

A  day  or  two  before  the  dedication  of  the  National  Cemetery 
at  Gettysburg,  Mr.  Lincoln  told  me  that  he  would  be  expected 
to  make  a  speech  on  that  occasion;  that  he  was  extremely  busy 
and  had  no  time  for  preparation ;  that  he  greatly  feared  he  would 
not  be  able  to  acquit  himself  with  credit,  much  less  to  fill  the 
measure  of  public  expectation.  From  his  hat — the  usual  re- 
ceptacle for  his  private  notes  and  memoranda — he  drew  a  sheet 
of  foolscap,  one  side  of  which  was  closely  written  with  what  he 


2i6  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

informed  me  was  a  memorandum  of  his  intended  address.  This 
he  read  to  me,  first  remarking  that  it  was  not  at  all  satisfactory 
to  him.  It  proved  to  be  in  substance,  if  not  in  exact  words,  what 
was  afterwards  printed  as  his  famous  Gettysburg-  speech. 

After  its  delivery  on  the  day  of  the  commemoration,  he  ex- 
pressed deep  regret  that  he  had  not  prepared  it  with  greater  care. 
He  said  to  me  on  the  stand,  immediately  after  concluding  the 
speech:  "Lamon,  that  speech  won't  scour!  It  is  a  flat  failure, 
and  the  people  are  disappointed."  (The  word  "scour"  he  often 
used  in  expressing  his  positive  conviction  that  a  thing  lacked 
merit,  or  would  not  stand  the  test  of  close  criticism  or  the  wear 
of  time.)  He  seemed  deeply  concerned  about  what  the  people 
might  think  of  his  address ;  more  deeply,  in  fact,  than  I  had  ever 
seen  him  on  any  public  occasion.  His  frank  and  regretful  con- 
demnation of  his  effort,  and  more  especially  his  manner  of  ex- 
pressing that  regret,  struck  me  as  somewhat  remarkable ;  and  my 
own  impression  was  deepened  by  the  fact  that  the  orator  of  the 
day,  Mr.  Everett,  and  Secretary  Seward  both  coincided  in  his 
unfavorable  view  of  its  merits. 

The  occasion  was  solemn,  impressive,  and  grandly  historic. 
The  people,  it  is  true,  stood  apparently  spellbound;  and  the  vast 
throng  was  hushed  and  awed  into  profound  silence  while  Mr. 
Lincoln  delivered  his  brief  speech.  But  it  seemed  to  him  that  this 
silence  and  attention  to  his  words  arose  more  from  the  solemnity 
of  the  ceremonies  and  the  awful  scenes  which  gave  rise  to  them, 
than  from  anything  he  had  said.  He  believed  that  the  speech 
was  a  failure.  He  thought  so  at  the  time,  and  he  never  referred 
to  it  afterwards,  in  conversation  with  me,  without  some  expres- 
sion of  unqualified  regret  that  he  had  not  made  the  speech  bet- 
ter in  every  way. 

On  the  platform  from  which  Mr.  Lincoln  delivered  his  ad- 
dress, and  only  a  moment  after  it  was  concluded,  Mr.  Seward 
turned  to  Mr.  Everett  and  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  the 
President's  speech.  Mr.  Everett  replied,  "It  is  not  what  I  ex- 
pected of  him.  I  am  disappointed."  Then  in  his  turn  Mr. 
Everett  asked,  "What  do  you  think  of  it,  Mr.  Seward?"  The 
response  was,  "He  has  made  a  failure,  and  I  am  sorry  for  it. 
Flis  speech  was  not  equal  to  him."  Mr.  Seward  then  turned  to 
me  and  asked,  "Mr.  Marshal,  what  do  you  think  of  it?"  i 
answered,  "I  am  sorry  to  say  that  it  does  not  impress  me  as  one 
of  his  great  speeches." 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         217 

In  the  face  of  these  facts  it  has  been  repeatedly  published  that 
this  speech  was  received  by  the  audience  with  loud  demonstra- 
tions of  approval;  that  "amid  the  tears,  sobs,  and  cheers  it  pro- 
duced in  the  excited  throng*,  the  orator  of  the  day,  Mr.  Everett, 
turned  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  grasped  his  hand  and  exclaimed,  kT  con- 
gratulate you  on  your  success!'  adding  in  a  transport  of  heated 
enthusiasm,  "Ah,  Mr.  President,  how  gladly  would  I  give  my 
hundred  pages  to  be  the  author  of  your  twenty  lines!'  "  Nothing 
of  the  kind  occurred.  It  is  a  slander  on  Mr.  Everett,  an  injustice 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  a  falsification  of  history.  Mr.  Everett  could 
not  have  used  the  words  attributed  to  him,  in  the  face  of  his  own 
condemnation  of  the  speech  uttered  a  moment  before,  without 
subjecting  himself  to  the  charge  of  being  a  toady  and  a  hypo- 
crite ;  and  he  was  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  silence  during  the  delivery  of  the 
speech,  and  the  lack  'of  hearty  demonstration  of  approval  im- 
mediately afterward,  were  taken  by  Mr.  Lincoln  as  certain  proof 
that  it  was  not  well  received.  In  that  opinion  we  all  shared.  If 
any  person  then  present  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  the  marvelous 
beauties  of  that  wonderful  speech,  as  intelligent  men  in  all  lands 
now  see  and  acknowledge  them,  his  superabundant  caution  closed 
his  lips  and  stayed  his  pen.  Mr.  Lincoln  said  to  me  after  our  re- 
turn to  Washington,  "I  tell  you.  Hill,  that  speech  fell  on  the  au- 
dience like  a  wet  blanket.  I  am  distressed  about  it.  I  ought  to 
have  prepared  it  with  more  care."  Such  continued  to  be  his 
opinion  of  all  his  platform  addresses  up  to  the  time  of  his  death. 

I  state  it  as  a  fact,  and  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that  this 
famous  Gettysburg  speech  was  not  regarded  by  the  audience  to 
whom  it  was  addressed,  or  by  the  press  and  people  of  the  United 
States,  as  a  production  of  extraordinary  merit,  nor  was  it  com- 
mented on  as  such  until  after  the  death  of  its  author,* 

Colonel  Carr  says : 

I  am  aware,  because  I  noted  it  at  the  time,  that  in  the  Associ- 
ated Press  report,  which  appeared  in  the  morning  papers,  there 
were  punctuations  "Applause"  and  "Long  continued  applause," 
according  to  the  invariable  custom  in  those  times.  Except  as  he 
concluded,  I  did  not  observe  it,  and  at  the  close  the  applause  was 

'^Recollections  of  Lincoln,  pp.    170-T74. 


218  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

not  especially  marked.     The  occasion  was  too  solemn   for  any 
kind  of  boisterous  demonstration. 

Having  conversed  and  corresponded  with  many  men  who 
heard  Lincoln  at  Gettysburg,  all  of  them  truthful,  as  I  believe, 
and  most  of  them  far  above  ordinary  intelligence,  I  am  prepared 
to  produce  material  to  prove  the  following  statements : 

Lincoln  made  no  preparation  for  the  address,  but  trusted  to 
the  inspiration  of  the  occasion;  he  made  no  preparation  until  he 
reached  Gettysburg,  and  wrote  the  address  the  night  before  its 
delivery,  or  on  the  morning  of  its  delivery ;  he  wrote  it  on  the 
train ;  he  wrote  it  in  full  in  Washington  and  took  it  with  him ; 
he  wrote  it  in  full  in  Washington  and  inadvertently  left  it  there ; 
he  wrote  it  partly  in  Washington,  partly  on  the  train,  partly  the 
night  before  delivery,  and  revised  it  on  the  morning  of  the  de- 
livery. He  delivered  the  address  without  notes ;  he  held  his 
notes  in  his  left  hand  but  did  not  refer  to  them;  he  held  his 
notes  in  his  left  hand  and  read  them  in  part  and  in  part  spoke 
without  them ;  he  held  the  manuscript  firmly  in  both  hands,  and 
did  not  read  from  it,  or  read  from  it  in  part,  or  read  from  it 
word  for  word  as  it  was  therein  written.  The  address  was  re- 
ceived without  enthusiasm  and  left  the  audience  cold  and  dis- 
appointed ;  it  was  received  in  a  reverent  silence  too  deep  for 
applause ;  it  was  received  with  feeble  and  perfunctory  applause 
at  the  end,  but  it  was  the  man  and  not  the  address  that  was 
applauded ;  it  was  received  with  applause  in  several  places  and 
followed  by  prolonged  applause. 

My  own  opinion  is  that  he  began  it  in  Washington  and  fin- 
ished it  in  Gettysburg  on  the  morning  of  the  delivery;  that  he 
held  it  in  both  hands  but  was  not  closely  confined  to  it  and  that 
he  made  verbal  departures  from  the  manuscript,  and  that  the  ap- 
plause was  not  loud  or  long,  and  that  the  general  impression 
upon  the  audience  and  upon  the  men  on  the  platform,  including 
the  president  himself,  was  one  of  disappointment. 

How  was  the  Gettysburg  Address  actually  received? 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         219 

The  first  impression  of  the  people  who  heard  was  one  of  frank 
curiosity.  Few  of  them  had  ever  heard  or  seen  Lincoln  before. 
There  was  a  craning  of  necks  and  shifting  of  positions  to  get  a 
good  look  at  him. 

The  next  impression  was  one  of  the  disparity  between  the  tall 
man  and  the  thin  high  voice.  Almost  invariably  this  was  the 
effect  when  Lincoln  began  to  speak,  especially  when  he  spoke 
out-of-doors.  The  Gettysburg  gathering  was  the  first  large  out- 
door assembly  which  he  had  formally  addressed  since  his  in- 
augural, two  and  a  half  years  before,  and  Lincoln  pitched  his 
voice  in  a  conscious  effort  to  make  the  people  hear.  They  heard 
and  were  surprised  and  almost  amused  at  so  large  a  man  and 
so  thin  and  high  a  voice. 

The  next  impression  was  a  realization  that  Lincoln  was  a 
southerner.  He  was  addressing  a  northern  audience  which  had 
largely  forgotten  that  he  was  a  Kentuckian.  They  now  heard 
with  a  feeling  of  surprise,  his  southern  intonation  and  one  or 
two  oddities  of  pronunciation.  He  pronounced  the  preposition 
"to"  as  if  it  were  spelled  "toe."  The  effect  of  this  was  heightened 
by  his  deliberate  effort  to  speak  distinctly. 

In  so  far  as  his  audience  got  an  impression  of  the  subject- 
matter  of  his  address,  it  was  that  of  the  propositional  and  com- 
monplace character  of  his  affirmations.  He  was  telling  what 
everybody  knew,  and  telling  it  in  the  simplest  and  most  direct 
manner  possible. 

The  next  and  final  impression  was  one  of  astonishment.  Lin- 
coln stopped  just  when  he  seemed  to  have  begun.  No  one  ex- 
pected him  to  end  when  he  did.  He  appeared  to  have  been  called 
on  to  do  a  matter-of-fact  and  commonplace  thing,  and  to  have 
done  it  in  a  surprisingly  matter-of-fact  and  commonplace  way. 

The  earliest  biographies  of  Lincoln  after  his  address  dismiss 
it  with  very  brief  mention.  It  remained  for  others  than  those 
who  first  heard  and  read  this  remarkable  oration  to  discover 
within  it  the  essential  elements  of  the  noblest  oratory. 

When  the  hour  came  for  his  "few  remarks,"  he  knew  that  he 


220  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

had  established  no  point  of  contact  with  his  audience.  At  no 
time  had  they  risen  above  superficial  curiosity  concerning  him, 
into  an  atmosphere  of  sympathetic  interest.  They  heard  his 
commonplace  introduction  and  the  little  homily  that  followed  it, 
and  just  when  they  might  have  begun  to  be  interested,  he 
stopped.     Lincoln  knew  that  he  had  not  succeeded. 

In  the  days  of  his  agricultural  life  he  had  had  experience  with 
rusty  plows  to  whose  mold-board  the  soil  stuck  instead  of  turn- 
ing a  clean-cut  furrow.  Such  an  effort  seemed  to  him  his  speech 
at  Gettysburg.     It  stuck  to  the  mold-board.     It  did  not  "scour." 

If  Everett  said  to  Lincoln  that  he  would  be  glad  to  feel  that  he 
had  said  as  much  in  two  hours  as  Lincoln  said  in  two  minutes, 
that  fact  only  shows  that  Everett  knew  how  to  pay  a  gracious 
compliment.  It  does  not  prove  that  Everett  believed  that  Lin- 
coln had  delivered  a  real  great  address.  Lincoln  believed  that 
he  failed ;  Everett  shared  his  opinion,  and  so  with  very  few  ex- 
ceptions and  none  of  them  well  established,  did  those  who  heard 
him  speak. 

Certain  Democratic  papers  spoke  slurringly  of  "the  president's 
silly  little  speech/'  or  criticized  him  for  using  soldiers'  "graves 
as  a  stump  for  political  oratory,"  or  took  issue  with  him  in  his 
affirmation  of  the  basic  principle  of  the  American  Government 
and  the  purpose  of  the  Civil  War.  In  the  president's  own  home 
town,  the  Register  quoted  the  first  two  sentences  from  his  ad- 
dress, and  said : 

If  the  above  extract  means  anything  at  all,  it  is  that  this  Na- 
tion was  created  to  secure  the  liberty  of  the  negro  as  well  as  of 
the  white  race,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men. 
white  and  black,  were  placed,  or  to  be  placed,  upon  terms  of 
equality.  That  is  what  Mr.  Lincoln  means  to  say,  and  nothing 
else,  and  when  he  uttered  the  words  he  knew  that  he  was  falsify- 
ing history,  and  enunciating  an  exploded  political  humbug. 

It  is  of  interest  to  inquire  what  reference  was  made  to  the 
Gettysburg   Address   in   the   sermons   preached   throughout   the 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         22 1 

country  on  the  Sunday  immediately  following"  the  death  of  Lin- 
coln, or  on  one  of  the  Sundays  immediately  succeeding-.  Rev- 
erend E.  T.  Carnahan,  of  Gettysburg,  preached  an  excellent  dis- 
course, which  is  preserved  in  print.  The  sermon  was  prepared 
with  care,  not  being  delivered  on  the  day  following  Lincoln's 
death,  but  on  that  proclaimed  by  President  Johnson  as  a  day  of 
public  mourning,  June  1,  1865.  The  sermon  is  full  of  praise  for 
Lincoln,  and  shows  the  result  of  mature  thought ;  but  it  contains 
no  suggestion  that  Lincoln  had  ever  been  in  Gettysburg,  no  al- 
lusion to  the  address  as  something  which  the  people  of  the  con- 
gregation had  heard  and  remembered.  That  church  had  been 
used  as  a  hospital  during  and  after  the  battle.  Down  its  aisle 
Abraham  Lincoln  had  walked  with  John  Burns  and  sat  in  a  pew 
still  proudly  shown.  There  he  had  attended  a  service  on  the  af- 
ternoon of  the  dedication.  But  the  sermon  contained  no  allusion 
to  the  fact,  no  reminder  that  the  dead  president  had  once  been  a 
worshiper  with  that  congregation  in  a  service  so  solemn  that  the 
one  commemorative  of  his  death  must  have  seemed  a  reminder 
of  it. 

A  number  of  ministers,  however,  did  make  reference  to  this 
address.  They  did  not  refer  to  it  as  "the  Gettysburg  Address," 
nor  assume  that  the  congregations  had  it  in  mind.  They  spoke 
of  it  as  "the  few  remarks"  with  which  the  president  followed  the 
"eloquent  address"  of  Edward  Everett.  They  all  spoke  of  it  in 
terms  of  appreciation,  and  at  least  one  of  them,  Reverend  John 
McClintock,  cited  it  as  evidence  of  Lincoln's  intellectual  power. 
Almost  if  not  quite  invariably  the  use  they  made  of  it  was  to 
urge  upon  their  congregations  a  dedication  of  themselves  to  the 
uncompleted  task  for  which  Lincoln  had  given  his  life.* 

XIII       THE    RECOGNITION    OF     MERIT 

If  the  audience  that  listened  to  the  Gettysburg  speech  did  not 


*  Among  them  were  Reverend  Doctors  A.  X.  Little  John,  James  Eells  and 
John  McClintock,  of  New  York,  and  Henry  Wilder  Foote,  Warren  H.  Cuds- 
worth,  W.  S.  Studley,  James  Reed  and  R.  H.  Xeale,  of  Boston. 


222  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

discover  that  it  was  a  great  address,  who  did  discover  it?  Not 
the  leading  editors  of  the  United  States.  Horace  Greeley  made 
no  editorial  comment  in  the  Tribune,  and  neither  did  James  Gor- 
don Bennett  nor  Thurlow  Weed  nor  Joseph  Medill.  J.  G.  Hol- 
land, in  the  Springfield  (Massachusetts)  Republican,  on  the  day 
following  the  address  made  this  editorial  comment: 

Surpassingly  fine  as  Mr.  Everett's  oration  was  in  the  Gettys- 
burg consecration,  the  rhetorical  honors  of  the  occasion  were 
won  by  President' Lincoln.  His  little  speech  is  £  perfect  gem; 
deep  in  feeling,  compact  in  thought  and  expression,  and  tasteful 
and  elegant  in  every  word  and  comma.  Then  it  has  the  merit 
of  unexpectedness  in  its  verbal  perfection  and  beauty.  We  had 
grown  so  accustomed  to  homely  and  imperfect  phrase  in  his  pro- 
ductions that  we  had  come  to  think  it  was  the  law  of  his  utter- 
ance. But  thi-s  shows  he  can  talk  handsomely  as  well  as  act  sensi- 
bly. Turn  back  and  read  it  over,  it  will  well  repay  study  as  a 
model  speech.  Strong  feelings  and  a  large  brain  were  its  parents 
— a  little  painstaking  its  accoucher. 

The  Providence  Journal,  also,  was  one  of  the  few  newspapers 
to  make  immediate  and  favorable  comment : 

We  know  not  where  to  look  for  a  more  admirable  speech  than 
the  brief  one  which  the  President  made  at  the  close  of  Mr. 
Everett's  oration.  It  is  often  said  that  the  hardest  thing  in  the 
world  is  to  make  a  five-minutes'  speech.  But  could  the  most 
elaborate  and  splendid  oration  be  more  beautiful,  more  touching, 
more  inspiring,  than  those  thrilling  words  of  the  President? 
They  had  in  our  humble  judgment  the  charm  and  power  of  the 
very  highest  eloquence. 

The  Evening  Bulletin  of  Philadelphia,  said : 

The  President's  brief  speech  of  dedication  is  most  happily  ex- 
pressed. It  is  warm,  earnest,  unaffected,  and  touching.  Thou- 
sands who  would  not  read  the  long,  elaborate  oration  of  Mr. 
Everett  will  read  the  President's  few  words,  and  not  many  will 
do  it  without  a  moistening  of  the  eye  and  a  swelling  of  the  heart. 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         223 

The  statement  often  made  that  English  editors  were  first  to 
recognize  the  beauty  of  this  production  is  without  foundation.* 
No  one  man  or  group  of  men  discovered  the  Gettysburg  Ad- 
dress. Its  worth  dawned  gradually  on  the  mind  of  the  Ameri- 
can people,  and  a  little  later  on  the  people  of  England.  Credit 
must  be  given  to  Goldwin  Smith  for  the  following  brilliant  enco- 
mium in  MacM Man's  Magazine  of  February,  1865  : 

That  Lincoln  is  something  more  than  a  boor  his  address  at 
Gettysburg  will  in  itself  suffice  to  prove.  There  are  one  or  two 
phrases  here,  such  as  "dedicated  to  the  proposition,"  which  be- 
tray a  hand  untrained  in  fine  writing,  and  are  proofs  that  the 
composition  is  Lincoln's  own.  But  looking  at  the  substance  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  any  king  in  Europe  would  have  ex- 
pressed himself  more  royally  than  the  peasant's  son.  And  even 
as  to  form  we  cannot  help  remarking  that  simplicity  of  structure 
and  pregnancy  of  meaning  are  the  true  characteristics  of  the 
classical  style.  Is  it  easy  to  believe  that  the  man  who  had  the 
native  good  taste  to  produce  this  address  would  be  capable  of 
committing  gross  indecencies,  that  he  would  call  for  comic  songs 
to  be  sung  over  soldiers'  graves? 

XIV     THE  ADDRESS  AS  LITERATURE 

As  a  literary  production  the  Gettysburg  Address  is  not  wholly 
beyond  criticism.  Lincoln  himself  felt  that  it  was  too  propo- 
sitional,  too  didactic.  It  seemed  to  be  lacking  in  emotional  ap-^ 
peal.  The  extreme  brevity  of  the  production,  however,  made 
this  almost  inevitable.  The  phrase  "dedicated  to  the  proposi- 
tion," has  been  very  generally  criticized.  It  is  said  that  Matthew 
Arnold  stopped  there  and  was  never  able  to  finish  the  reading 
of  the  address.  It  shows  some  limitation  in  the  use  of  adjec- 
tives— "a  great  civil  war,"  "a  great  battlefield  of  that  war." 
The  word  "that"  is  used  twelve  times,  six  of  them  in  the  final 
sentence.     That  sentence  is  too  long  and  too  much  involved.     It 


*Mr.  Isaac  Markens  and  other  careful  students  have  searched  earnestly, 
and  in  vain,  for  proof  of  this  affirmation,  and  not  only  have  not  found  it 
but  have  discovered  enough  to  prove  that  it  is  not  true. 


224  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

is  difficult  to  remember  at  the  end  what  was  the  subject  with 
which  it  was  started ;  Lincoln  himself  apparently  was  not  quite 
clear  on  this  point.  These  are  the  criticisms  which  a  pedant 
might  discover  and  which  pedants  have  discovered  in  the  Gettys- 
burg Address.  They  are,  however,  but  spots  upon  the  sun.  Spite 
of  these  trivial  rhetorical  infelicities  the  Gettysburg  Address  is 
what  it  is.     It  rises  superior  to  all  such  criticisms. 

Colonel  Carr  has  pointed  out  that  short  as  it  is,  it  includes  all 
the  essential  parts  of  a  formal  oration.  There  is  an  exordium 
of  five  short  and  clear  sentences  introducing  the  theme  and  de- 
fining clearly  the  approach  to  the  discussion.  There  is  an  argu- 
ment of  four  sentences  and  the  climax  is  reached  in  the  last  of 
these.  Then  there  is  the  dignified  peroration  in  one  long  sen- 
tence. He  counts  the  Gettysburg  Address  as  containing  two 
hundred  and  sixty-seven  words.  Thirty-two  of  them  are  of 
Latin  origin  and  with  repetitions  make  a  total  of  forty-six.  The 
other  two  hundred  and  thirty-one  words  are  Anglo-Saxon. 
Four-fifths  of  the  address  is  in  its  origin  old  English. 

One  of  the  most  discriminating  and  just  of  all  tributes  to  the 
Gettysburg  Address,  including  as  it  should  a  tribute  also  to  the 
second  inaugural,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Rede  Lecture,  by  Earl 
Curzon,  of  Kedleston,  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Oxford, 
delivered  before  the  LTniversity  of  Cambridge  on  November  6, 
1913,  on  "Modern  Parliamentary  Eloquence."  Speaking  of  the 
decline  of  eloquence  of  modern  parliamentary  bodies,  and  raising 
the  question  whether  that  decline  was  to  be  regarded  as  tem- 
porary or  permanent,  he  assured  his  hearers  that  eloquence  could 
not  possibly  have  taken  its  final  leave  of  parliamentary  bodies. 
He  said: 

Just  as  the  oratory  of  the  Georgian  era  was  attuned  to  an 
aristocratic  age,  and  that  of  the  Victorian  epoch  to  the  middle- 
class  ascendancy,  so  does  it  seem  to  me  likely  that  democracy 
will  produce  an  eloquence,  even  an  oratory  of  its  own.  Should 
a  man  arise  from  the  ranks  of  the  people,  as  Abraham  Lincoln 
from  the  back-woods  of  America,  a  man  gifted  with  real  ora- 


GETTYSBURG:  WHAT  HE  SAID  THERE         225 

torical  power,  and  with  commanding  genius,  I  can  see  no  reason 
why  he  should  not  revive  in  England  the  glories  of  a  Chatham 
pr  a  Gratton.  His  triumphs  might  be  less  in  the  Senate  than  in 
the  arena :  his  style  might  not  be  that  of  the  classics  of  the  past. 
But  he  might  by  reason  of  his  gifts  climb  to  the  topmost  place, 
where  he  would  sway  the  destinies  of  the  State,  and  affect  the 
fortunes  of  an  empire. 

Earl  Curzon's  closing  paragraphs  contain  even  a  finer  tribute 
to  Lincoln.  He  felt  that  the  character  of  his  own  address  had 
been  such,  surveying  as  he  did  in  outline  the  history  of  British 
parliamentary  oratory,  that  he  might  be  expected  to  designate 
what  he  regarded  "as  the  supreme  masterpiece."  He  found  three 
of  which  he  said  that  they  "emerge  with  a  superiority  which,  if 
not  disputable,  will  perhaps  not  be  seriously  disputed — much  in 
the  same  way  as  the  'Funeral  Oration'  of  Pericles  was  generally 
allowed  to  be  the  masterpiece  of  the  ancient  world."  These  three 
"supreme  masterpieces"  of  English  eloquence  he  said  were,  the 
toast  of  William  Pitt  after  the  victory  at  Trafalgar,  and  Lin- 
coln's two  speeches,  the  Gettysburg  Address  and  the  second 
inaugural. 

That  Lord  Curzon  should  have  come  to  America  for  two  of 
these  three  masterpieces  was  highly  complimentary  to  the  ora- 
tory of  this  country.  But  it  was  even  more  significant  that  both 
of  these  addresses  should  have  been  by  Abraham  Lincoln.  Of 
them  he  said : 

They  were  uttered  by  a  man  who  had  been  a  country  farmer 
and  a  district  lawyer  before  he  became  a  statesman.  But  they 
are  among  the  glories  and  treasures  of  mankind.  I  escape  the 
task  of  deciding  which  is  the  masterpiece  of  modern  English 
eloquence  by  awarding  the  prize  to  an  American. 

The  Gettysburg  Address  is  far  more  than  a  pleasing  piece  of 
occasional  oratory.  It  is  a  marvelous  piece  of  English  compo- 
sition. It  is  a  pure  well  of  English  undefiled.  It  sets  one  to  in- 
quiring with  nothing  short  of  wonder  "How  knoweth  this  man 


226  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

letters,  having  never  learned  ?"  The  more  closely  the  address  is 
analyzed  the  more  one  must  confess  astonishment  at  its  choice  of 
words,  the  precision  of  its  thought,  its  simplicity,  directness  and 
effectiveness. 

But  it  is  more  than  an  admirable  piece  of  English  composi- 
tion, it  is  an  amazingly  comprehensive  and  forceful  presentation 
of  the  principles  for  which  the  war  then  was  waging.  It  was  a 
truthful  recital  of  the  events  which  lay  behind  the  gathering  at 
Gettysburg,  and  an  interpretation  of  the  spirit  of  the  occasion. 
It  joined  the  local  to  the  national,  the  occasional  to  the  per- 
manent; it  went  straight  at  a  declaration  of  the  purpose  which 
animated  the  soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  for  which  the  men 
buried  at  Gettysburg  had  given  their  lives.  Above  all  it  was  a 
declaration  of  America's  fundamental  principles.  It  truthfully 
represented  the  spirit  of  that  for  which  men  fought,  not  only  at 
Gettysburg  but  at  Runnymede,  at  Bunker  Hill,  and  on  the 
plains  of  Flanders.  The  long,  hard  fought  battle  for  the  libera- 
tion of  humanity  has  been  a  struggle  for  the  rights  and  welfare 
of  humanity. 

There  is  no  indication  in  Lincoln's  address  that  he  or  any  of 
his  hearers  appreciated  the  full  significance  of  the  Gettysburg 
victory.  Lincoln  said  no  word  to  indicate  that  he  believed  that 
Pickett  would  never  lead  another  brigade  against  the  fatal  stone 
wall,  or  that  that  charge  and  its  repulse  would  justify  the  erec- 
tion of  a  high-water  mark  monument  where  such  a  monument 
now  stands.  It  was  reserved  for  those  who  could  see  that  battle 
in  perspective  to  discover  and  declare  that  what  the  men  who 
fought  at  Gettysburg  did  was  to  settle  the  question  whether  a 
government  like  that  of  the  United  States  could  long  endure. 
Lincoln  referred  to  it  merely  as  "a  great  battle-field  of  that  war." 
Pie  did  not  know  it,  but  it  was  that  battle-field  which  decided 
the  answer  to  the  question  which  his  address  proposed.  Very 
near  to  the  spot  where  Lincoln  stood  when  he  uttered  those 
words,  the  thunders  of  war  uttered  the  decree  of  Providence  that 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people, 
should  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


THE    TURN     OF    THE    TIDE 


It  is  now  plain  that  when  General  Lee  was  defeated  at  Gettys- 
burg the  South  lost  its  last  reasonable  hope  of  successful 
invasion  of  the  North.  It  is  equally  clear  that  the  capture  of  Vicks- 
turg-  by  General  Grant,  permitting  the  Mississippi,  in  the  felici- 
tous phrase  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  "to  flow  unvexed  to  the  sea," 
effected  a  hopeless  division  of  Confederate  territory  and  estab- 
lished a  base  line  from  which  the  Confederacy  of  the  East  was 
certain  to  be  pushed  ever  inward  upon  Richmond.  The  fate  of 
the  Merrimac  destroyed  any  hope  of  the  Confederates  that  they 
might  dictate  terms  of  peace  by  the  capture  of  Washington,  and 
it  also  served  notice  on  foreign  nations  that  the  blockade  of  the 
Confederate  ports  would  be  made  increasingly  effective;  Sher- 
man's march  to  the  sea  cut  another  swath  through  the  heart  of 
the  Confederacy.  Before  his  advancing  hosts  was  terror,  and 
behind  it  were  ashes.  Apart  from  any  discussion  of  the  mili- 
tary value  of  his  exploit,  he  showed  that  the  Confederate  de- 
fenses were  a  hollow  shell  and  that  the  South  was  strained  to 
the  utmost  to  keep  up  her  resistance.  His  path  of  devastation, 
three  hundred  miles  long  and  sixty  miles  wide,  divided  again  the 
Confederacy,  which  the  gunboats  of  Commodore  Foote  had  cut 
in  twain  along  the  Mississippi's  length. 

It  is  very  easy  now  for  us  to  see  these  facts  and  appreciate 
their  true  significance,  but  it  was  not  easy  nor  even  possible  for 
the  nation,  or  even  its  leaders,  to  understand  them  at  that  time. 
A  fierce  controversy  waged  for  years,  and  is  still  unsettled,  as  to 
how  far  the  victory  at  Gettysburg  is  one  for  which  the  com- 
mander of  the  army  deserves  credit.  There  were  those,  even 
among    his    own    generals,    who    questioned    whether    Genera! 

22J 


228  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Meade  recognized  his  victory  after  he  had  won  it.  General 
Doubleday,  in  his  history  of  the  battles  of  Chancellorsville  and 
Gettysburg,  affirms  that : 

After  the  battle  Meade  had  not  the  slightest  desire  to  recom- 
mence the  struggle.  ...  It  was  hard  to  convince  him  that  Lee 
was  actually  gone. 

He  also  declared  that  on  the  morning  of  July  fourth,  after 
the  defeat  of  Pickett's  charge,  and  with  Lee's  army  in  full  re- 
treat, Meade  said  he  thought  he  could  hold  out  against  Lee  for 
part  of  another  day.*  Meade,  however,  in  later  years  did  not 
admit  that  he  thus  misunderstood  his  own  victory. 

Lincoln  was  sadly  disappointed  that  Lee  was  not  pursued,  and 
his  army  captured  or  annihilated,  after  his  defeat  at  Gettysburg. 
He  said  that  he  would  give  much  to  be  free  from  the  impression 
that  Meade  was  willing  to  have  him  get  away.  He  did  not 
doubt  Meade's  loyalty,  but  gravely  questioned  his  power  of  in- 
itiative. He  sat  down  and  wrote  a  letter  to  Meade  contain- 
ing the  following  rebuke: 

My  dear  General,  I  do  not  believe  you  appreciate  the  magni- 
tude of  the  misfortune  involved  in  Lee's  escape.  He  was  within 
your  easy  grasp,  and  to  have  closed  upon  him  would,  in  con- 
nection with  our  other  late  successes,  have  ended  the  war.  As  it 
is,  the  war  will  be  prolonged  indefinitely.  If  you  could  not 
safely  attack  Lee  last  Monday,  how  can  you  possibly  do  so  south 
of  the  river,  when  you  can  take  with  you  very  few  more  than 
two-thirds  of  the  force  you  then  had  in  hand?  It  would  be  un- 
reasonable to  expect  and  I  do  not  expect  that  you  can  now  effect 
much.  Your  golden  opportunity  is  gone,  and  I  am  distressed 
immeasurably  because  of  it. 

I  beg  you  will  not  consider  this  a  prosecution  or  persecution  of 
yourself.  As  you  had  learned  that  I  was  dissatisfied,  I  have 
thought  it  best  to  kindly  tell  you  why. 

*  Chancellorsville  and  Gettysburg,  by  Abner  Doubleday,  in  Campaigns  of 
the  Civil  War,  Series  VI,  pp.  208,  209. 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  TIDE  229 

After  he  had  written  it  he  thought  the  matter  over  and  de- 
cided not  to  send  it,  so  it  remained  among  his  papers  unpublished 
until  years  afterward. 

This  is  not  the  only  time  Lincoln  relieved  his  feelings  by 
writing  a  letter  and  then  deciding  not  to  send  it.  Once  hearing 
a  man  speak  very  abusively  of  another,  Lincoln  advised  him  to 
put  all  his  invective  into  a  letter  addressed  to  the  man  in  ques- 
tion. The  letter  was  written  and  read  to  Lincoln,  w7ho  com- 
mended it  for  its  severity.  The  writer  was  pleased  and  asked 
him,  "How  would  you  advise  me  to  send  it?"  "Send  it,"  said 
Lincoln.  "Oh,  I  wouldn't  send  it.  I  sometimes  write  a  letter 
like  that  and  it  does  me  good,  but  I  never  send  it." 

At  this  time,  however,  Lincoln  wrote  another  letter  and  did 
send  it.  If  Meade  had  pursued  Lee,  it  might  have  been  mailed 
to  him,  but  it  was  addressed  to  General  Grant.  The  letter  was 
as  follows : 

Washington,  July    13,    1863. 
Major-General  Grant. 

My  Dear  General :  I  do  not  remember  that  you  and  I  ever 
met  personally.  I  write  this  now  as  a  grateful  acknowledgment 
for  the  almost  inestimable  service  you  have  done  the  country. 
I  wish  to  say  a  word  further.  When  you  first  reached  the  vicin- 
ity of  Yicksburg,  I  thought  you  should  do  what  you  finally  did 
— march  the  troops  across  the  neck,  run  the  batteries  with  the 
transports,  and  thus  go  below ;  and  I  never  had  any  faith,  ex- 
cept a  general  hope  that  you  knew  better  than  I,  that  the  Yazoo 
Pass  expedition  and  the  like  could  succeed.  When  you  got  be- 
low and  took  Port  Gibson,  Grand  Gulf,  and  vicinity,  I  thought 
you  should  go  down  the  river  and  join  General  Banks,  and  when 
you  turned  northward,  east  of  the  Big  Black,  I  feared  it  was  a 
mistake.  I  now  wish  to  make  the  personal  acknowledgment  that 
you  were  right  and  I  was  wrong.         Yours  very  truly, 

A.  Lincoln. 

Ulysses  S.  Grant  was  a  graduate  of  West  Point,  where  his 
record  as  a  student  was  only  moderately  good.  Among  his  as- 
sociates while  there  in  school  and  in  subsequent  service  in  the 


230  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Mexican  War,  were  a  number  of  brilliant  leaders  of  the  Confed- 
erate Army,  most  of  whom  could  remember  that  their  record  in 
the  class-room  had  been  better  than  that  of  Grant.  In  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Civil  War  he  had  been  assigned  a  commonplace 
task  of  inspecting  army  equipments,  but  was  called  to  more  ac- 
tive service  through  the  influence  of  his  friend  and  townsman, 
Elihu  B.  Washburne,  Representative  in  Congress  from  Galena, 
Illinois. 

General  Grant's  first  services  were  inconspicuous  but  success- 
ful. He  emerged  into  prominence  by  his  capture  of  Fort  Donel- 
son,  where  he  demanded  and  secured  unconditional  surrender. 
His  firmness  in  demanding  and  his  success  in  securing  this  re- 
sult, while  McClellan  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  timidly 
waiting  for  the  enemy  to  come  and  offer  to  be  captured,  put 
great  heart  into  the  faltering  hope  of  the  Union.  His  initials 
came  to  be  accepted  as  applicable  to  another  name  than  that 
which*  at  West  Point  had  displaced  the  name  of  his  baptism, 
and  he  was  called  "Unconditional  Surrender"  Grant.  The  laur- 
els which  he  won  at  Donelson  he  almost  lost  at  Shiloh.  On  the 
first  day  of  that  battle  his  army  was  defeated.  Grant  was  criti- 
cized for  having  placed  his  army  on  the  side  of  the  Tennessee 
next  to  the  enemy,  and  leaving  it  thus  exposed  to  surprise  and 
successful  onslaught.  He  was  criticized  for  being  some  miles 
from  the  front  when  the  battle  began.  He  was  declared  to  have 
been  intoxicated  on  the  first  day  of  the  battle.  It  was  still  fur- 
ther alleged  that  if  Buell  had  not  arrived  when  he  did,  the  suc- 
cess of  the  second  day  would  have  been  in  doubt.  How  keenly 
Grant  felt  these  strictures  is  known  to  every  reader  of  the  Cen- 
tury War  Book,  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,  and  of 
Grant's  Memoirs.  General  Halleck  disliked  Grant,  and  virtually 
put  him  under  arrest  after  the  battle  of  Shiloh.  The  partisans  of 
Buell  loudly  proclaimed  that  but  for  his  timely  arrival  and  supe- 
rior generalship,  Grant  and  his  army  would  either  have  been 
captured  or  crowded  into  the  Tennessee  River.  Men  in  high 
places  declared  him  to  be  a  man  of  very  mediocre  military 
abilitv 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  TIDE  231 

But  Lincoln  had  growing-  faith  in  the  taciturn,  bullet-headed 
soldier  from  Illinois.  It  gratified  him  that  Grant  took  the  com- 
mand that  was  given  to  him  and  went  ahead  with  it,  not  teasing 
for  impossibilities.  The  memory  of  McClellan's  perpetual  wail 
for  more  men  and  munitions  found  a  pleasant  contrast  in  the  si- 
lence and  pertinacity  of  Grant.  When  people  asked  Lincoln  what 
Grant  was  doing,  Lincoln  said  frankly  that  he  did  not  know. 
Said  he,  "General  Grant  is  a  very  meager  letter-writer  and 
telegrapher,  but  a  very  copious  fighter."  He  said,  "I  don't  know 
General  Grant's  plans,  and  I  do  not  care  to  know  them;  I  know 
he  has  plans,  and  is  at  work  carrying  them  out." 

When  he  was  told  that  General  Grant  drank,  he  is  said  to 
have  asked,  "Can  you  tell  me  the  brand  of  liquor?  I  should  like 
to  send  some  of  it  to  my  other  generals." 

Thus  Grant  continued  as  a  major  general  in  spite  of  all  efforts 
to  discredit  him. 

Abraham  Lincoln  never  considered  himself  an  authority  in 
military  matters.  He  never  used  his  own  early  title  of  captain.* 
His  references  to  his  own  experiences  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 
were  generally  humorous,  and  in  his  one  speech  in  Congress 
where  he  made  reference  to  it,  that  reference  was  almost  in  bur- 
lesque. He  was  disposed  to  trust  his  general  and  his  secretary 
of  war. 

Nevertheless,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  without  practical  wis- 
dom in  military  matters.  It  was  his  daily  custom  to  go  over  to 
the  War  Department  and  read  the  despatches  from  beginning  to 
end.  He  studied  the  maps  of  the  various  war  fronts.  The  few 
suggestions  that  he  made  to  army  officers  about  plans  of  the 
campaign  were  intelligent  suggestions  and  showed  a  certain 
native  shrewdness  and  practical  sagacity  which  had  in  them  the 
essentials  of  true  military  judgment. 


*Mr.  David  Davis,  of  Bloomington,  Illinois,  has  shown  me  his  father's 
papers  on  Abraham  Lincoln,  which,  unfortunately,  are  few  in  number.  I 
find,  however,  a  statement  by  Judge  David  Davis  that  when  Lincoln  first 
came  upon  the  circuit  he  was  sometimes  called  captain,  and  did  not  resent 
it:  but  neither  did  he  welcome  it;  and  the  title  though  evidently  his,  fell 
rather  soon  into  disuse. 


232  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

His  first  letter  to  Grant  congratulating-  him  upon  the  capture 
of  Vicksburg  showed  how  intelligently  Lincoln  had  been  follow- 
ing Grant's  movements  in  the  siege  of  that  city.  The  capture  of 
Vicksburg  had  involved  very  severe  tactical  problems.  Vicks- 
burg was  on  a  bluff,  and  the  land  occupied  by  the  Union  Armies 
was  largely  swamp  land.  Grant  endeavored  to  transport  a  por- 
tion of  his  fleet  below  the  city,  and  to  this  end  labored  long  in  the 
digging  of  a  canal  which  did  not  prove  a  success.  At  length  the 
hazardous  expedition  was  attempted  of  running  the  batteries.  A 
large  fleet  of  gunboats  and  transports  was  prepared,  and,  on  the 
night  of  the  sixteenth  of  April,  1863,  these  vessels  made  a  suc- 
cessful passage  down  the  river.  The  expedition  was  considered 
so  hazardous  that  men  were  not  commanded  to  undertake  it,  but 
volunteers  were  called  for.  So  many  men  volunteered  that  se- 
lections had  to  be  made.  Although  some  of  the  boats  were  dam- 
aged and  one  set  on  fire,  the  vessels  made  the  dangerous  run  in 
an  hour  and  a  quarter  and  without  the  loss  of  a  single  life. 

Grant  had  done  this  work  so  silently,  so  methodically,  so  de- 
terminedly and  in  the  end  so  successfully,  as  to  take  the  nation 
by  surprise.  It  was  almost  incredible  that  simultaneously  two 
such  victories  should  have  been  won  as  were  won  at  Gettysburg 
and  at  Vicksburg. 

But  there  was  this  difference  in  the  sequel.  Meade  having 
defeated  Lee,  permitted  Lee  and  his  army  to  escape,  so  that  Lee's 
army  had  to  be  fought  again  and  again  for  almost  two  years. 
Meade  rested  on  his  laurels.  Grant  not  only  captured  Pemberton 
and  his  army,  but  quietly  went  to  work  making  other  plans  and 
saying  very  little  about  them.  Lincoln  did  not  fail  to  note  the 
contrast,  not  only  between  Grant  and  Meade,  but  between  Grant 
and  every  other  general  whom  up  to  that  time  he  had  known. 

At  the  beginning  of  1864  General  Grant  was  still  personally 
unknown  to  the  president,  the  secretary  of  war,  and  very  nearly 
all  of  official  Washington.  The  Thirty-eighth  Congress  had  re- 
cently convened,  and  Elihu  B.  Washburne  introduced  a  bill  creat- 
ing the  office  of  Lieutenant  general.     The  bill  became  a  law, 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  TIDE  233 

and  on  February  22  %  1864,  Lincoln  appointed  Ulysses  S.  Grant 
to  this  office,  making"  him  commander-in-chief  under  the  presi- 
dent, of  all  the  armies  in  the  United  States. 

For  the  first  time  during  the  war,  Grant  visited  the  capital. 
He  arrived  on  the  eighth  of  March,  and  that  evening"  called  at 
the  White  House.  A  levee  was  in  progress.  Grant  entered  un- 
announced, and  virtually  unknown.  Lincoln  recognized  him, 
and  Grant  was  immediately  hailed  as  a  hero.  This  experience 
greatly  embarrassed  Grant. 

On  the  following  day,  in  the  presence  of  a  few  friends  gath- 
ered in  the  White  House,  the  president  presented  General  Grant 
his  commission  in  as  simple  a  fashion  as  perhaps  ever  accom- 
panied an  incident  conferring  power  of  this  character  and  ex- 
tent. The  two  speeches  made  on  that  occasion  have  been  pre- 
served. 

President  Lincoln  said  : 

''General  Grant:  The  nation's  appreciation  of  what  you  have 
done,  and  its  reliance  upon  you  for  what  remains  to  be  done  in 
the  existing  great  struggle,  are  now  presented  with  this  com- 
mission, constituting  you  Lieutenant  General  in  the  army  of  the 
Lnited  States.  With  this  high  honor  devolves  upon  you  also  a 
corresponding  responsibility.  As  the  country  herein  trusts  you, 
so.  under  God,  it  will  sustain  you.  I  scarcely  need  to  add,  that 
with  what  I  here  speak  for  the  nation,  goes  my  own  hearty  per- 
sonal concurrence." 

To  this  General  Grant  made  the  following  reply : 

"Mr.  President:  I  accept  the  commission  with  gratitude  for 
the  high  honor  conferred.  With  the  aid  of  the  noble  armies  that 
have  fought  on  so  many  fields  for  our  common  country,  it  will 
be  my  earnest  endeavor  not  to  disappoint  your  expectations.  I 
feel  the  full  weight  of  the  responsibilities  now  devolving  on  me, 
and  I  know  that  if  they  are  met,  it  will  be  due  to  those  armies, 
and  above  all  to  the  favor  of  that  Providence  which  lead^  both 
nations  and  men." 


234  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Honorable  John  P.  Usher,  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  in  an 
address  delivered  a  quarter-century  later,*  related  his  memories  of 
the  scene  when  Lincoln  assembled  the  Cabinet  to  meet  General 
Grant,  and  receive  his  commission.  Not  one  member  of  the 
Cabinet,  as  Usher  recalled,  had  seen  Grant.  Lincoln  did  not 
remember  having  met  him,  and  said  so  to  Grant,  but  Grant  told 
Lincoln  that  he  had  gone  over  from  Galena  to  Freeport  and  had 
listened  to  Lincoln  and  Douglas  there  in  1858  and  shaken  hands 
in  the  crowd  with  Lincoln  afterward.  Mr.  Usher  said  that 
President  Lincoln  did  not  inform  the  Cabinet  in  advance  of  the 
reason  for  their  having  been  called  together,  and  while  they  were 
assembling,  and  all  of  them  present  except  Stanton,  he  was  at 
work  at  his  disordered  desk.  General  Grant  entered  the  room 
with  Secretary  Stanton  and  General  Halleck,  and  without 
speaking  to  any  one  as  they  entered,  the  three  walked  quickly  to 
the  desk  and  stood  before  it.  The  president  rose,  and  standing 
across  the  desk  from  the  three,  read  his  short  address.  General 
Grant  then  produced  what  Usher  thought  hardly  more  than  a 
quarter  sheet  of  paper  and  read  his  acceptance.  He  said  that 
Grant  stood,  as  one  or  more  of  his  photographs  show  him,  in 
the  awkward  position  known  as  "hip-shot,"  and  that  when  he 
began  to  read  his  acceptance,  he  was  so  embarrassed  that  he  did 
not  inflate  his  lungs,  and  his  voice  failed  him.  Grant  had  been 
holding  the  paper  in  his  right  hand.  When  he  found  that  even 
so  simple  an  effort  at  oratory  required  more  breath  than  he  had 
supposed,  he  changed  his  position,  stood  erect  with  shoulders 
back,  took  the  paper  in  both  hands,  and  inhaling  a  deep  breath, 
began  again  and  quietly  read  the  paper  through.  It  is  a  detail 
of  no  great  historic  value,  but  it  has  the  life-like  touch  that 
belongs  to  authentic  memory.  Usher  further  relates  that  it  was 
Lincoln's  friend,  Judge  T.  Lyle  Dickey,  who  after  the  battle  of 


*This  incident  was  narrated  by  Mr.  Usher  in  an  address  which  he  de- 
livered at  a  banquet  in  Wyandotte,  Kansas,  June  20,  1887.  It  was  delivered 
impromptu,  but  on  the  following  day  was  dictated  to  Mr.  Nelson  H.  Loomis, 
who  subsequently  became  General  Solicitor  for  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad 
Company.  A  few  copies  were  printed  for  private  distribution.  It  deserves 
a  wider  publication. 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  TIDE  235 

Corinth,  brought  to  Lincoln  so  favorable  a  report  of  Grant  that 
Lincoln  entertained  a  sincere  regard  for  him  before  they  met, 
and  never  afterward  doubted  Grant's  ability  to  command  the 
nation's  armies. 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  phrase  "under  God"  which  the  presi- 
dent had  interpolated  at  Gettysburg  was  not  permitted  to  drop 
out  of  his  vocabulary,  but  was  used  on  the  presentation  of  the 
commission  to  General  Grant  and  on  other  occasions.  General 
Grant,  also,  in  his  acceptance  used  similar  language. 

The  president  and  the  new  lieutenant  general  stepped  into  a 
photograph  gallery  and  had  their  pictures  taken,  and  both  pro- 
ceeded to  forget  the  matter,  and  neither  ever  saw  the  photo- 
graphs that  were  made.  The  unretouched  negatives  were  dis- 
covered after  many  years. * 

Mrs.  Lincoln  desired  to  make  the  most  socially  of  General 
Grant's  visit  to  Washington.  When  the  general  came  to  the 
White  House  to  receive  his  commission,  he  found  awaiting  him 
an  invitation  from  the  mistress  of  the  White  House  to  dine  at 
the  executive  mansion  that  evening  and  attend  afterward  a 
party  to  be  given  in  his  honor.  General  Grant  declined  with 
thanks.  "Mrs.  Lincoln  must  excuse  me,"  he  said.  "I  must  be  in 
Tennessee  at  a  given  time.''  "But  we  can't  excuse  you,"  said 
President  Lincoln,  "Mrs.  Lincoln's  dinner  without  you  would  be 
the  play  of  Hamlet  with  Hamlet  left  out."  "I  appreciate  the 
honor  Mrs.  Lincoln  would  do  me,"  replied  General  Grant,  "but 
time  is  very  important  now ;  and  really,  Air.  Lincoln,  I  have 
had  enough  of  this  show  business." 

So  just  as  Washington  was  getting  on  its  best  clothes  and 


*On  the  centenary  of  Lincoln's  birth  in  1909,  it  was  my  privilege  to  ad- 
dress a  celebration  in  Chicago,  the  other  speaker  being  General  Frederick  D. 
Grant.  I  informed  him  that  I  was  in  Washington  soon  alter  the  discovery  of 
these  now  famous  negatives,  and  had  secured  an  early  print  of  each.  He 
had  never  seen  either  of  them.  A  few  days  later  I  showed  them  both  to 
him.  He  was  present  with  his  father  on  the  occasion  when  these  sittings 
occurred,  and  it  was  his  first  visit  to  Washington.  He  was  greatly  pleased 
with  the  photographs,  which  he  pronounced  to  be  excellent  representations  of 
his  father  and  of  President  Lincoln  on  the  day  when  he  first  met  the  latter. 


27,6  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ready  to  entertain  in  proper  form  the  new  lieutenant  general  in 
command  of  all  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  General  Grant 
slipped  out  of  Washington  as  quietly  as  he  had  slipped  in,  and 
went  back  to  the  army. 

Grant  said  to  Lincoln  that  he  wished  to  return  to  Nashville 
and  put  his  command  into  Sherman's  hands,  and  that  it  would 
take  him  nine  days  to  do  that  and  other  necessary  things  in  the 
West.  At  the  end  of  nine  days  he  was  back  in  Washington,  but 
as  reluctant  as  ever  to  participate  in  any  display.  After  a  short 
interview  with  Lincoln,  he  went  to  the  front  with  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac. 

The  appointment  of  Grant  lifted  a  great  load  from  the 
shoulders  of  Lincoln.  He  had  a  strong  conviction  that  Grant 
would  evolve  a  comprehensive  plan  of  campaign,  and  would  hold 
to  it  persistently  and  carry  it  to  a  successful  issue.  Lie  gave  to 
Grant  that  confidence  and  support  which  he  had  freely  given  to 
the  successive  commanders  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  He 
had  now  elevated  Grant  above  Meade  without  displacing  Meade. 
He  had  also  promoted  Grant  above  Sherman  and  all  the  other 
major  generals.  Grant  said  he  believed  that  Sherman  was  an 
abler  general  than  himself,  and  more  deserving  of  the  honor. 
But  that  did  not  prevent  Grant  from  taking  hold  of  the  situation 
and  seeing-  the  matter  through. 

As  Lincoln  did  not  hear  from  Grant,  he  thought  well  to  write 
to  him,  and  on  April  thirtieth,  sent  him  a  letter  containing  the 
following  as  its  most  significant  word : 

You  are  vigilant  and  self-reliant,  and  pleased  with  this  I  wish 
not  to  obtrude  any  restraints  or  constraints  upon  you.  ...  If 
there  be  anything  wanting  in  my  power  to  give,  do  not  fail  to 
let  me  know.  And  now,  with  a  brave  army  and  a  just  cause, 
may  God  sustain  you. 

Grant  subsequently  wrote  the  analysis  of  the  situation  as  he 
found  it  when  he  became  lieutenant  general : 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  TIDE  237 

The  armies  in  the  East  and  West  acted  independently  and 
without  concert,  like  a  balky  team,  no  two  ever  pulling  together : 
enabling  the  enemy  to  use  to  a  great  advantage  his  interior  lines 
of  communication  for  transporting  troops  from  East  to  West, 
re-enforcing  the  army  most  vigorously  pressed,  and  to  furlough 
large  numbers,  during  seasons  of  inactivity  on  our  part,  to  go  to 
their  homes  and  do  the  work  of  producing  for  the  support  of 
their  armies.  It  was  a  question  whether  our  numerical  strength 
and  resources  were  not  more  than  balanced  by  these  disad- 
vantages and  the  enemy's  superior  position. 

From  the  first  I  was  firm  in  the  conviction  that  no  peace 
could  be  had  that  would  be  stable  and  conducive  to  the  happiness 
of  the  people,  both  North  and  South,  until  the  military  power  of 
the  rebellion  was  entirely  broken.  I  therefore  determined;  first, 
to  use  the  greatest  number  of  troops  practicable  against  the 
armed  force  of  the  enemy ;  preventing  him  from  using  the  same 
force  at  different  seasons  against  first  one  and  then  another  of 
Dur  armies,  and  the  possibility  of  repose  for  refitting  and  pro- 
ducing necessary  supplies  for  carrying  on  resistance.  Second, 
to  hammer  continuously  against  the  armed  force  of  the  enemy 
and  his  resources,  until  by  mere  attrition,  if  in  no  other  way, 
there  should  be  nothing  left  to  him  but  an  equal  submission  with 
the  loyal  section  of  our  common  country  to  the  Constitution  and 
laws  of  the  land. 

Whether  Grant  was  a  truly  great  general  or  not  is  a  question 
which  may  be  discussed  by  those  who  care  to  discuss  it.  For 
the  purpose  of  this  biography  of  Lincoln  it  is  sufficient  to  record 
that  from  the  day  of  Grant's  appointment  the  president  ex- 
perienced a  sense  of  relief.  Grant's  plan  of  campaign  was 
simple.  He  made  no  claim  to  being  a  brilliant  strategist.  He 
determined  to  employ  all  the  armies  east  and  west,  to  one  com- 
mon closing  in  upon  the  armed  forces  of  the  Confederacy,  and 
forcing  them  into  closer  and  closer  quarters  until  they  should 
be  compelled  to  give  up  the  struggle.*  Grant  knew  this  plan 
would  involve  heavy  losses  to  the  Union  forces.  They  must 
operate  upon  a  longer  front  and  on  the  offensive.     Any  success 


^General    Grant's    plan    was    not    unlike    the    '"Anaconda'"    which    General 
Scott  recommended  to  McClellan.  and  that  general  cavalierly  rejected. 


238  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

they  won  would  commonly  be  with  loss  heavier  than  that  which 
they  were  able  to  inflict.  To  gain  a  given  end,  they  must  ex- 
pect to  lose  men,  and  must  reckon  that  they  could  afford  to  lose 
more  men  than  the  Confederates,  but  they  could  not  afford  to  let 
the  war  go  on  as  a  series  of  disconnected  skirmishes. 

Lincoln  had  enough  military  wisdom  to  understand  and  ap- 
prove this  plan.  He  said  that  he  made  no  pretense  of  being 
either  a  military  leader  or  a  financier;  but  he  was  enough  of  both 
to  know  that  when  a  nation  got  into  war  it  must  push  the  war 
with  some  vigor  or  the  nation  would  be  demoralized  and  bank- 
rupt. 

General  Grant  set  to  work  upon  this  plan.  He  fought  bloody 
battles  and  sustained  heavy  losses.  The  losses  did  not  daunt 
him.  He  announced  his  intention  to  fight  it  out  on  that  line  if  it 
took  all  summer.  It  took  all  summer  and  all  winter  and  part  of 
the  spring,  but  Grant  fought  it  out  on  that  line  just  as  Lincoln 
believed  that  he  would  do. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE    DRAFT    RIOTS 

Abraham  Lincoln  believed  with  good  reason  in  the  loyalty 
of  the  people  of  East  Tennessee,  and  maintained  that  by  permit- 
ting the  Confederate  Armies  to  operate  in  that  region,  the  Union 
was  in  danger  of  losing  a  most  valuable  stake.  In  Knoxville, 
Parson  Brownlow  had  edited  the  Knoxville  Whig,  to  which  title 
he  later  added  the  name  "and  Rebel  Ventilator."  Brownlow  had 
been  driven  out.  The  mountain  region  of  Kentucky,  Tennessee 
and  West  Virginia  had  furnished  large  numbers  of  men  for  the 
Union  Army,  but  Lincoln  felt  that  his  generals  did  not  value 
highly  enough  the  adherence  of  the  people  of  that  region  to  the 
Union.  Burnside  after  his  defeat  at  Fredericksburg,  December 
13,  1862,  was  sent  west.  Lincoln  desired  that  he  should  move 
through  East  Tennessee  and  unite  with  Rosecrans  at  Chatta- 
nooga. Burnside  reached  Knoxville,  and  there  encountered 
Longstreet,  and  for  a  considerable  time  got  no  farther.  Lin- 
coln, eagerly  waiting  for  news  from  him,  came  almost  to  wel- 
come bad  news.  On  November  24,  1863,  there  were  tidings  of 
firing  at  Knoxville.  It  was  the  first  word  from  Knoxville  for 
several  days.  John  Hay's  diary  quotes  Lincoln  as  saying  that 
any  news  that  showed  Burnside  was  not  overwhelmed  was  cheer- 
ing: 

"Like  Sally  Carter,  when  she  heard  one  of  her  children  squall, 
would  say,  'There  goes  one  of  my  young  ones !  Not  dead  yet, 
bless  the  Lord!'" 

Rosecrans  too,  delayed  his  campaign  at  Chattanooga  until  he 
was  out-generaled  by  Bragg  and  in  danger  of  losing  his  whole 
army. 

239 


24o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

This  was  before  Grant  had  been  made  commander-in-chief 
and  Lincoln  himself  was  virtually  assuming  the  responsibility  of 
that  position.  He  removed  Rosecrans  after  his  defeat  at  Chicka- 
mauga,  and  placed  Thomas  in  his  stead.  He  sent  Sherman  from 
the  west  and  Hooker  from  the  east  with  reenforcements,  and  he 
appointed  Grant  to  the  command  of  the  Military  Division  of  the 
Mississippi,  which  included  the  three  departments  of  the  Ohio, 
Cumberland  and  the  Tennessee.  Grant  disliked  Rosecrans,  and 
greatly  liked  Thomas.  Sherman,  also,  Grant  trusted  fully.  As 
for  Hooker,  Grant  believed  in  him  as  a  general  capable  of  a  bril- 
liant dash,  but  not  capable  of  managing  a  sustained  campaign. 
He  says  in  his  Memoirs  concerning  him,  that  Hooker  was  bril- 
liant but  unreliable,  and  given  to  the  habit  of  gathering  about 
him  a  group  of  younger  officers  and  fighting  a  spectacular  bat- 
tle of  his  own,  regardless  of  the  particular  thing  he  was  set  to  do. 

Grant  took  command  at  Chattanooga  in  the  autumn  of  1863. 
He  found  Rosecrans  still  there,  and  generously  ready  to  com- 
municate his  plans.  "They  were  good  plans,"  said  General 
Grant,  "I  only  wondered  why  he  had  not  carried  them  out." 
Grant,  however,  did  not  carry  out  the  plans  of  Rosecrans.  Chat- 
tanooga was  so  well  surrounded  by  the  Confederates  fortified  on 
high  elevations,  that  nothing  but  a  determined  and  courageous 
battle  would  save  it.  On  November  24  and  25,  1863,  that  bat- 
tle occurred.  General  Hooker,  who  had  almost  lost  his  sou- 
briquet of  "Fighting  Joe"  at  Chancellorsville,  regained  it  at 
Chattanooga.  Phil  Sheridan,  also,  led  in  a  brilliant  and  success- 
ful charge.  The  LTiion  flag  was  planted  on  the  summit  of  Look- 
out Mountain.  The  charge  upon  Missionary  Ridge  succeeded 
beyond  the  hope  of  the  commanding  general.  The  soldiers  had 
been  ordered  to  take  the  rifle  pits  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain, 
and  then  halt  and  re-form ;  but  in  the  ardor  of  their  success  they 
moved  on  up  the  slope,  captured  the  cannon  at  the  top,  and 
turned  them  upon  the  retreating  foe. 

This  victory,  when  it  occurred,  did  much  to  establish  confi- 
dence in  the  ultimate  success  of  the  LTnion  cause ;  but  success  was 


Courtesy  of  F.  H .  Meserve,  owner  of  the  Brady  negatives 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
Photograph  by  Brady,  February  g,  1864 


THE  DRAFT  RIOTS  241 

long  in  coming.     [Meantime,  sentiment  in  the  North  against  the 
war  was  not  diminishing. 

On  March  3,  1863,  a  bill  was  passed  for  the  enrollment  of  the 
entire  military  force  of  the  United  States.  The  passage  of  this 
law  was  promptly  followed  by  a  draft  of  three  hundred  thousand 
men.  There  had  been  a  time  earlier  in  the  war  when  such  a  call 
was  answered  with  enthusiasm.  Quotas  had  been  filled  rather 
promptly.  Volunteers  had-  offered  themselves,  singing  as  they 
came,  "We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred  thou- 
sand strong."  That  time  had  passed.  Three  hundred  thousand 
more  men  could  be  obtained  only  by  desperate  exertion.  The 
several  northern  states  paid  high  bounties  to  secure  their  quota, 
preferring  this  to  the  unpopular  method  of  draft.  The  bounty 
system  was  a  necessary  evil.  And  so,  also,  was  the  provision 
that  a  man  who  was  drafted  might  hire  a  substitute.* 


*It  became  more  or  less  popular  for  men  who  were  not  personally  liable 
to  military  service  to  hire  substitutes-  The  men  thus  hired  were  men  who 
had  not  been  drawn  in  the  draft-lottery,  and  who  were  ready,  for  a  sum  of 
money,  to  take  the  place  of  some  one  drafted,  but  who  preferred  not  to  go. 
In  this  way,  Grover  Cleveland,  later  president,  provided  a  substitute  when 
he  was  drafted;  and  Abraham  Lincoln,  himself  exempt,  hired  a  substitute, 
to  be  credited  to  the  lagging  quota  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  Whether 
Lincoln's  substitute  was  paid  or  whether  he  offered  himself  in  love  for  the 
president,  is  not  of  record.  Probably,  however,  Lincoln  paid  him  the  current 
honorarium,  if  it  may  be  so  called,  for  this  service.  The  grave  of  Lincoln's 
substitute  is  at  Shroudsburg,  Pennsylvania. 

The  man  who  represented  Lincoln  in  person  was  John  Summerfield  Staples, 
a  young  volunteer  from  Pennsylvania,  aged  about  twenty-one  years.  Having 
been  introduced  to  the  president,  this  young  man  signified  a  desire  to  fill  the 
honorable  position  as  his  substitute  and  Lincoln  gladly  accepted  him.  The 
evidence  of  the  employment  of  a  substitute  by  Lincoln,  is  contained  in  the 
following  official  statement  of  the  commissioner  of  pensions: 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  II,  iojo. 

"John  Summerfield  Staples,  residing  at  Stroudsburg,  Pa.,  filed  an  applica- 
tion for  pension  in  1882,  stating  that  in  the  Civil  War  he  had  served  in 
Company  C,  One  Hundred  and  Seventy-Sixth  Pennsylvania  Militia,  and 
afterwards  in  Company  H,  Second  District  of  Columbia  Infantry,  and  that 
in  his  second  enlistment  he  was  a  substitute  for  Abraham  Lincoln. 

"The  records  show  that  said  soldier  enlisted  November  2,  in  Company  C, 
One  Hundred  and  Seventy-Sixth  Pennsylvania  drafted  militia,  that  he  was 
honorably  discharged,  May  5,  1863,  and  that  he  afterwards  enlisted  April  3, 
1864,  in  Company  H,  Second  District  of  Columbia  Volunteers,  from  which 
he  was  honorably  discharged  at  Alexandria,  Va.,  September  12,  1865,  and  the 
record  also  shows  that  in  this  last  service  he  was  enrolled  as  a  representative 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  was  not  liable  to  draft. 

"It  is  shown  by  the  papers  on  file  in  this  case  that  during  the  war,  the 


242  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  United  States  learned  better  at  the  time  of  the  World 
War.  No  man  called  by  the  draft  could  buy  a  substitute  with 
money. 

In  New  York  City  in  the  summer  of  1863  a  riot  occurred.  On 
July  thirteenth,  attempts  to  enforce  the  draft  were  opposed  by  a 
mob.  The  office  of  the  marshal  having  charge  of  the  draft  was 
broken  into  and  set  on  fire.  The  mob  prevented  the  fire  depart- 
ment from  extinguishing  the  flame.  A  negro  orphan  asylum 
was  burned,  and  negroes  were  hung  from  lamp  posts. 

In  the  New  York  riots  the  conspicuous  leaders  of  the  mob 
were  Irishmen,  and  men  of  southern  birth.  Lincoln  was  com- 
pelled to  send  troops  to  New  York  to  quell  the  draft  riot,  and 
chose  General  Kilpatrick,  whose  name,  he  believed,  would  have 
influence  with  the  Irish.  The  mob  was  quelled,  and  order  was 
restored,  but  not  until  many  outrages  had  been  perpetrated.  Nor 
were  the  Irish  and  the  southerners  of  New  York  the  only  ones 
who  gave  to  this  disturbance  their  moral  support,  if  not  their 
active  participation.  Opposition  to  the  draft  was  widely  prev- 
alent and  very  powerful. 

At  this  juncture,  even  the  friends  of  the  administration  were 
greatly  distressed.  A  large  meeting  was  called  in  Illinois  for 
September  3,  1863.  All  friends  of  the  Union  of  all  parties  were 
invited  to  meet  at  the  capital  and  consider  the  grave  situation. 
A  communication  was  sent  to  Lincoln  from  his  old  neighbors 
inviting  him  to  attend  in  person  and  address  the  meeting.  Lin- 
coln could  not  go,  but  sent  a  letter  to  his  old  neighbor,  Honorable 
James  C.  Conkling,  to  be  read  at  the  meeting. 

This  letter  has  not  always  been  understood.  Its  tone  was  so 
earnest,  so  almost  severe,  it  has  been  thought  that  Lincoln  in- 


President  decided  that  he  would  place  in  the  army  a  substitute  to  the  credit 
of  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  that  he  communicated  his  desire  to  do  so  to 
the  provost  marshal  of  the  district,  with  a  request  that  he  select  the  person 
w  ho  should  be  placed  in  the  service,  and  that  the  provost  marshal  then  sent 
for  Xoble  D.  Larner,  then  a  prominent  citizen  of  this  city,  and  stated  to  him 
the  President's  wishes,  and  Mr.  Larner  afterwards  succeeded  in  getting  the 
substitute  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Staples,  and  he  was  afterwards  mustered  into 
the   service.  (Signed) 

"J-  L.  Davenport,  Commissioner." 


THE  DRAFT  RIOTS  243 

tended  to  censure  those  who  had  invited  him  to  be  present,  and 
that  he  possibly  meant  to  rebuke  the  man  to  whom  the  letter  was 
addressed.  There  is  no  ground  for  this  opinion,  nor  does  the 
letter  itself  give  color  to  it.  The  meeting  gave  Lincoln  the  op- 
portunity of  addressing  the  entire  country,  and  especially  those 
who  at  heart  believed  in  the  Union  but  were  perplexed  by  the 
trend  of  events. 

\Yhen  he  employs  the  second  person  and  says,  "You  say  that 
you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes ;  some  of  them  seem  willing  to 
fight  for  you,"  he  was  not  addressing  Conkling  or  his  own 
neighbors.  He  was  continuing,  after  a  digression,  his  address 
to  those  who  were  dissatisfied  with  him.  The  letter  is  a  manly 
and  straightforward  document,  and  shows  how  the  president 
whom  some  people  supposed  to  be  a  weak  and  pliable  man,  could 
be  and  was  inflexible  in  a  cause  which  he  believed  to  be  right. 

Lincoln's  personal  letter  to  Conkling,  which  accompanied  this 
official  communication,  contained  this  single  instruction,  "Read 
it  very  slowly." 

Executive  Mansion 

Washington,  August  26,   1863. 
Hon.  James  C.  Conkling. 

My  Dear  Sir :  Your  letter  inviting  me  to  attend  a  mass  meet- 
ing of  unconditional  Union  men,  to  be  held  at  the  capital  of  Ill- 
inois, on  the  3d  day  of  September,  has  been  received.  It  would 
be  very  agreeable  for  me  thus  to  meet  my  old  friends  at  my  own 
home;  but  I  cannot  just  now  be  absent  from  here  so  long  as  a 
visit  there  would  require. 

The  meeting  is  to  be  of  all  those  who  maintain  unconditional 
devotion  to  the  Union;  and  I  am  sure  that  my  old  political 
friends  will  thank  me  for  tendering,  as  I  do,  the  nation's  grati- 
tude to  those  other  noble  .men  whom  no  partisan  malice  or  par- 
tisan hope  can  make  false  to  the  nation's  life. 

There  are  those  who  are  dissatisfied  with  me.  To  such  I 
would  say:  You  desire  peace,  and  you  blame  me  that  we  do  not 
have  it.  But  how  can  we  attain  it?  There  are  but  three  con- 
ceivable ways :  First — to  suppress  the  rebellion  by  force  of  arms. 
This  I  am  trying  to  do.     Are  you  for  it?    If  you  are,  so  far  we 


244  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

are  agreed.  If  you  are  not  for  it,  a  second  way  is  to  give  up  the 
Union.  I  am  against  this.  Are  you  for  it?  If  you  are,  you 
should  say  so  plainly.  If  you  are  not  for  force,  nor  yet  for  dis- 
solution, there  only  remains  some  imaginable  compromise. 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  compromise  embracing  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  Union  is  now  possible.  All  that  I  learn  leads  to  a 
directly  opposite  belief.  The  strength  of  the  rebellion  is  its  mili- 
tary, its  army.  That  army  dominates  all  the  country,  and  all 
the  people  within  its  range.  Any  offer  of  terms  made  by  any 
man  or  men  within  that  range,  in  opposition  to  that  army,  is  sim- 
ply nothing  for  the  present ;  because  such  man  or  men  have  no 
power  whatever  to  enforce  their  side  of  a  compromise  if  one 
were  made  with  them. 

To  illustrate :  Suppose  refugees  from  the  South  and  peace  men 
of  the  North  get  together  in  convention,  and  frame  and  proclaim 
a  compromise  embracing  a  restoration  of  the  Union.  In  what 
way  can  that  compromise  be  used  to  keep  Lee's  army  out  of 
Pennsylvania?  Meade's  army  can  keep  Lee's  army  out  of 
Pennsylvania,  and,  I  think,  can  ultimately  drive  it  out  of  exist- 
ence. But  no  paper  compromise  to  which  the  controllers  of 
Lee's  army  are  not  agreed,  can  at  all  affect  that  army.  In  an  ef- 
fort at  such  compromise  we  would  waste  time,  which  the  enemy 
would  improve  to  our  disadvantage;  and  that  would  be  all. 

A  compromise,  to  be  effective,  must  be  made  either  with  those 
vho  control  the  rebel  army,  or  with  the  people,  first  liberated  from 
the  domination  of  that  army  by  the  success  of  our  own  army. 
Now,  allow  me  to  assure  you  that  no  word  or  intimation  from 
that  rebel  army,  or  from  any  of  the  men  controlling  it,  in  rela- 
tion of  any  peace  compromise,  has  ever  come  to  my  knowledge  or 
belief.  All  charges  and  insinuations  to  the  contrary  are  decep- 
tive and  groundless.  And  I  promise  you  that  if  any  such  prop- 
osition shall  hereafter  come,  it  shall  not  be  rejected  and  kept  a 
secret  from  you.  I  freely  acknowledge  myself  to  be  the  servant 
of  the  people,  according  to  the  bond  of  service,  the  United  States 
Constitution ;  and  that,  as  such,  I  am  responsible  to  them. 

But,  to  be  plain.  You  are  dissatisfied  with  me  about  the 
negro.  Quite  likely  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  between  you 
and  myself  upon  that  subject.  I  certainly  wish  that  all  men 
could  be  free,  while  you,  I  suppose,  do  not.  Yet,  I  have  neither 
adopted  nor  proposed  any  measure  which  is  not  consistent  with 
even  your  view,  provided  that  you  are  for  the  Union.  I  suggested 


THE  DRAFT  RIOTS  245 

compensated  emancipation ;  to  which  you  replied  you  wished  not 
to  be  taxed  to  buy  negroes.  But  I  had  not  asked  you  to  be  taxed 
to  buy  negroes,  except  in  such  a  way  as  to  save  you  from  greater 
taxation  to  save  the  Union  exclusively  by  other  means. 

You  dislike  the  emancipation  proclamation,  and  perhaps  would 
have  it  retracted.  You  say  it  is  unconstitutional.  I  think  dif- 
ferently. I  think  the  Constitution  invests  its  Commander-in- 
Chief  with  the  law  of  war  in  time  of  war.  The  most  that  can- 
be  said,  if  so  much,  is,  that  slaves  are  property.  Is  there,  has 
there  ever  been,  any  question  that  by  the  law  of  war,  property,  both 
of  enemies  and  friends,  may  be  taken  when  needed?  And  is  it  not 
needed  whenever  it  helps  ns  and  hurts  the  enemy?  Armies,  the 
world  over,  destroy  enemies'  property  when  they  cannot  use  it; 
and  even  destroy  their  own  to  keep  it  from  the  enemy.  Civilized 
belligerents  do  all  in  their  power  to  help  themselves  or  hurt  the 
enemy,  except  a  few  things  regarded  as  barbarous  or  cruel. 
Among  the  exceptions  are  the  massacre  of  vanquished  foes  and 
non-combatants,  male  and  female. 

But  the  proclamation,  as  law;,  either  is  valid  or  is  not  valid. 
If  it  is  not  valid,  it  needs  no  retraction.  If  it  is  valid,  it  cannot 
be  retracted,  any  more  than  the  dead  can  be  brought  to  life. 
Some  of  you  profess  to  think  its  retraction  would  operate  favor- 
ably for  the  Union.  Why  better  after  the  retraction  than  before 
the  issue?  There  was  more  than  a  year  and  a  half  of  trial  to 
suppress  the  rebellion  before  the  proclamation  was  issued,  the 
last  one  hundred  days  of  which  passed  under  an  explicit  notice 
that  it  was  coming,  unless  averted  by  those  in  revolt  returning 
to  their  allegiance.  The  war  has  certainly  progressed  as  favor- 
ably for  us  since  the  issue  of  the  proclamation  as  before. 

I  know  as  fully  as  one  can  know  the  opinion  of  others,  that 
some  of  the  commanders  of  our  armies  in  the  field,  who  have 
given  us  our  most  important  victories,  believe  the  emancipation 
policy  and  the  use  of  colored  troops  constitute  the  heaviest  blows 
yet  dealt  to  the  rebellion,  and  that  at  least  one  of  those  important 
successes  could  not  have  been  achieved  when  it  was,  but  for  the 
aid  of  the  black  soldiers. 

Among  the  commanders  who  hold  these  views  are  some  who 
have  never  had  an  affinity  with  what  is  called  "abolitionism,"  or 
with  "republican  party  politics,"  but  who  hold  them  purely  as 
military  opinions.  I  submit  their  opinions  as  entitled  to  some 
weight  against  the  objections  often  urged  that  emancipation  and 


246  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

arming  the  blacks  are  unwise  as  military  measures,  and  were  not 
adopted  as  such  in  good  faith. 

You  say  that  you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes.  Some  of  them 
seem  willing  to  fight  for  you ;  but  no  matter.  Fight  you.  then, 
exclusively  to  save  the  Union.  I  issued  the  proclamation  on 
purpose  to  aid  you  in  saving  the  Union.  Whenever  you  shall 
have  conquered  all  resistance  to  the  Union,  if  I  shall  urge  you  to 
continue  fighting,  it  will  be  an  apt  time  then  for  you  to  declare 
you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes.  I  thought  that  in  your  strug- 
gle for  the  Union,  to  whatever  extent  the  negroes  shall  cease 
helping  the  enemy,  to  that  extent  it  weakened  the  enemy  jn  his 
resistance  to  you.  Do  you  think  differently?  I  thought  what- 
ever negroes  can  be  got  to  do  as  soldiers,  leaves  just  so  much  less 
for  white  soldiers  to  do  in  saving  the  Union.  Does  it  appear 
otherwise  to  you?  But  negroes,  like  other  people,  act  upon 
motives.  Why  should  they  do  anything  for  us  if  we  will  do 
nothing  for  them?  If  they  stake  their  lives  for  us,  they  must  be 
prompted  by  the  strongest  motives,  even  the  promise  of  freedom. 
And  the  promise,  being  made,  must  be  kept. 

The  signs  look  better.  The  Father  of  Waters  again  goes  un- 
vexed  to  the  sea.  Thanks  to  the  great  Northwest  for  it;  nor  yet 
wholly  to  them.  Three  hundred  miles  up  they  met  New  Eng- 
land, Empire,  Keystone,  and  Jersey,  hewing  their  way  right  and 
left.  The  sunny  South,  too,  in  more  colors  than  one,  also  lent  a 
helping  hand.  On  the  spot,  their  part  of  the  history  was  jotted 
down  in  black  and  white.  The  job  was  a  great  national  one, 
and  let  none  be  slighted  who  bore  an  honorable  part  in  it.  And 
while  those  who  have  cleared  the  great  river  may  well  be  proud, 
even  that  is  not  all.  It  is  hard  to  say  that  anything  has  been 
more  bravely  and  well  done  than  at  Antietam,  Murfreesboro, 
Gettysburg,  and  on  many  fields  of  less  note.  Nor  must  Uncle 
Sam's  web  feet  be  forgotten.  At  all  the  watery  margins  they 
have  been  present,  not  only  on  the  deep  sea,  the  broad  bay,  and 
the  rapid  river,  but  also  up  the  narrow,  muddy  bayou,  and 
wherever  the  ground  was  a  little  damp,  they  have  been  and  made 
their  tracks.  Thanks  to  all.  For  the  great  Republic — for  the 
principle  it  lives  by  and  keeps  alive — for  man's  vast  future — 
thanks  to  all. 

Peace  does  not  appear  so  distant  as  it  did.  I  hope  it  will  come 
soon  and  come  to  stay;  and  so  come  as  to  be  worth  the  keeping 
in  all  future  time.     It  will  then  have  been  proved  that  among 


THE  DRAFT  RIOTS  247 

freemen  there  can  be  no  successful  appeal  from  the  ballot  to  the 
bullet,  and  that  they  who  take  such  appeal  are  sure  to  lose  their 
case  and  pay  the  cost.  And  there  will  be  some  black  men  who 
can  remember  that  with  silent  tongue,  and  clenched  teeth,  and 
steady  eye,  and  well-poised  bayonet,  they  have  helped  mankind 
on  to  this  great  consummation,  while  I  fear  there  will  be  some 
white  ones  unable  to  forget  that  with  malignant  heart  and  de- 
ceitful speech  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it. 

Still,  let  us  not  be  over-sanguine  of  a  speedy,  final  triumph. 
Let  us  be  quite  sober.  Let  us  diligently  apply  the  means,  never 
doubting  that  a  just  God,  in  his  own  good  time,  will  give  us  the 
rightful  result. 

Yours,  very  truly,  A.  Lincoln. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  congressional  and  guberna- 
torial election  of  1862,  a  strong  reaction  against  Lincoln  had 
been  manifest  throughout  the  Xorth.  In  the  autumn  of  1863 
several  states  elected  governors.  Greatly  to  Lincoln's  satisfac- 
tion these  elections  showed  a  trend  of  sentiment  favorable  to  the 
administration.  Every  state  in  which  elections  were  held,  ex- 
cept Xew  Jersey,  gave  large  majorities  for  the  administration. 
The  result  was  peculiarly  gratifying  in  Ohio.  There  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  had  nominated  for  governor  Clement  L.  Yallandig- 
ham.  His  disloyalty  made  him  a  national  figure  and  of  him  the 
nation  had  heard  and  yet  was  to  hear  much.  Ohio  in  1863  sus- 
tained the  president  and  defeated  Yallandigham  by  a  majority 
of  almost  one  hundred  thousand. 

This  election  and  the  victories  around  Chattanooga  were 
bright  spots  in  a  sky  greatly  darkened.  Lincoln  still  had  much 
to  perplex  and  dishearten  him. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

JUSTICE    AND    MERCY 

Robert  G.  Ingersoll  characterized  Abraham  Lincoln  as  "a 
man  clothed  with  almost  absolute  power,  who  never  abused  it  ex- 
cept on  the  side  of  mercy."  That  mercy,  Lincoln  had  abundant 
occasion  to  exercise. 

As  the  war  went  on,  it  became  necessary  for  the  army  to  en- 
force its  discipline  by  punishments  against  its  own  soldiers  who 
were  guilty  of  crimes  or  misdemeanors.  Not  all  soldiers  were 
patriots.  Many  a  man  reached  the  recruiting  officer  about  two 
leaps  ahead  of  the  sheriff.  Not  a  few  men  in  jail  for  misde- 
meanors and  even  for  criminal  offenses  were  pardoned  on  con- 
dition that  they  enter  the  army.  War  itself  produces  criminals. 
It  teaches  men  to  disregard  their  own  word  and  other  men's, 
property  and  life.  There  is  no  crime  in  the  calendar  which  is 
not  committed  by  soldiers  in  every  war. 

In  general  these  crimes  were  punished  with  no  more  than 
necessary  severity;  and,  when  there  were  mitigating  circum- 
stances, officers  well  below  the  president  were  willing  and  com- 
petent to  consider  them.  Only  a  very  small  fraction  of  the  cases 
of  punishment  came  to  his  desk.  It  was  only  when,  all  other 
appeals  having  been  found  futile,  and  usually  for  just  cause,  a 
sentence  was  to  be  carried  into  effect,  the  friends  of  guilty  men 
appealed  to  the  president  for  pardon.  The  very  fact  that  appeal 
was  taken  to  him  is  proof  presumptive  that  the  accused  had  ex- 
hausted all  ordinary,  and  probably  reasonable,  efforts  to  secure 
pardon.  It  is  little  wonder  that  when  Lincoln  interfered  in  these 
usually    flagrant    cases,    generals    in    command    protested,    and 

248 


JUSTICE  AND  MERCY  249 

Stanton  stormed.  The  president  was  breaking  down  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  army. 

"I  know  it,  but  I  don't  see  that  shooting  him  would  do  any 
good,"  Lincoln  would  say. 

He  sincerely  pitied  the  man  who  was  found  guilty  of  coward- 
ice. Lincoln  was  accustomed  to  say  that  he  was  not  sure  but 
that  he  himself  would  run  if  he  were  placed  in  the  front  in  battle. 

It  is  but  fair  to  say  concerning  some  of  the  stories  of  Lincoln's 
alleged  clemency,  that  so  far  as  is  known  they  are  not  true. 

The  attitude  of  Abraham  Lincoln  toward  the  undeserving  is 
entitled  to  more  careful  and  discriminating  treatment  than  it 
usually  receives.  Two  natures  strove  within  him.  On  the  one 
hand,  he  had  a  keen  sense  of  justice,  and  a  high  regard  for  law 
and  order.  The  deliberate  violator  of  law  deserved  punishment, 
and  society  required  for  its  protection  that  he  be  punished.  So 
Abraham  Lincoln  believed ;  but  he  also  had  high  regard  for  the 
welfare  of  the  man  who  had  broken  the  law.  When  he  became 
president,  no  burden  rested  more  heavily  upon  him  than  the  fact 
that  in  certain  cases  he  had  either  to  accept  the  judgment  of 
courts  sentencing  soldiers  to  be  shot,  or  to  interfere  in  their 
behalf. 

Lincoln  was  a  man  of  deep  sympathy,  but  his  sympathy  had  a 
certain  well-defined  limitation.  He  felt  sympathy  where  he  could 
see  or  visualize  the  personal  sorrow  that  was  caused  by  an  act  or 
condition.  What  was  out  of  sight  was  more  or  less  out  of 
mind.  Lincoln  was  always  able  to  visualize  the  case  of  the  indi- 
vidual soldier  and  of  his  family.  He  could  see  the  woman  in 
black  before  him,  declaring  that  her  husband  or  elder  son  had 
lost  his  life  on  the  battle-field,  and  that  now  her  youngest  son, 
her  baby,  was  sentenced  to  be  shot  for  some  wholly  technical 
offense.  Lincoln  had  little  time  to  investigate  and  it  is  to  be 
feared  that  in  some  cases  the  alleged  widow  had  rented  the  black 
clothes  for  the  occasion,  and  had  help  in  inventing  the  fiction 
about  her  family. 

In  cases  of  this  character  Lincoln   was   very  easily  imposed 


250  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

upon,  and  the  imposture  was  to  the  great  detriment  of  the  serv- 
ice. In  the  long  run  it  had  been  better  for  the  discipline  of  the 
army  if  he  had  kept  his  hands  off  except  in  cases  where  the  miti- 
gating circumstances  were  more  pronounced  than  was  usually 
the  case. 

Literature  since  the  war  has  been  rather  full  of  stories  of  the 
pardons  issued  by  Lincoln.  One  of  them,  particularly,  the  case 
of  William  Scott,  of  Vermont,  has  become  the  occasion  of  much 
oratory  and  literature.  It' comes  to  us  on  the  authority  of  Hon- 
orable L.  E.  Chittenden,  who  was  register  of  the  treasury  from 
1861  till  1865.  According  to  this  story,  Scott,  a  private  in  a 
Vermont  regiment,  volunteered  to  act  as  sentinel  in  place  of  a 
friend  who  was  sick,  and  so  was  awake  all  night,  the  first  time 
in  his  life.  On  the  very  next  night  he  himself  was  called  out  to 
act  as  sentinel.  On  this  second  night  he  went  to  sleep  at  his 
post.  His  commanding  officer,  General  W.  F.  Smith,  known 
to  the  soldiers  as  "Baldy"  felt  that  the  sentence  of  the  court- 
martial  must  be  inflicted,  and  that  sentence  was  death.  Some 
of  his  comrades  went  to  Chittenden,  who  was  a  Vermonter,  and 
offered  to  hire  him  as  an  attorney  to  plead  the  case  of  Scott  in 
an  appeal  to  the  president.  Chittenden  refused  their  money,  but 
went  with  them  to  Lincoln,  who  pardoned  the  boy.  Scott  became 
a  more  than  ordinarily  faithful  and  brave  soldier  and  died  nobly 
in  battle. 

Mr.  Chittenden,  while  in  ordinary  matters  a  truthful  man, 
was  a  very  unreliable  historian.  Charles  Francis  Adams  had 
occasion  to  review  one  incident  recorded  by  Mr.  Chittenden,  to 
discover  the  "residuum"  of  truth  in  it.  When  Mr.  Adams  had 
done  with  it,  the  "residuum"  was  about  as  great  as  the  speck  of 
soapy  water  that  remains  after  the  pricking  of  a  soap  bubble.* 
Not  that  Mr.  Chittenden  was  the  greatest  liar  in  Washington; 
he  was  not.     But  he  was  one  of  many  men  who  colored  their 


*See  Mr.  Adams'  paper  on  The  Laird  Rams  in  Proceedings  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society,  October,  1899;  reprinted  with  changes  in  his 
Studies  Military  and  Diplomatic,  MacMillan,   191 1. 


JUSTICE  AND  MERCY  251 

memories  with  their  imagination  until  their  accounts  became 
wholly  unsafe  as  historical  data. 

It  would  be  interesting-  to  know  whether  any  soldier  was 
actually  shot  to  death  during  the  Civil  War  for  going  to  sleep 
on  guard  duty.  Thus  far  the  War  Department  has  not  found 
any  such  case.  During  the  World  War,  though  there  were  con- 
victions, no  soldier  was  actually  shot  for  this  offense.  The  Mili- 
tary Law  of  the  United  States  does  not  permit  the  extreme 
penalty  for  this  offense  in  time  of  peace,  though  at  any  time  it  is 
a  grave  offense ;  but  it  is  a  penalty  permitted,  though  rarely  im- 
posed, in  time  of  war.*  It  would  appear  quite  improbable  that 
a  capital  sentence  should  have  been  imposed  where  there  wer2 
so  many  and  such  mitigating  circumstances  as  are  assembled  in 
the  popular  story  of  William  Scott.  The  record  does  not  show 
that  Scott  offered  in  his  own  defense  any  such  evidence.  Ap- 
parently he  was  not  required  to  stay  awake  all  night,  much  less 
two  successive  nights.  He  was  one  of  three  men  stationed  at  a 
given  point,  dividing  the  night  into  three  watches.  Between 
three  and  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  officer  of  the  guard 
found  all  three  asleep.  There  was  no  dispute  as  to  the  facts. 
Scott,  having  had  two-thirds  of  a  night's  sleep,  and  being 
charged  with  responsibility  for  an  important  post,  went  to  sleep 
on  duty.  His  two  companions  had  a  right  to  sleep.  He  was  the 
guilty  man.  The  prisoner,  though  he  pleaded  "Not  guilty,"  of- 
fered no  defense  and  produced  no  witnesses.  Apparently  there 
were  no  mitigating  circumstances.  The  rules  of  war  provide 
that  "The  fact  that  the  accused  had  been  previously  overtaxed 
by  excessive  guard  duty  is  not  a  defense,  although  evidence  to 
that  effect  may  be  received  in  extenuation  of  the  offense."  Ap- 
parently there  was  no  such  evidence,  except  such  as  was  later 
manufactured  by  sentimental  authors  for  the  benefit  of  posterity. 

Who  pardoned  the  prisoner  or  mitigated  the  sentence  does  not 
appear  of  record.     There  is  no  evidence  that  Lincoln  ever  knew 


*See  the  Eighty-Sixth  Article  of  the  Manual  for  Courts  Martial,  p.  24: 
Government  Printing  Office. 


252  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  the  case,  though  he  may  have  done  so.  If  any  such  case  came 
to  his  knowledge,  with  such  mitigating  circumstances,  it  is  easy 
to  guess  what  he  would  have  done. 

What  we  know  is  that  Scott  did  not  die.  The  sentence  of 
death  was  pronounced,  and  may  have  had  its  salutary  effect 
upon  sleepy  young  Vermonters ;  but  he  did  not  die.  A  petition 
was  signed  by  officers  and  privates  of  his  regiment,  this  petition 
being  addressed  to  General  Smith.  Whether  he  or  some  supe- 
rior officer  or  the  president  pardoned  Scott,  or  whether  the  sen- 
tence was  mitigated,  is  not  of  record.  The  fact  we  know  is  that 
whoever  exercised  mercy  in  this  case  appears  to  have  been  justi- 
fied. William  Scott,  a  native  of  Groton,  Vermont,  enrolled  as 
a  private  in  Company  K,  Third  Vermont  Regiment,  was  shot  in 
the  chest  in  the  battle  at  Lee's  Mills,  in  the  vicinity  of  Yorktown, 
Virginia,  April  16,  1862,  and  died  on  the  following  day.  Per- 
haps Lincoln  pardoned  him  ;  he  pardoned  many  men  less  worthy. 
It  is  much  more  likely  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  appeal  to 
Lincoln;  if  his  pardon  had  been  by  the  president,  some  record 
should  be  available.  We  do  not  know.  Mr.  Chittenden  was  a 
truthful  man  and  a  lawyer  of  experience,  but  he  was  a  very  in- 
accurate historian. 

The  adjutant  general  of  the  army  writes : 

Nothing  has  been  found  of  record  to  show  that  President  Lin- 
coln pardoned  a  Vermont  soldier  named  William  Scott  sentenced 
to  die  for  the  offense  of  sleeping  on  post. 

It  is  possible  that  a  pardon  for  such  an  offense  may  have  been 
granted  by  President  Lincoln  in  one  or  more  cases,  [of  sleeping 
on  duty]  but  in  the  absence  of  the  name  of  the  soldier  it  would 
probably  be  impracticable  to  identify  the  record  thereof. 

A  record  has  been  found  of  the  pardon  by  President  Lincoln 
of  a  private  of  Company  E,  3rd  Regiment  New  York  Infantry 
Volunteers,  who  had  been  found  guilty  by  a  general  court  mar- 
tial, sitting  at  Fort  Monroe,  Virginia,  in  October,  1862,  of 
sleeping  on  post,  and  sentenced  to  forfeiture  of  pay  and  allow- 
ances and  confinement  at  hard  labor  for  the  term  of  one  year. 
The  President,  on  January  3,   1863,  ordered  the  case  examined 


JUSTICE  AXD  MERCY  253 

for  mitigating  circumstances,  and  on  February  28,  1863.  ordered 
that  the  part  of  the  sentence  remaining  unexecuted  be  remitted. 
The  directions  issued  in  the  case  by  President  Lincoln  are  in  his 
handwriting. 

It  is  shown  that  this  soldier  was  subsequently  honorably  dis- 
charged. Nothing  is  found  to  show  that  he  was  afterwards  killed. 

Usually,  a  soldier  sentenced  to  be  shot,  had  against  him  some 
charge  more  serious  than  going  to  sleep  on  sentry  duty.  Per- 
haps the  most  frequent  charge  was  desertion.  Bounty  jumping 
became  a  very  profitable  vocation,  and  was  indulged  in  by  liter- 
ally thousands  of  men,  who  accepted  pay  for  enlisting,  and  on 
the  first  convenient  occasion  deserted,  and  promptly  accepted  pay 
for  enlisting  again  under  some  other  name  in  some  other  regi- 
ment, and  then  deserting  again.  Xot  many  men  were  shot  f<  >r 
merely  getting  homesick  and  running  away ;  they  were  punished 
by  imprisonment  or  loss  of  pay,  and  given  hard  and  perhaps  peri- 
lous duty.  Xow  and  then  a  deserter  was  sentenced  to  be  shot, 
and  in  some  extreme  cases,  deserters  were  shot. 

Xow  and  then  a  deserter,  facing  the  practical  certainty  of  ar- 
rest for  his  offense,  hastened  to  the  White  House  and  was  for- 
tunate if  he  got  there  ahead  of  the  officers  of  justice.  The  fol- 
lowing letter*  is  not  known  to  have  been  published : 

Executive  Mansion 

Washington,  Feb.  24,   1865. 
To-day  H —  H —  voluntarily  calls  under  apprehension  of  being 
punished  as  a  deserter.     Now  on  condition  that  he  serves  out  his 
term  Co.  A  in  50th  New  York  Engineers,  he  is  fully  pardoned 
for  any  supposed  desertion. 

A.  Lincoln. 

Romancers  are  under  strong  temptation  to  invent  a  sequel  to 
such  stories  and  to  show  how  the  men  pardoned  died  bravely  on 
the  field  of  battle.  To  the  right  of  the  main  corridor,  just  in 
front  of  the  entrance  of  the  Xational  Museum  in  Washington  is 


:From  the  original  in  the  collection  of  Oliver  R.  Barrett,  Chicago. 


254  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

a  facsimile  of  a  letter  from  Lincoln  pardoning  a  deserter.  The 
letter  is  genuine ;  not  so  the  appended  note  which  tells  that  this 
letter  was  found  on  the  body  of  the  soldier  to  whom  Lincoln 
gave  it.     That  letter  follows : 

Executive  Mansion 

Washington,  Oct.  4,  1864. 
Upon  condition  that  Roswell  Mclntyre  of  Co.  E.  6th  Regt.  of 
New  York  Cavalry  returns  to  his  Regiment  and  faithfully  serves 
out  his  term,  making  up  for  lost  time,  or  until  otherwise  lawfully 
discharged,  he  is  fully  pardoned  for  any  supposed  desertion  here- 
tofore committed  ;  and  this  paper  is  his  pass  to*  go  to  his  regiment. 

Abraham  Lincoln. 
This  note  accompanies  the  letter: 

Taken  from  the  body  of  R.  Mclntyre  at  the  battle  of  Five 
Forks,  Va.,    1865. 

That  appended  note  is  untrue.  Roswell  Mclntyre  was  not 
killed  in  the  battle  of  Five  Forks,  or  in  any  other  battle  of  the 
Civil  War. 

How  seriously  the  army  was  suffering  on  account  of  deser- 
tions, Lincoln  perhaps  realized  better  after  a  visit  to  McClellan's 
army  in  June  of  1862,  for  on  his  return  to  Washington,  he 
wrote  to  McClellan  under  date  of  July  13,  1862: 

My  dear  sir:  I  am  told  that  over  160,000  men  have  gone 
into  your  army  on  the  Peninsula.  When  I  was  with  you  the 
other  day,  we  made  out  86,500  remaining,  leaving  73,500  to  be 
accounted  for.  I  believe  23,500  will  cover  all  the  killed, 
wounded,  and  missing  in  all  your  battles  and  skirmishes,  leav- 
ing 50,000  who  have  left  otherwise.  Not  more  than  5,000  of 
these  have  died,  leaving  45,000  of  your  army  alive  and  not  with 
it.  I  believe  half  or  two-thirds  of  them  are  fit  for  duty  to-day. 
Have  you  any  more  perfect  knowledge  of  this  than  I  have?  If  I 
am  right,  and  you  had  these  men  with  you,  you  could  go  into 
Richmond  in  the  next  three  days.  How  can  they  be  got  to  you, 
and  how  can  they  be  prevented  from  getting  away  in  such  num- 
bers for  the  future? 

A.  Lincoln. 


JUSTICE  AND  MERCY  255 

Lincoln  pardoned  some  guilty  soldiers  just  because  they  were 
young-.  "His  mother  says  he  is  but  seventeen,"  was  his  reason 
in  one  case.  "I  am  unwilling  for  any  boy  under  eighteen  to  be 
shot/'  he  telegraphed  in  another  case. 

He  found  it  very  difficult  to  resist  the  appeal  of  women.  If 
there  were  no  places  in  Washington  where  they  rented  widow's 
clothes  and  attractive  babies  to  women  who  wanted  to  make  ap- 
peals to  the  president,  an  abundant  supply  was  obtainable  and 
was  used  persistently.  Lincoln  was  not  unaware  of  his  weak* 
ness  when  women  made  their  appeal  to  him. 

Donn  Piatt,  one  of  the  brightest  newspaper  writers  in-  the 
country,  told  a  good  story  in  regard  to  the  president's  refusal 
to  sanction  the  death  penalty  in  cases  of  desertion  from  the 
Union  Army. 

'There  was  far  more  policy  in  this  course,"  said  Piatt,  "than 
kind  feeling.  To  assert  the  contrary  is  to  detract  from  Lincoln's 
force  of  character,  as  well  as  intellect.  Our  war-president  was 
not  lost  in  his  high  admiration  of  brigadiers  and  major  gen- 
erals, and  had  a  positive  dislike  for  their  methods  and  the  des- 
potism upon  which  an  army  is  based.  He  knew  that  he  was  de- 
pendent upon  volunteers  for  soldiers,  and  to  force  upon  such 
men  as  those  the  stern  discipline  of  the  Regular  Army  was  to 
render  the  service  unpopular.  And  it  pleased  him  to  be  the 
source  of  mercy,  as  well  as  the  fountain  of  honor,  in  this  direc- 
tion. 

"I  was  sitting  with  General  Dan  Tyler,  of  Connecticut,  in  the 
ante-chamber  of  the  War  Department,  shortly  after  the  adjourn- 
ment of  the  Buell  Court  of  Inquiry,  of  which  we  had  been  mem- 
bers, when  President  Lincoln  came  in  from  the  room  of  Secretary 
Stanton.  Seeing  us,  he  said:  'Well,  gentlemen,  have  you  any 
matter  worth  reporting?' 

"  T  think  so,  Mr.  President,'  replied  General  Tyler.  'We  had 
it  proven  that  Bragg,  with  less  than  ten  thousand  men,  drove 
your  eighty-three  thousand  men  under  Buell  back  from  before 
Chattanooga,  down  to  the  Ohio  at  Louisville,  marched  around 


256  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

us  twice,  then  doubled  us  up  at  Perryville,  and  finally  got  out  of 
the  state  of  Kentucky  with  all  his  plunder.' 

'  'Now,  Tyler/  returned  the  president,  'what  is  the  meaning 
of  all  this ;  what  is  the  lesson  ?  Don't  our  men  march  as  well, 
and  fight  as  well,  as  these  rebels?  If  not,  there  is  a  fault  some- 
where.    We  are  all  of  the  same  family — same  sort.' 

"  'Yes,  there  is  a  lesson,'  replied  General  Tyler;  'we  are  of  the 
same  sort,  but  subject  to  different  handling.  Bragg's  little  force 
was  superior  to  our  larger  number  because  he  had  it  under  con- 
trol. If  a  man  left  his  ranks,  he  was  punished;  if  he  deserted, 
he  was  shot.  We  had  nothing  of  that  sort.  If  we  attempt  to 
shoot  a  deserter  you  pardon  him,  and  our  army  is  without  dis- 
cipline.' 

"The  president  looked  perplexed.  'Why  do  you  interfere?' 
continued  General  Tyler.  'Congress  has  taken  from  you  all  re- 
sponsibility.' 

"  'Yes,'  answered  the  president  impatiently,  'Congress  has 
taken  the  responsibility  and  left  the  women  to  howl  all  about  me,' 
and  so  he  strode  away." 

Lincoln  had  sympathy  for  the  deserter,  when  his  offense  was 
induced  by  homesickness ;  and  he  pardoned  every  man  for  whom 
he  could  find  an  excuse,  and  some  for  whom  there  was  no  ex- 
cuse. How  many  such  men  he  pardoned,  the  War  Department 
does  not  know;  but  the  number  was  large.  Was  it  too  large? 
For  the  sake  of  military  discipline,  it  was  far  too  large ;  but  Lin- 
coln's heart  told  him  there  were  other  and  valid  considerations. 
Perhaps,  under  the  circumstances,  it  was  better  that  Lincoln 
should  have  abused  his  great  power  on  the  side  of  mercy. 

The  actual  number  of  desertions  from  the  United  States  Army 
during  the  Civil  War  is  unknown,  but  it  has  been  estimated, 
from  the  best  data  obtainable,  that  the  number  of  actual  de- 
serters at  large  at  the  close  of  that  war  (making  due  allowance 
for  those  incorrectly  reported  as  deserters)  was  117,247,  and 
that  the  total  number  of  desertions  during  the  war  was  not  less 
than  200,000. 


JUSTICE  AND  MERCY  257 

Many  cases  of  desertion  have  been  removed  by  the  War  De- 
partment under  the  acts  of  July  5,  1884,  May  17,  1886.  and 
March  2,  1889,  and  the  acts  amendatory  thereof  on  the  ground 
of  error  in  the  record.  Xo  record  has  been  kept  showing-  the 
number  of  cases  in  which  the  charges  of  desertion  have  been  re- 
moved by  the  War  Department,  and  it  would  be  impossible  to 
determine  the  number,  even  approximately,  without  examining 
in  detail  the  records  of  the  Department  from  the  war  period  to 
the  present  time. 

According  to  the  most  recently  compiled  official  statistics  on 
deaths  in  the  United  States  Army  during  the  Civil  War,  a  total 
of  267  soldiers  was  executed  by  the  United  States  military 
authorities.  How  many  of  those  267  men  were  sentenced  to 
death  as  the  result  of  their  conviction  under  a  charge  of  deser- 
tion is  not  known,  no  attempt  having  ever  been  made  by  the  De- 
partment to  classify  those  cases  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
charges  preferred. 

The  War  Department  is  unable  to  state  to  what  extent  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  intervened  to  save  the  lives  of  convicted  deserters 
who  had  been  sentenced  to  die,  no  data  having  ever  been  gath- 
ered by  the  Department  bearing  upon  the  subject.  His  procla- 
mation of  March  10,  1863,  respecting  soldiers  absent  without 
leave  must  have  saved  thousands  of  men  from  the  stigma  of  be- 
ing classed  as  deserters,  some  of  them,  doubtless,  also  from 
conviction  and  execution.  In  that  proclamation,  after  command- 
ing all  soldiers  then  absent  from  their  regiments  without  leave 
to  return  to  their  commands,  he  continued  as  follows : 

And  I  do  hereby  declare  and  proclaim,  that  all  soldiers  now 
absent  from  their  respective  regiments  without  leave,  who  shall, 
on  or  before  the  first  day  of  April,  1863,  report  themselves  at 
any  rendezvous  designated  by  the  General  Orders  of  the  War 
Department  number  fifty-eight,  hereto  annexed,  may  be  re- 
stored to  their  respective  regiments  without  punishment,  ex- 
cept the  forfeiture  of  pay  and  allowances  during  their  absence; 
and  all  who  do  not  return  within  the  time  above  specified  shall  be 
arrested  as  deserters,  and  punished  as  the  law  provides. 


258  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  the  matter  of  Lincoln's  sympathy  for  women  and  of  his 
sometimes  making-  mistakes,  the  famous  letter  to  Mrs.  Lydia 
Bixby  is  an  illustration,  though  in  that  case  the  prime  respon- 
sibility for  the  mistake  rested  not  upon  Lincoln  but  upon  Gov- 
ernor John  A.  Andrew,  of  Massachusetts.  Mrs.  Bixby  had,  in- 
deed, five  sons,  but  not  all  of  them  were  in  the  army,  and  not 
all  of  those  that  were  in  the  army  were  killed;  it  is  just  possible 
that  one  or  more  of  them  deserved  to  be  killed.  The  letter  grew 
out  of  a  mistaken  knowledge  of  the  facts.  But  the  mistake  con- 
cerning the  facts,  while  it  diminishes  the  honor  of  some  mem- 
bers of  the  Bixby  family,  detracts  nothing  from  the  noble  and 
sympathetic  spirit  of  Abraham  Lincoln : 

Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  November  21,  1864. 
Mrs.  Bixby,  Boston,  Massachusetts. 

Dear  Madam :  I  have  been  shown  in  the  files  of  the  War  De- 
partment a  statement  of  the  Adjutant-General  of  Massachusetts 
that  you  are  the  mother  of  five  sons  who  have  died  gloriously 
on  the  field  of  battle.  I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be 
any  words  of  mine  which  should  attempt  to  beguile  you  from 
the  grief  of  a  loss  so  overwhelming.  But  I  cannot  refrain  from 
tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that  may  be  found  in  the  thanks 
of  the  Republic  they  died  to  save.  I  pray  that  our  heavenly 
P'ather  may  assuage  the  anguish  of  your  bereavement,  and 
leave  you  only  the  cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and 
the  solemn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly  a  sac- 
rifice on  the  altar  of  freedom. 

Yours  very  sincerely  and  respectfully, 

Abraham  Lincoln. 

Lincoln  was  not  the  only  tender-hearted  man  in  Washington, 
and  some  men  who  came  to  know  of  cases  that  appealed  to 
their  sympathies  conspired  to  help  women  in  their  approach  to 
Lincoln.  One  of  the  stories  told,  it  is  said  by  John  Sherman, 
may  indicate  that  General  Sherman's  brother  had  as  tender  a 
heart  toward  women  as  Lincoln  had,  or  for  that  matter.  Gen- 
eral Sherman  himself : 

Senator  Sherman  had  an  appointment  with  President  Lincoln  . 


JUSTICE  AXD  MERCY  259 

at  six  o'clock  one  afternoon,  and  as  he  entered  the  vestibule  of 
the  White  House  his  attention  was  attracted  toward  a  poorly 
clad  young  woman,  who  was  violently  sobbing.  He  asked  her 
the  cause  of  her  distress.  She  said  she  had  been  ordered  away 
by  the  servants,  after  vainly  waiting  many  hours  to  see  the 
president  about  her  only  brother,  who  had  been  condemned  to 
death.     Her  story  was  this  : 

She  and  her  brother  were  foreigners,  and  orphans.  They  had 
been  in  this  country  several  years.  Her  brother  enlisted  in  the 
army,  but,  through  bad  influences,  was  induced  to  desert.  He 
was  captured,  tried  and  sentenced  to  be  shot — the  old  story. 

The  poor  girl  had  obtained  the  signatures  of  some  persons 
who  had  formerly  known  him,  to  a  petition  for  a  pardon,  and 
alone  had  come  to  Washington  to  lay  the  case  before  the  presi- 
dent. Thronged  as  the  waiting-rooms  always  were,  she  had 
passed  the  long  hours  of  two  days  trying  in  vain  to  get  an  audi- 
ence, and  had  at  length  been  ordered  away. 

Senator  Sherman's  feelings  were  touched.  He  said  to  her 
that  he  had  come  to  see  the  president,  but  did  not  know  if  he 
would  succeed.  He  told  her,  however,  to  follow  him  up-stairs, 
and  he  would  see  what  could  be  done  for  her. 

Just  before  reaching  the  door,  Mr.  Lincoln  came  out,  and, 
meeting  the  senator,  said  good-humoredly,  ''Are  you  not  ahead 
of  time?"  Sherman  showed  him  his  watch,  with  the  hand  upon 
the  hour  of  six. 

"Well,"  returned  Mr.  Lincoln,  "I  have  been  so  busy  to-day 
that  I  have  not  had  time  to  get  a  lunch.  Go  in  and  sit  down ;  I 
will  be  back  directly." 

Senator  Sherman  made  the  young  woman  accompany  him 
into  the  office,  and  when  they  were  seated,  said  to  her:  "Now. 
my  good  girl.  I  want  you  to  muster  all  the  courage  you  have  in 
the  world.  When  the  president  comes  back,  he  will  sit  down  in 
that  armchair.  I  shall  get  up  to  speak  to  him.  and  as  I  do  so 
you  must  force  yourself  between  us.  and  insist  upon  his  exam- 
ination of  your  papers,  telling  him  it  is  a  case  of  life  and  death, 
and  admits  of  no  delav." 


260  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

These  instructions  were  carried  out  to  the  letter.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  at  first  somewhat  surprised  at  the  apparent  forward- 
ness of  the  young  woman,  but  observing  her  distressed 
appearance,  he  ceased  conversation  with  Senator  Sherman,  and 
commenced  an  examination  of  the  document  she  had  placed  in  his 
hands. 

Glancing  from  it  to  the  face  of  the  petitioner,  whose  tears  had 
broken  forth  afresh,  he  studied  its  expression  for  a  moment,  and 
then  his  eye  fell  upon  her  scanty  but  neat  dress.  Instantly  his 
face  lighted  up. 

"My  poor  girl,"  said  he,  "you  have  come  here  with  no  gover- 
nor, or  senator,  or  member  of  Congress  to  plead  your  cause. 
You  seem  honest  and  truthful ;  and  you  don't  wear  hoopskirts — 
and  I  will  be  whipped,  but  I  will  pardon  your  brother."  And 
he  did. 

It  was  never  easy  for  Lincoln  to  refuse  the  requests  of  his 
friends.  When  political  appointments  were  desired,  and  the  ap- 
plicants brought  or  caused  to  be  sent  great  numbers  of  letters  of 
endorsement,  some  of  them  signed  by  Lincoln's  personal  friends, 
he  found  it  hard  to  be  as  inflexible  as  in  loyalty  to  conscience  he 
sometimes  was.  It  is  recorded  that,  on  one  occasion,  being  con- 
fronted by  two  piles  of  letters  written  by  friends  of  two  dif- 
ferent applicants,  he  simplified  his  problem  by  tossing  both 
bundles  unopened  into  a  scale  and  appointing  the  man  that  had 
presented  the  heavier  package.  On  one  occasion,  the  sole  recom- 
mendation received  by  him  on  behalf  of  a  second  lieutenant  who 
desired  promotion  was  from  that  officer's  wife.  This  rather 
pleased  Lincoln,  who  thought  that  it  was  much  to  a  man's  credit 
that  his  wife  believed  in  him,  and  he  wrote  to  Stanton : 

Executive  Mansion, 

Nov.  13,  1861. 
Hon.  Sec.  of  War. 
My  dear  sir 

Please  have  the  Adjutant  General  ascertain  whether  2nd. 
Lieut  of  Co.  D.  2nd.  Infantry — Alexander  E.  Drake,  is  not  en- 


JUSTICE  AND  MERCY  261 

titled  to  promotion — His  wife  thinks  he   is.     Please  have  this 
looked  into. 

Yours  truly 
A.  Lincoln 

My  honored  and  lamented  friend,  Honorable  Daniel  Fish,  of 
Minneapolis,  compiler  of  the  well-known  Lincoln  Bibliography, 
owned  the  original  letter  of  a  young-  woman  in  Pennsylvania 
who  wrote  to  Lincoln  asking  a  furlough  for  her  lover.  The 
pathetic  story  is  told  in  the  following  missive,  and  its  effect  on 
Lincoln  is  plainly  indicated  by  his  autograph  endorsement: 

April  5,   1864 

Washington    Co.,    Pa. 
To  the  Honorable 

Abraham  Lincoln 
President  of  U.  S.  A. 
Hon.  Sir 

After  long  hesitation  through  dread  and  fear  I  have  at  last 
concluded  to  inform  you  of  my  troubles.  In  order  to  make  the 
case  clear  it  is  necessary  to  give  you  a  brief  history  connected 
with  myself  and  would  be  husband.  YVe  have  been  engaged  for 
some  years.  In  August  1862  he  enlisted  to  serve  his  country 
for  a  term  of  three  years.  In  July  1863  he  was  taken  to  Balti- 
more to  a  Hospital  sick  and  on  or  about  the  first  of  October 
1863  he  had  recovered  and  while  waiting  to  be  sent  to  his  regi- 
ment he  had  a  chance  with  his  fellow  Key  Stone  soldiers  to  at- 
tend the  election.  Here  allow  me  to  state  that  he  did  not  forget 
our  Curtin. 

It  was  our  design  to  marry  while  he  was  at  home  and  under 
those  determinations  we  very  foolishly  indulged  too  freely  in 
matrimonial  affairs  and  at  last  our  union  was  defeated  by  my 
Father.  In  consequence  of  him  he  was  forced  to  return  to  the 
army  a  single  man.  The  result  of  our  indulgences  are  going  to 
bring  upon  us  both  an  unlawful  family  providing  you  do  not 
take  mercy  upon  us  and  grant  him  a  leave  of  absence  in  order  to 
ratify  past  events.  I  am  Honored  Sir  one  that  circumstances 
must  apologize  for  the  boldness  to  ask  of  you  this  favor  under 
these  agravating  circumstances.  I  hope  and  pray  to  God  that 
you  will  not  cast  me  aside  in  scorn  and  dismay.     Remember  that 


^62  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  have  a  Father  and  mother  and  a  wide  circle  of  friends  and  if 
we  cannot  remedy  past  events  I  only  pray  that  Death  may  come 
to  me  at  an  early  period  of  time. 

Allow  him  time  if  it  is  thy  will  to  remove  me  to  Philadelphia. 
Pa.  to  reside  during  his  stay  in  the  army.  Dear  Sir  I  can  only 
ask  and  it  lies  in  your  power  to  grant  my  request.  May  God 
soften  your  heart  if  need  be.  May  you  view  this  subject  as  a 
serious  one  connected  with  me. 

The  Soldier  I  speak  of  is  A L G private  Com- 
pany    of  the  140th  Reg.  P.  Vol.     The  said  regiment  is  in 

the  1st  Brigade  1st  Division  2nd  Army  Corps  Army  of  the 
Potomac. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  you  that  I  have  taken  this  corres- 
pondence to  you  upon  myself  as  it  would  seem  more  reasonable 
for  him  to  perform  that  duty.  In  answer  to  this  he  says  they 
have  orders  prohibiting  any  correspondence  with  those  in  au- 
thority at  the  seat  of  Government  for  furloughs.  I  will  close 
leaving  all  to  vour  decision  and  remaining  your  obedient  servant, 

Miss  C N . 

(Indorsed) 
Hon.   Sec.  of  War 

Send  him 
to  her  by  all 
means. 

A.  Lincoln 
A.pril  14,  1864 
Furlough  granted 

File  A.  G. 

The  War  Department  records  have  been  searched  at  my  re- 
quest in  an  effort  to  identify  this  soldier  and  verify  the  incident, 
but  without  success. 

It  has  often  been  alleged  that  Lincoln's  assassination  was  the 
result  of  his  refusal  to  pardon  John  Yates  Beall  who  was  hanged 
at  Governor's  Island  in  New  York  Harbor,  February  24,  1864. 
He  was  convicted  of  conspiracy  to  blow  up  bridges  and  assist 
Confederate  prisoners  to  escape.  It  is  alleged,  though  without 
adequate  proof,  that  his  fate  determined  Booth  to  take  revenge 
on  Lincoln.     Beall  was  a  superior  man  and  a  brave  man,  whose 


JUSTICE  AND  MERCY  263 

acts,  like  those  of  Nathan  Hale  and  Andre  in  the  Revolution, 
and  the  men  in  Andrews'  railway  raid  in  the  Civil  War,  bring 
deserved  applause  for  their  courage,  but  are  clearly  liable  to  the 
death  penalty.  There  was  much  to  admire  in  Beall,  but  Lincoln 
was  unmoved  by  the  appeals  in  his  behalf,  and  Beall  was 
hanged. 

Lincoln's  refusal  to  pardon  a  slave-trader  under  sentence  of 
hanging  shows  how  little  he  was  prepared  to  tolerate  that  crime : 

Whereas  it  appears  that  at  a  term  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  the 
United  States  of  America  for  the  southern  district  of  New  York, 
held  in  the  month  of  November,  A.  D.  1861,  Nathaniel  Gordon 
was  indicted  and  convicted  for  being  engaged  in  the  slave-trade, 
and  was  by  the  said  court  sentenced  to  be  put  to  death  by  hang- 
ing by  the  neck  on  Friday  the  7th  day  of  February,  A.  D.  1862; 

And  whereas  a  large  number  of  respectable  citizens  have  ear- 
nestly besought  me  to  commute  the  said  sentence  of  the  said 
Nathaniel  Gordon  to  a  term  of  imprisonment  for  life,  which 
application  I  have  felt  it  to  be  my  duty  to  refuse; 

And  whereas  it  has  seemed  to  me  probable  that  the  unsuccess- 
ful application  made  for  the  commutation  of  his  sentence  may 
have  prevented  the  said  Nathaniel  Gordon  from  making  the 
necessary  preparation  for  the  awful  change  which  awaits  him: 

Now,  therefore,  be  it  known  that  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  Presi- 
dent of  the  LTiited  States  of  America,  have  granted  and  do 
hereby  grant  unto  him,  the  said  Nathaniel  Gordon,  a  respite  of 
the  above-recited  sentence  until  Friday,  the  21st  day  of  Febru- 
ary, A.  D.,  1862,  between  the  hours  of  twelve  o'clock  at  noon 
and  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  said  day,  when  the  said 
sentence  shall  be  executed. 

In  granting  this  respite  it  becomes  my  painful  duty  to  ad- 
monish the  prisoner  that,  relinquishing  all  expectation  of  pardon 
by  human  authority,  he  refer  himself  alone  to  the  mercy  of  the 
common  God  and  Father  of  all  men. 

Perhaps  few  acts  of  Lincoln's  administration  gave  him  more 
satisfaction  than  his  Amnesty  Proclamation,  issued  December  8, 
1863,  offering  complete  pardon  to  all  participants  in  the  Rebel- 
lion, with  certain  specified  exceptions,  on  condition  of  their  re- 


264  THE  LIPE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

turn  to   loyalty.      The   leading  paragraph   in   this   proclamation 
reads : 

I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States,  do  pro- 
claim, declare,  and  make  known  to  all  persons  who  have,  directly 
or  by  implication,  participated  in  the  existing  rebellion,  except 
as  hereinafter  excepted,  that  a  full  pardon  is  hereby  granted  to 
them  and  each  of  them,  with  restoration  of  all  rights  of  property, 
except  as  to  slaves,  and  in  property  cases  where  rights  of  third 
parties  have  intervened,  and  upon  the  condition  that  every  such 
person  shall  take  and  subscribe  an  oath,  and  shall  thenceforward 
keep  and  maintain  said  oath  inviolate. 

An  interesting  group  of  endorsements  in  Lincoln's  handwrit- 
ing was  at  one  time  in  possession  of  the  government  with  regard 
to  certain  doubtful  cases  of  Confederates  who  had  applied  for 
permission  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  under  Lincoln's  Am- 
nesty Proclamation  of  December  8,  1863.  These  letters  have 
now  been  dispersed,  but  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  see  a  con- 
siderable number  of  them  after  they  had  gone  into  private  hands 
(by  what  process  or  what  right  I  know  not)  and  before  they 
went  to  the  four  winds  to  purchasers  of  Lincoln's  autograph. 
From  this  collection  it  appeared  that  in  a  good  many  cases  in 
which  the  officers  were  in  doubt,  usually,  I  judge,  on  account 
of  the  previous  record  of  the  applicant,  and  a  suspicion  that  he 
would  not  respect  his  oath,  the  question  came  up  to  Lincoln.  I 
can  not  suppose  that  this  would  have  been  done  if  Lincoln  had 
not  himself  asked  that  in  these  cases  the  matter  should  be 
brought  to  his  attention  before  final  refusal.  There  is,  of  course, 
no  way  of  knowing  how  many  of  these  men  Lincoln  finally  per- 
mitted to  remain  in  prison;  all  the  endorsements  in  the  collec- 
tion which  I  inspected  were,  naturally,  of  successful  applicants, 
and  were  preserved  as  authority  of  the  officers  for  discharging 
these  prisoners.  It  was  evident,  however,  that,  not  always  con- 
tent with  a  reading  of  the  documents,  Lincoln  personally  inter- 
viewed some  of  these  men.  In  general,  the  endorsements  were 
brief,  merely  directing  that  the  within  named  man  be  permitted 


JUSTICE  AND  MERCY  265 

to  take  the  oath  and  be  discharged,  but  a  few  of  them  bore 
special  endorsements  indicating-  something  of  the  nature  of  the 
charge  or  the  reason  for  the  president's  decision.  One  of  these  I 
copied,  because  it  displayed  at  once  Lincoln's  mercy  and  humor, 
and  the  suggestion  of  a  suspicion  on  his  own  part  that  he  was 
influenced  unduly  by  the  applicant's  ability  to  talk: 

This  man,  being  so  well  vouched,  and  talking  so  much  better 
than  any  other  I  have  heard,  let  him  take  the  oath  of  Dec.  8,  and 
be  discharged. 
July  1,  1864,  A.  Lincoln. 

The  significance  of  this  portfolio  of  letters  is  in  its  disclosure 
that  Lincoln,  having  issued  his  proclamation  offering  amnesty  to 
all  who  had  been  bearing  arms  against  the  government  on  con- 
dition of  their  taking  the  oath  of  loyalty,  but  stipulating  that 
there  must  be  evidence  of  good  faith  on  the  part  of  the  appli- 
cant, did  not  leave  the  order  to  the  administration  of  subordi- 
nates, but  was  deeply  concerned  for  the  exceptional  men  whom 
the  subordinates  doubted  or  deemed  unworthy,  and  that  he  gave 
to  many  such  men  their  freedom,  now  and  then  with  a  twinkle 
in  his  eye  by  reason  of  his  suspicion  that  he  was  being  imposed 
upon. 

This  Amnesty  Proclamation  was  much  misused  during  and 
after  the  World  War  in  demands  for  the  pardon  of  men  con- 
victed of  treasonable  utterance  during  that  war.  Lincoln,  it  was 
alleged,  would  have  pardoned  them  long  before.  But  this  is  by 
no  means  certain,  nor  is  the  Amnesty  Proclamation  pertinent  as 
evidence  in  the  case.  It  was  just  this  kind  of  offender  toward 
whom  Lincoln  seemed  almost  cruelly  indifferent. 

In  no  city  except  Xew  York  was  there  wide-spread  and  vio- 
lent opposition  to  the  draft.  But  there  were  in  many  places  men 
in  good  standing  who  conducted  an  active  propaganda  to  oppose 
enlistments  and  encourage  desertion.  Against  these  men  Lin- 
coln entertained  an  honest  and  determined  indignation.  When 
one  of  the  agitators  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  military  authority 


266  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

for  an  overt  act  of  which  the  government  could  take  cognizance, 
Lincoln  had  no  temptation  to  employ  that  executive  clemency 
which  in  the  judgment  of  his  military  advisers  he  so  often 
abused.  When  he  was  called  upon  to  condemn  a  private  soldier 
for  desertion,  Lincoln  invariably  pitied  the  deserter,  and  again 
and  again  interfered,  to  prevent  such  men  from  being  shot,  while 
on  the  other  hand,  he  poured  out  his  burning  indignation  against 
the  supposedly  respectable  men  who  conducted  their  campaigns 
for  the  encouragement  of  desertion  and  of  opposition  to  the  en- 
forcement of  the  draft.  To  punish  these  active  agitators  he 
went  the  full  length  of  his  authority,  not  only  as  president,  but 
as  commander-in-chief  of  the  army.  Lincoln  could  be  as  stern 
as  he  was  kind;  as  inflexible  as  he  was  sympathetic.  A  com- 
munication of  his  on  the  degree  of  guilt  which  he  believed  to 
attach  to  those  men  who  sought  to  break  down  what  we  have 
learned  to  call  the  morale  of  the  army,  contains  the  following 
paragraph : 

Must  I  shoot  a  simple-minded  soldier  boy  who  deserts,  while 
I  must  not  touch  a  hair  of  a  wily  agitator  who  induces  him  to 
desert?  This  is  none  the  less  injurious  when  effected  by  getting 
a  father,  or  brother,  or  friend  into  a  public  meeting,  and  there 
working  upon  his  feelings  until  he  is  persuaded  to  write  the 
soldier  boy  that  he  is  fighting  in  a  bad  cause,  for  a  wicked  ad- 
ministration of  a  contemptible  government,  too  weak  to  arrest 
and  punish  him  if  he  shall  desert.  I  think  that  in  such  a  case, 
to  silence  the  agitator,  and  save  the  boy,  is  not  only  constitu- 
tional, but  withal  a  great  mercy. 

On  occasion  Lincoln  could  be  very  stern,  and  could  refuse  with 
stubborn  resolution  an  appeal  for  pardon  when  men  were  guilty 
of  deliberate  crime.  The  following  letters  illustrate  this  quality 
in  his  nature : 

Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  D.  C,  November  23,  1863. 
E.  P.  Evans, 

West  Union,  Adams  County,  Ohio. 
Yours  to  Governor  Chase  in  behalf  of  J A.  W is  be- 


JUSTICE  AXD  MERCY  267 

fore  me.  Can  there  be  a  worse  case  than  to  desert,  and  with  let- 
ters persuading-  others  to  desert?  I  cannot  interpose  without  a 
better  showing  than  you  make.  When  did  he  desert?  When 
did  he  write  the  letters? 

A.  Lincoln. 

Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  D.  C,  April  21,  1864. 
Mator-Gexeral  Dix, 
Xew  York. 

Yesterday  I  was  induced  to  telegraph  the  officer  in  military 
command  at  Fort  Warren.  Boston  Harbor,  Massachusetts,  sus- 
pending the  execution  of  C —  C — ,  to  be  executed  to-morrow  for 
desertion.  Just  now.  on  reading  your  order  in  the  case,  I  tele- 
graphed the  same  order  withdrawing  the  suspension,  and  leaving 
the  case  entirely  with  you.  The  man's  friends  are  pressing  me, 
but  I  refer  them  to  you,  intending  to  take  no  further  action  my- 
self. 

A.  Lincoln. 

War  Department, 
Washixgtox  City,  April  2$,  1864. 
Major-General  Meade, 
Army  of  Potomac. 
A  Mr.   Corby  brought  you  a  note  from  me  at  the  foot  of  a 

petition.  I  believe,  in  the  case  of  D .  to  be  executed  to-day. 

The  record  has  been  examined  here,  and  it  shows  too  strong  a 
case  for  a  pardon  or  commutation,  unless  there  is  something  in 
the  poor  man's  favor  outside  of  the  record,  which  you  on  the 
ground  may  know,  but  I  do  not.  My  note  to  you  only  means 
that  if  you  know  of  any  such  thing  rendering  a  suspension  of 
the  execution  proper,  on  your  own  judgment,  you  are  at  liberty 
to  suspend  it.     Otherwise  I  do  not  interfere. 

A.  Lincoln. 

Military  sentences  did  not  require  the  approval  of  the  presi- 
dent. The  military  courts  had  power  to  enforce  their  own  sen- 
tences. Cases  came  to  the  president  on  the  appeal  of  relatives 
or  friends.  They  added  greatly  to  the  burden  of  his  labor.  "To- 
morrow is  butchering  day,"  he  would  say  on  Thursdav,  and  he 


268  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

labored  long  over  the  petitions,  and  it  was  hard  for  him  to  den] 
appeals. 

Lincoln  was  not  easily  moved  in  cases  where  the  man  con- 
demned was  a  man  of  intelligence  and  influence.  An  interesting 
case  was  that  of  Louis  A.  Welton,  a  man  justly  sentenced  to  im- 
prisonment in  the  summer  of  1864,  and  who  was  able  to  secure 
the  support  of  Senator  Morgan,  of  New  York,  H.  J.  Raymond, 
of  the  New  York  Times,  and  Thurlow  Weed.  The  appeal  came 
to  Lincoln  at  a  time  when  he  could  not  afford  to  lose  any  of  his 
political  support;  and  there  were  not  in  the  country  three  men 
for  whose  support  just  then  he  cared  more  than  for  these  three. 
New  York  seemed  at  that  time  practically  certain  to  vote  against 
Lincoln,  and  these  three  men,  and  Horace  Greeley,  had  mighty 
influence  in  New  York.  Lincoln  did  not  want  to  lose  any 
strength  which  he  had  in  so  important  a  state.  But  not  even  for 
the  good  will  of  these  men  would  he  pardon  a  man  whom  he  be- 
lieved to  be  justly  accused  unless  they  would  assume  the  respon- 
sibility. He  required  them  to  enter  their  request  for  the  pardon 
on  the  very  document  in  which  he  set  forth  his  reasons  for  be- 
lieving that  it  ought  not  to  be  granted.  He  would  not  argue  the 
case  nor  invite  them  to  argue  it.  If  after  they  had  read  his  re- 
view of  the  case  they  still  would  request  the  pardon,  and  write 
the  request  upon  his  statement  of  the  case  as  he  understood  it, 
he  would  issue  the  pardon.  This  is  a  document  of  remarkable 
interest.* 

Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  August  31,  1864. 
Mr.  Louis  A.  Welton  came  from  the  rebel  lines  into  ours  with 
a  written  contract  to  furnish  large  supplies  to  the  rebels,  was  ar- 
rested with  the  contract  in  his  possession,  and  has  been  sen- 
tenced to  imprisonment  for  it.  He,  and  his  friends  complain  of 
this,  on  no  substantial  evidence  whatever,  but  simply  because  his 
word,  only  given  after  his  arrest,  that  he  only  took  the  contract 


*So  far  as  I  am  aware  this  has  never  been  published.     I  am  permitted  to 
use  it  by  Mr.  Oliver  R.  Barrett,  in  whose  collection  it  is. 


JUSTICE  AND  MERCY  269 

as  a  means  of  escaping  from  the  rebel  lines,  was  not  accepted 
as  a  full  defense — He  perceives  that  if  this  had  been  true  he 
would  have  destroyed  the  contract  so  soon  as  it  had  served  his 
purpose  in  getting  him  across  the  lines ;  but  not  having  done 
this  and  being  caught  with  the  paper  on  him,  he  tells  this  other 
absurd  story  that  he  kept  the  paper  in  the  belief  that  our  gov- 
ernment would  join  him  in  taking  the  profit  of  fulfilling  the 
contract.  This  is  my  understanding  of  the  case;  and  I  can  not 
conceive  of  a  case  of  a  man  found  in  possession  of  a  contract  to 
furnish  rebel  supplies,  who  can  not  escape,  if  this  be  held  a  suffi- 
cient— ground  of  escape — It  is  simply  for  the  accused  to  escape 
by  telling  a  very  absurd  and  improbable  story.  Now,  if  Sena- 
tor [Morgan,  and  Mr.  Weed,  and  Mr.  Raymond,  will  not  argue 
with  me  that  I  ought  to  discharge  this  man,  but  will,  in  writing 
on  this  sheet,  simply  request  me  to  do  it,  I  will  do  it  solely  in 
deference  to  their  wishes. 

The  following  endorsements  appear  on  this  letter : 


We  respectfully  request  the   President  to  pardon   the  within 
named  Louis  A.  Welton,  now  at  Fort  Delaware. 

Thurlow  Weed 


I  have  read  Mr.  Welton's  statement  and  if  it  is  true,  (and  I 
know  no  reason  for  distrusting  it,)  his  pardon  would  be  an  act  of 
justice.     I  concur  in  Mr.  Weed's  request. 

H.  J.  Raymond. 

While  Lincoln  could  be  and  often  was  very  stubborn  in  dealing 
with  trying  situations,  he  sometimes  displayed  great  shrewdness 
in  evading  a  decision  where  he  preferred  not  to  assume  respon- 
sibility which  did  not  fairly  belong  to  him.  One  of  his  assistant 
secretaries,  William  O.  Stoddard,  gives  in  detail  the  narrative  of 
an  effort  that  was  made  on  behalf  of  a  guerrilla  for  whose  par- 
don Lincoln  received  a  long  petition  followed  by  the  personal 
appeal  of  an  influential  delegation.  Lincoln  knew  the  man  was 
guilty,  for  he  had  sent  for  the  papers  in  the  case  and  had  satis- 
fied himself  not  only  that  the  man  deserved  to  die,  but  that  the 


2;o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

region  where  the  crime  had  been  committed  was  one  which 
needed  the  lesson.  The  sentence  stood  until  the  morning  of  the 
execution.  Then  a  large  and  eminent  delegation  came  to  th< 
White  House  and  brought  to  bear  upon  the  president  a  very 
considerable  pressure.  Lincoln,  however,  would  take  no  action 
without  reviewing  again  the  papers  in  the  case.  H;e  instructs 
Stoddard  to  look  for  the  papers.  Stoddard  did  so,  and  could  not 
find  them.  Lincoln  suggested  to  the  delegation  to  go  to  th< 
War  Department.  They  went,  but  returned  with  the  informa 
tion  that  the  papers  were  not  at  the  War  Department,  they  had 
been  sent  to  the  White  House  at  the  president's  own  request  and 
had  not  been  returned.  Further  search  failed  to  disclose  the 
documents,  and  the  delegation  went  away  sorrowful.  Hardly 
had  they  left  the  White  House  when  a  telegram  was  handed  to 
the  president.     Lincoln  thus  remarked : 

"What  did  you  say?  A  telegram?  You  don't  tell  me!  Has 
that  man  been  actually  hung?  It's  a  pity  about  his  papers!  It 
seems  to  me — well,  yes,  I  remember  now.  I  know  where — well, 
if  I  did;  I  guess  I  wouldn't.  Not  now.  But  if  they  are  ever 
called  for  again,  and  they  won't  be,  they  ought  to  be  where  they 
can  be  found.  Certainly,  certainly.  But  it  is  just  as  well  that 
one  murderer  escaped  being  pardoned  by  Abraham  Lincoln. 
Narrow  escape,  too.     The  merest  piece  of  luck  in  all  the  world." 


CHAPTER  XIX 


RADICALS    AND    COPPERHEADS 


Like  all  men  conservative  by  nature  but  committed  by  con- 
viction to  a  polity  of  progress.  Abraham  Lincoln  won  severe 
criticism  from  two  widely  divergent  groups.  Politics  prover- 
bially makes  strange  bed-fellows.  The  administration  of  Lin- 
coln produced  a  working  coalition  between  some  of  the  ultra 
anti-slavery  men  in  the  Xorth  and  others  who  represented  dia- 
metrically opposite  political  convictions. 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  the  political  reaction  of 

1862.  in  which  the  northern  states  quite  generally  receded  from 
their  whole-hearted  allegiance  to  Lincoln,  and  sent  to  Congress  a 
largely  increased  Democratic  minority.  Xote  has  also  been  taken 
of  the  partial  recovery,  not  in  congressional  representation,  but 
in  popular  confidence  in  the  administration,  as  shown  in  the  re- 
Suits  of  the  elections  of  those  few  states  that  chose  governors  in 

1863.  This  increase  in  confidence  did  not  mean  that  the  people 
were  less  weary  of  the  war.  or  that  the  men  in  the  North  who 
opposed  the  war  were  less  bitter  in  their  opposition. 

In  various  northern  states,  and  especially  in  southern  Ohio,  In- 
diana and  Illinois,  were  organized  societies  known  as  the 
"Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle."  "Sons  of  Liberty,"  "The  Order 
of  the  Star,'*'  and  the  "Order  of  American  Knights."  These 
secret  bodies  enrolled  large  numbers  of  men,  some  of  whom  were 
thoroughly  disloyal  to  the  Union,  and  others  of  whom  professed 
to  be  loyal  to  the  government,  but  opposed  to  what  they  counted 
the  tyranny  or  the  radical  abolition  policy  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Lincoln   was   not  greatly   disturbed  by  the   so-called   Copper- 

2-1 

_ 


272  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

head  movement.  He  treated  it,  according  to  his  secretaries, 
Nicolay  and  Hay,  with  "good-humored  contempt."  "Nothing 
can  make  me  believe,"  he  said,  "that  one  hundred  thousand  Indi- 
ana Democrats  are  disloyal." 

In  all  probability  he  was  right.  Yet  there  were  enough  dis- 
loyal Indiana  Democrats  to  make  the  Knights  of  the  Golden 
Circle  a  formidable  organization.  Governor  Morton,  of  Indi- 
ana, did  not  share  Lincoln's  complacent  view,  and  Governor 
Richard  Yates,  of  Illinois,  was  almost  equally  disturbed. 

These  Copperhead  organizations  had  for  their  purpose  the  dis- 
couragement of  enlistment  and  the  encouragement  of  desertions, 
the  impeding  in  every  practicable  way  of  measures  in  the  North 
for  the  putting  down  of  the  rebellion,  and  in  general  the  giving' 
of  aid  and  comfort  to  the  Confederate  Army.  Plans  were  made 
10 r  the  capture  of  the  prisons  in  the  North  where  Confederate 
soldiers  were  confined,  for  the  destruction  of  arsenals  and  ar- 
mories, and  for  other  bold  and  terrible  deeds.  These  larger 
and  more  heroic  exploits  did  not  get  beyond  threat  and  rumor; 
but  there  was  secret  and  active  propaganda,  hostile  to  the  gov- 
ernment, that  manifested  itself  in  literally  thousands  of  com- 
munities, and  the  personal  abuse  which  was  heaped  upon  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  seems  at  this  day  all  but  incredible. 

In  a  number  of  cities  an  opposing  secret  organization  called 
the  Union  League  was  established.  This  society  had  its  per- 
manent monument  in  some  northern  cities  in  Union  League 
Clubs. 

A  part  of  this  hostility  to  Lincoln  was  not  without  apparent 
cause.  Those  reckon  without  knowledge  of  his  character  who 
assume  that  Lincoln  was  only  a  mild  and  irresolute  man.  He 
Avas  by  nature  mild,  and  he  was  so  cautious  as  to  appear,  and  at 
times  to  have  been,  irresolute.  But  he  was  also  a  man  of  in- 
flexible will.  When  he  had  definitely  committed  himself  to  a 
course,  he  could  not  only  be  consistently  loyal  to  it,  but  very 
stubbornly  earnest  in  his  refusal  to  swerve. 

Very  early  in  the  war  Lincoln  saw  that  some  drastic  measures 


RADICALS  AND  COPPERHEADS  273 

would  be  necessary.  Foes  of  the  Union  were  everywhere,  and  es- 
pecially in  Washington.  The  District  of  Columbia  lay  adjacent  to 
Virginia,  which  seceded,  and  within  the  bounds  of  Maryland, 
whose  legislature  in  1861  protested  against  the  war  as  unconstitu- 
tional and  unjust,  and  expressed  a  desire  for  the  immediate  recog- 
nition of  the  Confederate  states.  In  the  opening  weeks  of  the 
Civil  War,  Washington  was  virtually  in  a  state  of  siege.  Lin- 
coln knew  that  neither  in  Washington  nor  anywhere  else  in  the 
Xorth  was  there  assurance  of  safety  from  the  insidious  work  of 
those  who  were  seeking  the  overthrow  of  the  Union. 

Further,  Lincoln  knew  that  if  he  wTaited  until  guilty  men  com- 
mitted overt  acts  of  treason  before  causing  them  to  be  arrested, 
the  arrest  would  in  many  cases  be  impossible  or  would  come  too 
late  to  prevent  the  success  of  dangerous  plots.  He  placed  men 
in  charge  of  Federal  prisons  who  were  capable  of  resisting  very 
great  pressure.  Some  of  these  wardens  were  charged  to  keep 
themselves  inside  the  prison  walls  where  they  would  be  free  from 
the  possibility  of  reach  by  the  civil  courts.  He  appointed  Ward 
Hill  Lamon  commissioner  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  kept 
him  in  that  position  in  spite  of  most  emphatic  demands  for  his 
removal.  He  knew  that  Lamon  was  a  man  of  courage,  and  not 
overnice  in  his  methods  when  drastic  policies  needed  to  be  en- 
forced. 

In  order  the  more  fully  to  protect  this  policy,  Lincoln  sus- 
pended the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  The  Old  Capitol  prison  in 
Washington  was  kept  moderately  full  of  people  against  some  of 
whom  no  formal  charges  were  ever  brought.  These  people  and 
their  friends,  many  of  them  very  respectable  people,  made  vocif- 
erous protest,  and  the  president  in  general  maintained  a  sphinx- 
like silence.  He  knew  that  the  winning  of  the  war  made  it  neces- 
sary that  some  harsh  things  should  be  done. 

Lincoln  was  himself  so  firm  an  advocate  of  adherence  to  the 
law  and  of  loyalty  to  the  Constitution  as  to  be  an  object  of  per- 
plexity and  wonder  to  some  even  of  his  friends  who  observed 
him  giving  his  adherence  to  policies  that  seemed  so  arbitrary  and 


274  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  such  questionable  legality.  They  reminded  Lincoln  how  in 
times  of  peace  he  had  said  things  strangely  inconsistent  with  his 
present  methods.  Lincoln  replied  that  when  a  man  was  sick  he 
sometimes  needed  medicine,  which  would  be  very  harmful  to  a 
well  man,  and  that  some  things  were  necessary  in  times  of  war 
which  a  country  could  not  tolerate  in  times  of  peace. 

Lincoln's  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  brought 
upon  him  not  only  the  severe  criticism  of  Congress  and  the 
press,  but  the  official  disapproval  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Roger 
B.  Taney  still  sat  as  chief  justice  of  that  dignified  body.  He 
was  so  old  and  in  such  frail  health  that  Lincoln  feared  that  he 
would  die  between  the  time  of  the  election  of  i860  and  the  in- 
auguration in  1861.  But  Justice  Taney  lived  so  long  that  Lin- 
coln grew  to  cherish  unfeigned  alarm  concerning  the  fate  of 
some  of  his  war  policies  when  they  came  up,  as  they  were  certain 
to  come,  for  review  before  the  Supreme  Court  at  the  end  of 
the  Civil  War.  He  did  not  have  to  wait  until  the  end  of  the 
war  for  his  break  with  Mr.  Justice  Taney.  On  May  25,  1861, 
John  Merryman,  a  citizen  of  Baltimore,  was  arrested  charged 
with  treason,  and  was  committed  to  the  custody  of  General 
George  Cadwalader,  then  commanding  Fort  Henry.  Chief  Jus- 
lice  Taney,  then  resident  in  Baltimore  in  the  house  of  his  son- 
in-law,  Mr.  Campbell,  issued,  in  chambers,  a  writ  of  habeas  cor- 
pus calling  upon  General  Cadwalader  to  produce  the  body  of 
John  Merryman  before  Justice  Taney  in  the  room  of  the  circuit 
court  of  Baltimore. 

It  would  appear  from  this  distance  that  Justice  Taney  went 
somewhat  widely  out  of  his  way  to  discover  trouble  for  himself. 
The  Supreme  Court  wras  not  sitting,  and  the  justice  was  not  in 
the  capital.  But  Judge  Taney  believed  that  the  executive  and 
military  powers  were  overriding  the  functions  of  the  legislative 
and  judiciary  powers  of  the  government.  So  he  issued  the  writ 
of  habeas  corpus  directing  the  United  States  Marshal  for  the 
District  of  Maryland  to  produce  in  court  the  body  of  the  im- 
prisoned man. 


RADICALS  AND  COPPERHEADS  275 

The  writ  was  returned  served,  and  the  officer  to  whom  it  was 
directed  refused  to  produce  the  prisoner,  giving  as  his  reason 
that  he  was  duly  authorized  by  the  president  of  the  United 
States  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  for  the  public 
safety.  Justice  Taney,  receiving  this  report,  excused  the  officer 
from  further  service  in  the  matter,  saying  that  while  he  had  legal 
authority  to  call  to  his  assistance  an  adequate  posse  to  enforce 
the  writ,  it  was  clearly  impossible  for  him  to  organize  a  posse  of 
sufficient  strength  to  overcome  the  resistance  of  the  military 
authority  of  the  United  States.  A  day  or  two  afterward  the 
chief  justice  in  a  written  opinion  said : 

As  the  case  conies  before  me,  therefore,  I  understand  that  the 
President  not  only  claims  the  right  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  at  his  discretion,  but  to  delegate  that  discretionary  power 
to  a  military  officer,  and  to  leave  it  to  him  to  determine  whether 
he  will  or  will  not  obey  judicial  process  that  may  be  served  upon 
him.  No  official  notice  has  been  given  to  the  courts  of  justice, 
or  to  the  public,  by  a  proclamation  or  otherwise,  that  the  Presi- 
dent claimed  this  power,  and  had  exercised  it  in  the  manner 
stated  in  the  return.  And  I  certainly  listened  to  it  with  some 
surprise,  for  I  had  supposed  it  to  be  one  of  those  points  of  con- 
stitutional law  upon  which  there  was  no  difference  of  opinion, 
and  that  it  was  admitted  on  all  hands  that  the  privilege  of  the 
writ  could  not  be  suspended  except  by  Act  of  Congress.* 

Lincoln  made  no  attempt  to  argue  this  case  with  the  chief 
justice  of  the  L'nited  States.  He  knew  that  he  was  facing  a  des- 
perate situation,  and  that  he  could  not  count  upon  the  coopera- 
tion of  the  Supreme  Court.  Whether  the  plea  of  military  neces- 
sity justified  the  position  of  Lincoln  in  this  and  other  matters, 
need  not  here  and  now  be  discussed.  Lincoln  accepted  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  necessity  of  saving  the  Union,  and  he  did  not 
disguise  the  fact  that  the  desperate  emergency  called  for  desper- 
ate remedies. 


*Memoir  of  Roger  Brooke  Taney,  LL.D.,  by  Samuel  Tyler,  LL.  D.,  pp. 
422-423. 


276  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  case  of  Clement  G. 
Vallandigham.  He  had  been  a  member  of  Congress  since  1856, 
and  was  the  rising  leader  of  the  Copperhead  wing  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  in  1863.  General  Burnside  was  in  command  of  the 
Department  of  the  Ohio.  Vallandigham  delivered  a  speech, 
about  May  1,  1863,  containing  utterances  alleged  to  have  been 
treasonable.  The  address  denounced  the  war  as  "wicked,  cruel 
and  unnecessary."  He  declared  that  war  was  being  waged,  not 
for  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  but  "for  the  purpose  of  crush- 
ing out  liberty  and  erecting  a  despotism."  It  stated  that  if  the 
administration  had  so  wished  "the  war  could  have  been  honor- 
ably terminated  months  ago."  It  declared  that  "war  was  for  the 
freedom  of  the  blacks  and  enslavement  of  the  whites."  General 
Burnside,  himself  a  Democrat,  a  friend  and  admirer  of  McClel- 
lan,  caused  Vallandigham  to  be  arrested.  The  evidence  was 
conclusive,  and  Vallandigham  was  sentenced  to  be  confined  in 
Fort  Warren  in  Boston  Harbor.  A  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was 
issued,  but  its  execution  was  denied.  Bitter  criticism  fell  upon 
the  administration  for  this  arrest.  Lincoln  set  forth  his  view  in 
the  following  statement : 

Of  how  little  value  the  constitutional  provisions  I  have  quoted 
will  be  rendered,  if  arrests  shall  never  be  made  until  defined 
crimes  shall  have  been  committed,  may  be  illustrated  by  a  few 
notable  examples.  General  John  C.  Breckinridge,  General  Rob- 
ert E.  Lee,  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  General  John  B.  Ma- 
gruder,  General  William  B.  Preston,  General  Simon  B.  Buckner, 
and  Commodore  Franklin  Buchanan,  now  occupying  the  very 
highest  places  in  the  rebel  war  service,  were  all  within  the  power 
of  the  government  since  the  rebellion  began,  and  were  nearly  as 
well-known  to  be  traitors  then  as  now.  Unquestionably  if  we 
had  seized  and  held  them,  the  insurgent  cause  would  be  much 
weaker.  But  no  one  of  them  had  then  committed  any  crime 
defined  in  the  law.  Every  one  of  them,  if  arrested,  would  have 
been  discharged  on  habeas  corpus  were  the  writ  allowed  to  op- 
erate. In  view  of  these  and  similar  cases,  I  think  the  time  not 
unlikely  to  come,  when  I  shall  be  blamed  for  having  made  too 


RADICALS  AXD  COPPERHEADS  277 

few  arrests  rather  than  too  many.  .  .  .  Long  experience  has 
shown  that  armies  cannot  be  maintained  unless  desertion  shall  be 
punished  by  the  severe  penalty  of  death.  The  case  requires,  and 
the  law  and  the  Constitution  sanctions,  this  punishment.  Must  I 
shoot  a  simple-minded  soldier-boy  who  deserts,  while  I  must  not 
touch  a  hair  of  a  wily  agitator  who  induces  him  to  desert? 

But  though  Lincoln  defended  the  action  of  the  government  in 
the  arrest  of  Yallandigham,  he  appears  to  have  regretted  that 
Burnside  had  taken  this  step.  He  refused  to  accept  the  resigna- 
tion of  Burnside  growing  out  of  the  protest  and  criticism,  say- 
ing that  though  all  the  Cabinet  regretted  the  necessity  of  the 
arrest,  some  doubting  the  wisdom  of  it,  all  were  in  favor  of  sus- 
taining Burnside  in  the  matter. 

Lincoln  devised  a  method  of  relief  which  Burnside  strongly 
opposed.  Yallandigham  was  secretly  conveyed  to  the  Confed- 
erate lines  under  a  flag  of  truce,  and  handed  over  to  a  Confeder- 
ate picket. 

This  was  a  shrewd  move  on  the  part  of  Lincoln.  The  Con- 
federate Government  could  hardly  afford  to  accept  Vallandig- 
ham as  a  Confederate  and  Yallandigham  could  not  afford  to  be 
treated  as  one.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Confederate  Government 
was  unfeignedly  grateful  to  him,  though  it  did  not  know  what 
to  do  with  him.  He  was  a  white  elephant  on  the  hands  of  those 
who  would  gladly  have  regarded  him  as  a  friend.  He  protested 
that  he  was  not  a  Confederate,  but  a  loyal  citizen  of  the  L'nited 
States  and  a  prisoner  of  war  of  the  Confederate  Government. 
Certainly  his  whole  value  to  the  Confederacy  was  lost  by  his 
being  placed  within  the  Confederate  lines.  He  could  not  be  re- 
turned to  the  United  States,  for  the  United  States  would  not 
take  him.  He  was  a  man  without  a  country,  and  his  case  led 
Edward  Everett  Hale  to  write  his  notable  short  story  bearing 
that  title. 

The  Confederate  secretary  of  state  protested  against  the  send- 
ing of  Yallandigham  to  the  Confederate  lines  as  an  abuse  of  the 
flag  of  truce.     He  then  issued  orders  that  this   "alien  enemy" 


278  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

who  was  a  "victim  of  unjust  and  arbitrary  power,"  should  be 
taken  to  the  coast  and  given  opportunity  to  make  his  way  to 
some  foreign  country : 

It  is  not  the  desire  or  purpose  of  this  government  to  treat  this 
victim  of  unjust  and  arbitrary  power  with  other  than  lenity  and 
consideration,  but  as  an  alien  enemy  he  cannot  be  received  to 
friendly  hospitality  or  allowed  a  continued  refuge  in  freedom 
in  our  midst.  This  is  due  alike  to  our  safety  and  to  him  in  his 
acknowledged  position  as  an  enemy.  You  have  therefore  been 
charged  with  the  duty,  not  inappropriate  to  the  commission  you 
hold  in  relation  to  prisoners,  etc.,  of  meeting  him  in  Lynchburg, 
and  there  assuming  direction  and  control  of  his  future  move- 
ments. He  must  be  regarded  by  you  as  under  arrest,  permitted, 
unless  in  your  discretion  you  deem  it  necessary  to  revoke  the 
privilege,  to  be  at  large  on  his  parole  not  to  attempt  to  escape  nor 
hereafter  to  reveal  to  the  prejudice  of  the  Confederate  States 
anything  he  may  see  or  learn  while  therein.  You  will  see  that 
he  is  not  molested  or  assailed  or  unduly  intruded  upon,  and  ex- 
tend to  him  the  attentions  and  kind  treatment  consistent  with 
his  relations  as  an  alien  enemy.  After  a  reasonable  delay  with 
him  at  Lynchburg,  to  allow  rest  and  recreation  from  the  fatigues 
of  his  recent  exposure  and  travel,  you  will  proceed  with  him  to 
Wilmington,  N.  C,  and  there  deliver  him  to  the  charge  of  Ma- 
jor-General Whiting,  commanding  in  that  district,  by  whom  he 
will  be  allowed  at  an  early  convenient  opportunity  to  take  ship- 
ping for  any  neutral  port  he  may  prefer,  whether  in  Europe,  the 
Islands,  or  on  this  Continent.  More  full  instructions  on  this 
point  will  be  given  to  General  Whiting,  and  your  duty  will  be 
discharged  when  you  shall  have  conducted  Mr.  Vallandigham  to 
Wilmington  and  placed  him  at  the  disposition  of  that  com-, 
mander. 

On  June  n,  1863,  the  Democratic  Convention  of  Ohio  nomi- 
nated Vallandigham  as  governor  of  that  state.  Fie  was  defeated 
by  a  majority  of  almost  a  hundred  thousand.  Lincoln  had  ac- 
complished what  he  sought,  and  had  succeeded  in  discrediting 
without  persecution  the  most  violent  of  the  outspoken  enemies 
of  the  administration. 


RADICALS  AND  COPPERHEADS  279 

A  few  months  later  Yallandigham  returned  to  the  United 
States,  and  dared  the  president  to  arrest  him.  He  made  violent 
speeches,  but  the  president  ignored  him.  Yallandigham  could 
thenceforth  do  the  administration  less  damage  out  of  jail  than  in. 

For  though  Lincoln  did  not  permit  this  violent  Copperhead 
to  be  rearrested,  he  strictly  maintained  the  righteousness  of  the 
arrest  which  had  actually  been  made.  He  said  in  a  letter  to  the 
Democratic  State  Convention  of  Ohio : 


He  who  dissuades  one  man  from  volunteering,  or  induces  one 
soldier  to  desert,  weakens  the  Union  cause  as  much  as  he  who 
kills  a  Union  soldier  in  battle.  Yet  this  dissuasion  or  induce- 
ment may  be  so  conducted  as  to  be  no  defined  crime  of  which 
any  civil  court  would  take  cognizance. 

Mr.  Vallandigham  avows  his  hostility  to  the  war  on  the  part 
of  the  Union ;  and  his  arrest  was  made  because  he  was  laboring, 
with  some  effect,  to  prevent  the  raising  of  troops,  to  encourage 
desertions  from  the  army,  and  to  leave  the  rebellion  without  an 
adequate  military  force  to  suppress  it.  He  was  not  arrested  be- 
cause he  was  damaging  the  political  prospects  of  the  administra- 
tion or  the  personal  interests  of  the  commanding  general,  but  be- 
cause he  was  damaging  the  army,  upon  the  existence  and  vigor 
of  which  the  life  of  the  nation  depends.  He  was  warring  upon 
the  military,  and  this  gave  the  military  constitutional  jurisdic- 
tion to  lay  hands  upon  him.  If  Mr.  Vallandigham  was  not 
damaging  the  military  power  of  the  country,  then  his  arrest  was 
made  on  mistake  of  fact,  which  I  would  be  glad  to  correct  on 
reasonably  satisfactory  evidence. 

If  I  be  wrong  on  this  question  of  constitutional  power,  my 
error  lies  in  believing  that  certain  proceedings  are  constitutional 
when,  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  requires 
them,  which  would  not  be  constitutional  when,  in  absence  of  re- 
bellion or  invasion,  the  public  safety  does  not  require  them ;  in 
other  words,  that  the  Constitution  is  not  in  its  application  in  all 
respects  the  same  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion  involving  the 
public  safety,  as  it  is  in  times  of  profound  peace  and  public  se- 
curity. The  Constitution  itself  makes  the  distinction,  and  I  can 
no  more  be  persuaded  that  the  government  can  constitutionally 
take  no  strong  measures  in  time  of  rebellion,  because  it  can  be 


28o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

shown  that  the  same  could  not  be  lawfully  taken  in  time  of 
peace,  than  I  can  be  persuaded  that  a  particular  drug  is  not  good 
medicine  for  a  sick  man  because  it  can  be  shown  to  not  be  good 
food  for  a  well  one.  Nor  am  I  able  to  appreciate  the  danger  ap- 
prehended by  the  meeting,  that  the  American  people  will  by 
means  of  military  arrests  during  the  rebellion  lose  the  right  of 
public  discussion,  the  liberty  of  speech  and  the  press,  the  law  of 
evidence,  trial  by  jury,  and  habcus  corpus  throughout  the  in- 
definite peaceful  future  which  I  trust  lies  before  them,  any 
more  than  I  am  able  to  believe  that  a  man  could  contract  so 
strong  an  appetite  for  emetics  during  temporary  illness  as  to  per- 
sist in  feeding  upon  them  during  the  remainder  of  his  healthful 
life. 

Already  the  political  pot  was  brewing,  and  Lincoln  was  to 
hear  of  this  and  other  cases  in  the  campaign  of  1864.  Some- 
thing of  what  was  said  to  his  discredit  in  that  campaign  we  shall 
read  in  the  next  chapter.  For  the  present  we  turn  to  opposition 
of  a  wholly  different  type  which  was  rising  against  Lincoln,  and 
which  caused  him  almost  as  much  embarrassment  as  the  hos- 
tility of  the  Copperheads. 

The  opposition  of  the  radicals  to  Mr.  Lincoln  was  on  the 
whole  a  higher  grade  than  that  of  the  Copperheads.  It  came 
from  earnest  and  in  good  part  from  conscientious  men,  who 
were  impatient  with  the  president  because  he  had  not  seemed  to 
show  more  initiative  and  firmness  in  his  advocacy  of  anti-slav- 
ery measures.  He  had  indeed,  issued  the  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation,  and  was  proposing  that  it  be  followed  by  a  Con- 
stitutional Amendment  prohibiting  slavery  throughout  the 
United  States ;  but  he  had  done  this  avowedly  as  a  war  measure. 
He  had  declared  that  his  paramount  object  was  to  save  the  Un- 
ion, and  that  if  he  could  have  done  this  without  freeing  the 
slaves,  he  would  have  done  so. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Lincoln  was  severely  criticized  by  the 
extreme  abolitionists.  Even  if  there  had  been  no  war,  they 
would  have  felt  justified  in  expecting  from  the  first  Republi- 
can president  a  more  radical  attitude  in  disapproval  of  slavery 


RADICALS  AND  COPPERHEADS  281 

than  they  discovered  in  the  early  portion  of  Lincoln's  adminis- 
tration ;  but  when  slavery  brought  forth  its  fruit  in  rebellion,  and 
that  which  had  been  the  curse  of  the  Union  became  its  destruc- 
tion, they  thought  they  had  a  right  to  expect  that  Lincoln  would 
proceed  with  far  more  vigor  than  he  did  to  carry  out  to  its  legiti- 
mate conclusion  his  and  their  hostility  to  slavery.  Lincoln  put  a 
Democrat  at  the  head  of  the  army,  and  left  John  C.  Fremont  in 
comparative  obscurity.  Lincoln  dismissed  Cameron  from  his 
Cabinet,  largely  as  was  supposed  because  Cameron  was  more 
interested  in  abolition  than  Lincoln  was.  Lincoln  nullified 
the  orders  of  Hunter  and  of  Fremont  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  their  respective  military  districts.  The  Emancipation 
Proclamation  covered  only  that  portion  of  the  country  that  was 
in  rebellion.  Even  after  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  Lin- 
coln permitted  the  officers  of  the  army  to  return  fugitive  slaves 
to  loyal  citizens  in  the  border  states  that  had  not  seceded.  It  is 
little  wonder  that  this  displeased  the  rabid  abolitionists.  There 
was  in  Congress  a  group  of  men  increasingly  out  of  sympathy 
with  Lincoln  in  these  matters.  Zachariah  Chandler,  of  Michi- 
gan, Benjamin  F.  Wade,  of  Ohio,  and  Lyman  Trumbull,  of  Illi- 
nois, were  of  this  number.  The  unquestioned  leader  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  was  the  uncompromising  Thaddeus 
Stevens.  Had  Lincoln  lived  he  surely  would  have  had  trouble 
with  Stevens.  Thomas  Dixon  made  no  attempt  to  disguise  him 
in  the  character  which  he  calls  "Stoneman"  in  his  novel  The 
Clansman  and  his  photoplay  The  Birth  of  a  Nation.  But  th 
characterization  can  not  be  acknowledged  to  be  a  just  one. 

The  outstanding  leaders,  however,  in  the  opposition  to  Lin- 
coln in  the  campaign  that  was  soon  to  occur,  were  a  member  of 
his  own  Cabinet  and  two  generals  in  the  Union  Army,  one  of 
whom  Lincoln  had  elevated  to  the  foremost  place  of  power,  and 
the  other  of  whom  had  been  the  first  standard  bearer  of  the 
Lincoln  party  as  a  candidate  for  the  presidency. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE   ELECTION    OP     1 864 

By  the  middle  of  Lincoln's  first  term,  Republican  leaders  had 
quite  generally  come  to  an  agreement  that  some  other  candidate 
would  need  to  be  nominated  if  that  party  were  to  win  the  election 
of  1864.  On  December  15,  1863,  the  New  York  Herald  pub- 
lished an  editorial  headed  "Grant  as  the  people's  candidate."  To 
his  lasting  honor,  General  Grant  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  all  sugges- 
tions that  he  should  leave  the  leadership  of  the  army  and  enter 
the  field  of  politics  against  President  Lincoln.  Fremont,  how- 
ever, had  no  such  scruples,  and  Chase  conducted  his  own  cam- 
paign from  his  chair  in  the  president's  Cabinet.  Lincoln  ex- 
pressed in  the  hearing  of  John  Hay  his  opinion  of  the  various 
men  who  were  opposing  him.  Chase's  performance,  he  said,  was 
in  bad  taste,  but  he  had  determined  to  pay  no  attention  to  it.  He 
was  a  good  secretary,  and  if  he  could  be  elected  president  lie 
hoped  the  country  would  never  have  a  worse  one. 

When  viewed  from  this  distance  the  operations  of  Secretary 
Chase  on  his  own  behalf  while  a  member  of  Lincoln's  Cabinet, 
appear  so  reprehensible  we  can  hardly  wonder  that  some  author- 
ities have  regarded  him  as  an  absolute  traitor  to  his  chief.  This 
view  of  the  case  is  too  severe.  Chase  never  came  to  realize  that 
the  president  was  a  greater  man  than  himself.  He  was  burdened 
with  a  hopeless  inability  to  appreciate  Mr.  Lincoln's  true  great- 
ness. He  had  no  such  limitation  concerning  his  own  ability. 
He  had  been  an  outstanding  leader  in  the  anti-slavery  cause 
when  Air.  Lincoln  was  an  unknown  man.  He  regarded  Lin- 
coln's first  election  as  a  political  accident,  and  he  intended  to 

282 


THE  ELECTION  OF   1864  283 

save  the  country  from  the  misfortune  of  Lincoln's  reelection, 
which,  however,  he  did  not  regard  as  a  possibility.  He  was 
entirely  sincere  in  believing-  himself  a  much  abler  man  than  Lin- 
coln. His  most  serious  lack  would  seem  to  have  been  a  sense 
of  humor. 

Chase  put  the  conduct  of  his  campaign  into  the  hands  of  Sen- 
ator Pomeroy,  of  Kansas.  He  could  hardly  have  made  a  worse 
choice.  Kansas  itself  was  divided  between  its  two  senators, 
Pomeroy  and  Lane.  Pomeroy  issued  a  circular,  and  scattered  it 
broadcast  among  the  enemies  of  the  administration.  Many 
copies  of  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  Lincoln's  friends  who  sent 
them  to  the  White  House  with  the  expectation  that  Lincoln 
would  immediately  demand  the  resignation  of  Chase.  Chase  dis- 
covered the  blunder  involved  in  it,  and  wrote  to  Lincoln  a  letter 
denying  all  knowledge  of  it,  and  Lincoln  acknowledged  the  letter 
in  a  courteous  response  in  which  he  stated  that  copies  of  the 
circular  had  been  sent  him,  but  he  had  not  read  it  and  did  not 
expect  to  do  so. 

The  Pomeroy  circular  is  of  value  at  this  date  as  showing  how 
bitter,  within  Lincoln's  own  party,  was  the  opposition  to  him. 
It  said : 

The  movements  recently  made  throughout  the  country  to 
secure  the  renomination  of  President  Lincoln  render  necessary 
counter-action  on  the  part  of  those  unconditional  friends  of  the 
Union  who  differ  from  the  policy  of  the  Administration. 

So  long  as  no  efforts  were  made  to  forestall  the  political  action 
of  the  people,  it  was  both  wise  and  patriotic  for  all  true  friends 
of  the  Government  to  devote  their  influence  to  the  suppression 
of  the  rebellion;  but  when  it  becomes  evident  that  party  and  the 
machinery  of  official  influence  are  being  used  to  secure  the  per- 
petuation of  the  present  Administration,  those  who  conscien- 
tiously believe  that  the  interests  of  the  country  and  of  freedom 
demand  a  change  in  favor  of  vigor  and  purity  and  nationality, 
have  no  choice  but  to  appeal  at  once  to  the  people  before  it  is  too 
late  to  secure  a  fair  discussion  of  principles. 

Those  in  behalf  of  whom  this  appeal  is  made  have  thought- 


284  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

fully  surveyed  the  political  field,  and  have  arrived  at  the  follow- 
ing conclusion :  First,  that  even  were  the  reelection  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln desirable,  it  is  practically  impossible  against  the  Union  of 
influences  which  will  oppose  him.  Second,  that  should  he  be 
reelected,  his  manifest  tendency  towards  compromises  and  tem- 
porary expedients  of  policy  will  become  stronger  during  a  sec- 
ond term  than  it  has  been  in  the  first,  and  the  cause  of  human 
liberty,  and  the  dignity  of  the  nation,  suffer  proportionately, 
while  the  war  may  continue  to  languish  during  his  whole  Ad- 
ministration, till  the  public  debt  shall  become  a  burden  too  great 
to  be  borne.  Third,  that  the  patronage  of  the  Government 
through  the  necessities  of  the  war  has  been  so  rapidly  increased, 
and  to  such  an  enormous  extent,  and  so  loosely  placed,  as  to 
render  the  application  of  the  one-term  principle  absolutely  essen- 
tial to  the  certain  safety  of  our  republican  institutions.  Fourth, 
that  we  find  united  in  Hon.  Salmon  P.  Chase  more  of  the  qual- 
ities needed  in  a  President  during  the  next  four  years  than  are 
combined  in  any  other  available  candidate.  His  record  is  clear 
and  unimpeachable,  showing  him  to  be  a  statesman  of  rare  abil- 
ity and  an  administrator  of  the  highest  order,  while  his  private 
character  furnishes  the  surest  available  guarantee  of  economy 
and  purity  in  the  management  of  public  affairs.  Fifth,  that  the 
discussion  of  the  Presidential  question,  already  commenced  by 
the  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  has  developed  a  popularity  and 
strength  in  Mr.  Chase  unexpected  even  to  his  warmest  admirers; 
and  while  we  are  aware  that  its  strength  is  at  present  unor- 
ganized, and  in  no  condition  to  manifest  its  real  magnitude,  we 
are  satisfied  that  it  only  needs  a  systematic  and  faithful  effort  to 
develop  it  to  an  extent  sufficient  to  overcome  all  opposing  ob- 
stacles. For  these  reasons  the  friends  of  Mr.  Chase  have  de- 
termined on  measures  which  shall  present  his  claims  fairly  and 
at  once  to  the  country.  A  central  organization  has  been  ef- 
fected, which  already  has  its  connections  in  all  the  States,  and 
the  object  of  which  is  to  enable  his  friends  everywhere  most 
effectually  to  promote  his  elevation  to  the  Presidency.  We  wish 
the  hearty  cooperation  of  all  those  who  are  in  favor  of  the 
speedy  restoration  of  the  Union  on  the  basis  of  universal  free- 
dom, and  who  desire  an  administration  of  the  Government  dur- 
ing the  first  period  of  its  new  life  which  shall  to  the  fullest 
extent  develop  the  capacity  of  free  institutions,  enlarge  the  re- 
sources of  the  country,  diminish  the  burdens  of  taxation,  ele- 


THE  ELECTION  OF  1864  285 

rate  the  standard  of  public  and  private  morality,  vindicate  the 
honor  of  the  Republic  before  the  world,  and  in  all  things  make 
our  American  nationality  the  fairest  example  for  imitation  which 
human  progress  has  ever  achieved.  If  these  objects  meet  your 
approval,  you  can  render  efficient  aid  by  exerting  yourself  at 
once  to  organize  your  section  of  the  country,  and  by  corres- 
ponding with  the  chairman  of  the  National  Executive  Committee 
for  the  purpose  either  of  receiving  or  imparting  information. 

Lincoln  had  no  high  opinion  either  of  the  loyalty  or  ability  of 
Fremont.  He  had  stumped  Illinois  for  Fremont  in  1856,  but 
had  seen  that  general  display  such  an  erratic  temper  in  the  early 
years  of  the  war  that  he  came  greatly  to  distrust  him.  John 
Hay  on  May  21,  1864,  wrote  an  entry  in  his  diary  that  began 
with  a  criticism  of  Burnside,  and  ended  with  a  severer  criticism 
of  Fremont : 

Burnside  is  turning  out  much  as  I  thought  he  would,  perfectly 
useless  and  incapable  for  campaigning.  He  quarrels  with  Grant 
and  Stanton,  and  makes  a  nuisance  of  himself.  I  said  to  the 
President  to-day  that  I  thought  Burnside  was  the  only  man  in 
the  army  to  whom  power  was  an  injury.  McClellan  was  too 
timid  and  vacillating  to  assert;  Grant  was  too  sound  and  cool- 
headed  and  unselfish ;  Fremont  would  be  dangerous  if  he  had 
more  ability  and  energy. 

Lincoln  seemed  to  Hay  to  assent  to  all  the  foregoing,  and  said 
that  Fremont  was  like  Jim  Jell's  little  brother.  Jim  used  to  say 
that  his  brother  was  the  biggest  scoundrel  that  ever  lived,  but  in 
the  infinite  mercy  of  Providence,  he  was  also  the  biggest  fool. 

General  Fremont,  however,  was  not  easily  disposed  of.  There 
was  a  factional  fight  in  Missouri  urging  his  nomination.  A 
mass  convention  was  held  in  Cleveland  on  May  thirty-first.  It 
denounced  Mr.  Lincoln  for  his  "imbecile  and  vacillating  policy." 
Wendell  Phillips  and  other  bitter  opponents  of  slaverv  joined  in 
this  movement,  though  William  Lloyd  Garrison  and  Oliver 
Johnson  stood  loyally  by  Lincoln,  and  Owen  Lovejoy  re- 
mained throughout  one  of  his  warm  supporters. 


286  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  never  regarded  the  candidacy  of  Fremont  with  any 
great  concern.  Some  one  told  him  that  Fremont  supporters  had 
assemhled  at  Cleveland  to  place  him  in  nomination,  and  that 
there  were  about  four  hundred  of  them.  Lincoln's  knowledge 
of  the  Bible  stood  him  in  good  stead  and  he  turned  to  the  Bible, 
which  his  secretaries  say  "commonly  lay  on  his  desk,"  and  read 
the  verse  I  Samuel  22  :2 : 

And  every  one  that  was  in  distress,  and  every  one  that  was  in 
debt,  and  every  one  that  was  discontented,  gathered  themselves 
unto  him;  and  he  became  a  captain  over  them;  and  there  were 
with  him  about  four  hundred  men. 

For  a  time  it  appeared  that  the  Fremont  campaign  might  give 
Lincoln  a  considerable  degree  of  trouble,  but  it  soon  became  evi- 
dent that  his  cause  was  hopeless.  John  G.  Whittier  and  other 
prominent  abolitionists  were  among  those  who  advised  Fremont 
to  withdraw,  which  in  due  time  he  did. 

A  large  section  of  the  northern  press  was  bitterly  hostile  to 
the  president.  On  a  Wednesday  toward  the  end  of  May,  1864,. 
the  New  York  World,  which  was  one  of  the  president's  severest 
critics,  published  an  alleged  proclamation  signed  by  the  presi- 
dent, appointing  a  day  of  fasting,  humiliation  and  prayer  for  the 
success  of  the  Union,  and  calling  for  a  draft  of  four  hundred 
thousand  men.  The  effect  of  such  a  proclamation  could  only  be 
to  chill  to  the  very  heart  the  hopes  of  those  who  had  been  looking 
for  a  speedy  ending  of  the  war.  The  document  was  soon  dis- 
covered to  have  been  a  forgery ;  most  of  the  New  York  editors 
so  pronounced  it  when  it  first  came  in  and  did  not  print  it.  But 
the  World,  whose  editor  was  Manton  Marble,  and  the  Journal 
of  Commerce,  whose  editor  was  William  C.  Prime,  both  pub- 
lished it.  The  editions  containing  this  proclamation  were 
promptly  recalled,  and  other  editions  were  sent  out  acknowledg- 
ing that  these  papers  had  been  deceived.  Marble  and  Prime 
were  arrested  and  their  papers  were  suspended  for  a  few  days. 
The  editors  soon  were  able  to  show  that  they  had  been  imposed 


THE  ELECTION  OF   1864  287 

on,  and  were  permitted  to  resume  publication,  not,  however, 
with  any  considerable  degree  of  favor  on  the  part  of  the  author- 
ities in  Washington. 

The  truth  was  soon  discovered.  The  author  of  the  forgery 
was  Joseph  Howard,  Jr.,  who  had  been  city  editor  of  the  Times. 
and  later  Washington  correspondent  of  the  Tribune.  He  wras  a 
member  of  Plymouth  Church  and  had  reported  many  of  the 
sermons  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  He  knew  thoroughly  the 
habits  and  customs  of  the  newspaper  offices  in  New  York.  He 
had  suffered  financial  reverses,  and  he  undertook  this  despicable 
plot  in  the  assurance  that  it  would  cause  a  panic  on  Wall  Street, 
from  which  there  would  be  prompt  recovery  of  prices  when  the 
truth  was  known.  His  relations  with  New  York  brokers  were 
such  that  he  hoped  to  make  a  fortune  in  a  few  hours.  Fortu- 
nately for  the  country  his  plot  did  not  succeed. 

The  Republican  Convention  of  1864  discarded  its  party  name 
and  called  itself  the  Union  Convention.  It  was  held  in  Balti- 
more on  June  eighth.  It  met  at  the  time  when  Grant  was  forc- 
ing Lee  steadily  back  upon  Richmond.  There  was  only  one 
candidate  who  under  all  the  circumstances  as  they  then  were 
could  possibly  be  nominated  at  that  convention.  The  popular 
desire,  based  upon  increasing  military  success,  was  overwhelm- 
ingly for  Lincoln.  It  was  a  noisy  and  discordant  convention, 
but  one  whose  verdict  was  assured  in  advance.  Abraham  Lin- 
coln was  renominated. 

The  Democratic  Party  held  its  convention  in  Chicago,  August 
twenty-ninth.  It  nominated  as  candidate  for  president,  General 
George  B.  McClellan,  and  for  vice-president,  George  H.  Pendle- 
ton, of  Ohio.  The  platform  declared  the  war  a  failure.  The  Dem- 
ocratic Party  has  never  since  had  any  great  pride  in  that  declara- 
tion. McClellan  himself,  in  his  letter  of  acceptance,  took  pains  to 
repudiate  that  plank.  It  was  inevitable,  however,  that  if  he  had 
been  elected  he  would  have  been  compelled  by  his  party  to  seek 
an  early  peace.  The  fortunes  of  the  Union  and  of  freedom  were 
bound  up  with  the  reelection  of  Lincoln. 


288  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

It  would  be  a  disagreeable  and  profitless  task  to  quote  at  any 
great  length  the  literature  of  this  period  issued  in  opposition  to 
Abraham  Lincoln.  It  varied  in  quality  and  in  tone.  There  was 
what  might  be  called  the  "high-brow"  literature  of  the  period, 
issued  by  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Political  Knowledge, 
an  organization  which  dined  statedly  at  Delmonico's  in  New 
York  City,  and  whose  president  was  none  other  than  Samuel  F. 
B.  Morse,  the  inventor  of  the  telegraph.  The  pamphlets  issued 
by  this  organization  are  in  good  literary  form  and  made  their 
appeal  to  the  intellectual  people  of  New  York  City  and  of  the 
country.  Governor  Horatio  Seymour,  who  was  elected  in  the 
fall  of  1862  and  who  was  at  best  a  passive  resistant  of  the  draft 
and  other  war  measures,  and  who  was  believed  to  have  presi- 
dential aspirations  in  1864,  was  only. one  among  the  notable  men 
in  positions  of  large  influence  in  a  state  of  undisguised  hostility 
to  Abraham  Lincoln  and  all  his  works. 

At  the  other  extreme  of  those  opposed  to  Lincoln  were  the 
authors  and  publishers  of  ribald  and  libelous  abuse,  which  sounds 
strange  to  those  who  have  learned  to  hold  in  honor  the  name  of 
Abraham  Lincoln. 

Lest  we  forget  those  days  in  which  Lincoln  numbered  among 
his  foes  those  who  should  have  been  of  his  own  household,  let 
us  recall  a  few  paragraphs  from  one  of  the  most  popular  of  the 
tracts  of  this  time.  A  patriotic  preacher,  either  in  prayer  or  in 
discourse,  had  uttered  the  fervent  ejaculation  "God  bless  Abra- 
ham Lincoln !"  To  not  a  few  Copperheads  this  seemed  an 
utterly  blasphemous  prayer.  It  called  forth  in  answrer  a  pam- 
phlet whose  author  had  the  grace  to  conceal  his  name,  and  whose 
title  was  that  of  the  prayer  "God  bless  Abraham  Lincoln." 

This  pamphlet  recited  at  considerable  length  and  in  detail  the 
reasons  why  Abraham  Lincoln  deserved  a  very  different  fate  at 
the  hand  even  of  the  most  merciful  God.  It  ended  with  this  per- 
f ervid  peroration : 

Let  the  merchants,  when  their  ships  lie  rotting  at  the  wharves, 


THE  ELECTION  OF   1864  289 

and  the  bankers  when  the  banks  are  closed  and  broken  .  .  .  cry 
.  .  .  "God  bless  Abraham  Lincoln." 

When  the  manufacturers  find  the  loom  idle  and  the  shuttle 
suspended  in  the  sley  and  the  male  operators  slain  or  disabled 
and  their  wives  and  children  houseless  and  starving — then  let 
them,  as  in  duty  bound,  cry — "God  bless  Abraham  Lincoln." 

When  the  farmers  find  their  fields  laid  waste,  dwellings  and 
barns  demolished,  and  all  around  desolation ;  no  green  spot  to 
refresh  the  sunken  eyes,  no  flocks  or  herds  in  the  distance  low- 
ing, rendering  hill  and  dale  joyous — let  them  not  despair,  but 
with  the  eyes  of  faith,  through  the  Higher  Law,  look  to  the 
glorious  future,  when  their  farms  will  be  the  heritage  of  the  re- 
juvenated Ethiopians  .  .  .  and  with  pious  resignation,  repeat, 
"God  bless  Abraham  Lincoln." 

Let  the  masters  of  the  Church  Militant  from  Rev.  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  and  the  sanctified  and  Veracious  Dr.  Tyng  of 
Xew  York,  to  the  meek  and  gentle  Parson  Brownlow  and  the 
Reverend  and  Peaceful  Jim  Cartey  of  Nashville — let  them,  I 
repeat,  when  they  have  preached  the  Gospel — driving  Loyal 
Hearers  out  of  the  churches,  and  the  pews  are  empty,  save  when 
filled  as  hospitals  with  the  mutilated,  wounded  and  brokendown 
soldiers  of  this  Righteous  War ;  and  when  their  eyes  behold 
nothing  but  wounds,  bruises  and  putrefying  sores,  which  they 
helped  to  produce,  oh:  then  let  them  lift  their  spotless  hands  to 
the  Lamb  upon  the  throne,  and  exclaim,  "God  bless  Abraham 
Lincoln. " 

Let  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  bring  out  the  latest  of  her  Uncle 
Toms,  drawn  to  be  put  upon  the  stage  with  all  the  effect  artistic 
skill  can  produce,  in  the  center  foreground  should  appear  quiv- 
ering limbs,  once  of  the  gentlest,  rarest  mold,  now  stained  and 
defiled  with  foulest  pollution;  showing  also  snow-white  bosoms, 
that  ever  throbbed  in  angelic  purity  to  woman's  soft  emotions, 
now  blood-stained  in  the  last  heavings  of  unpitied,  untold  out- 
rage, woe  and  wrong!  Along  the  right  and  left  side  wings 
should  appear  groups  of  fair  and  gentle  creatures,  with  hair  dis- 
heveled, and  eyes  distended  in  hopeless  despair,  while  the  black 
ourang-outangs  are  dragging  them  down  to  gratify  their  brutal 
instincts  ....  When  the  curtain  rises,  let  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe  enter  with  lofty  brow  to  receive  the  plaudits  gathered 
upon  Humanity's  extended  fold,  and  when  advanced  to  the  foot- 
lights, let  her  give  with  dramatic  effect,  "God  bless  Abraham 
Lincoln." 


290  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Finally,  let  Hell  open  its  jaws,  and,  jubilant  of  the  ranks  of 
Abolitionism,  belch  forth  flames  and  lightning,  and,  in  derision 
of  the  Most  High,  laugh  out — in  thunders  that  will  shake  the 
earth  and  startle  the  Ear  of  Heaven — "God  bless  Abraham  Lin- 
coln !" 

At  the  time  of  the  nomination  of  Lincoln  in  the  early  part  of 
June  in  1864,  there  appeared  not  only  no  doubt  of  his  being- 
named  upon  the  first  ballot,  but  now  of  his  triumphant  reelec- 
tion. Lincoln  appeared  to  have  unified  his  party  and  practically 
to  have  unified  the  sentiment  of  all  the  loyal  states.  Even  his 
Cabinet  acknowledged  his  supreme  authority  and  responded 
heartily  to  his  leadership.  When  the  Baltimore  Convention  ad- 
journed it  had  seemed  a  needless  formality  to  telegraph  the  presi- 
dent concerning  its  result.  Within  a  month,  however,  the  party 
that  nominated  Lincoln  was  divided,  and  by  the  middle  of  the 
summer  it  appeared  very  doubtful  whether  Lincoln  could  be  re- 
elected. Early  in  his  administration  Lincoln  had  offended 
Henry  Winter  Davis,  of  Maryland,  a  cousin  of  his  long-time 
friend,  Judge  David  Davis,  of  Illinois.  The  rock  upon  which  the 
supporters  of  his  administration  split  was  the  status  of  the  states 
in  rebellion.  Were  they  in  the  Union  or  out  of  it?  Lincoln  be- 
lieved that  the  theory  on  which  the  Federal  Government  was 
fighting  the  rebellion  was  that  no  state  could  take  itself  out  of  the 
Union ;  and  that  the  seceded  states  were  to  be  recognized  just  as 
rapidly  as  they  could  organize  governments  loyal  to  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States.  This  theory,  however,  did  not  please 
the  extreme  leaders  of  the  Republican  Party.  They  desired,  in 
the  language  of  Andrew  Johnson,  "to  make  treason  odious/'  As 
Congress  was  about  to  adjourn,  at  noon  on  July  4,  1864,  a  bill 
was  passed  which  had  been  drawn  by  Mr.  Davis,  containing  in 
its  preamble  the  declaration  that  the  seceded  states  were  not  in 
the  Union,  and  calling  for  reconstruction  on  a  basis  which  in- 
cluded the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  reconstructed  states. 
Lincoln  declined  to  sign  this  bill,  and  it  failed  to  become  a  law 
for  lack  of  Lincoln's  signature.     Instead  Lincoln  issued  on  July 


THE  ELECTION  OF  1864  291 

eighth  a  proclamation   in  which  he  stated  his  reasons  for  not 
approving  the  bill.     He  said : 

Now,  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United 
States,  do  proclaim,  declare,  and  make  known  that  while  I  am — 
as  I  was  in  December  last,  when  by  proclamation  I  propounded 
a  plan  of  restoration — unprepared  by  a  formal  approval  of  this 
bill  to  be  inflexibly  committed  to  any  single  plan  of  restoration, 
and  while  I  am  also  unprepared  to  declare  that  the  free  State 
constitutions  and  governments,  already  adopted  and  installed  in 
Arkansas  and  Louisiana,  shall  be  set  aside  and  held  for  naught, 
thereby  repelling  and  discouraging  the  loyal  citizens  who  have 
set  up  the  same  as  to  further  effort,  or  to  declare  a  constitu- 
tional competency  in  Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  States, 
but  am  at  the  same  time  sincerely  hoping  and  expecting  that  a 
constitutional  amendment  abolishing  slavery  throughout  the  na- 
tion may  be  adopted,  nevertheless,  I  am  fully  satisfied  with  the 
system  for  restoration  contained  in  the  bill  as  one  very  proper 
for  the  loyal  people  of  any  State  choosing  to  adopt  it ;  and  that 
I  am,  and  at  all  times  shall  be,  prepared  to  give  the  executive  aid 
and  assistance  to  any  such  people,  so  soon  as  military  resistance 
to  the  L^nited  States  shall  have  been  suppressed  in  any  such 
State,  and  the  people  thereof  shall  have  sufficiently  returned  to 
their  obedience  to  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  the  United 
States,  in  which  cases  military  governors  will  be  appointed,  with 
directions  to  proceed  according  to  the  bill. 

Xot  a  few  of  the  most  vigorous  members  of  the  Republican 
Party  were  offended  by  this  action.  On  August  fifth,  Senator 
P.enjamin  F.  Wade*  and  Honorable  Henry  Winter  Davis 
joined  in  a  signed  attack  upon  the  president  for  what  they  called 
"a  studied  outrage  on  the  legislative  authority  of  the  people." 
This,  the  most  bitter  attack  made  upon  the  president  by  members 
of  his  own  party  during  his  administration,  contained  the  follow- 
ing paragraph : 


*There  is  not  space  in  a  work  such  as  this  to  do  justice,  and  it  has  yet 
to  be  done,  to  Zachariah  Chandler  and  Benjamin  F.  YVade.  I  can  but  feel 
that  some  recent  biographies  of  Lincoln,  in  setting  forth  the  opposition  of 
these  senators  to  -incoln  in  some  of  his  measures  that  appeared  to  them  to 
invade   the   prerogatives   of   Congress,  have  done  them    injustice.     Two   inci- 


292  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Such  are  the  fruits  of  this  rash  and  fatal  act  of  the  President 
• — a  blow  at  the  friends  of  his  Administration,  at  the  rights  of 
humanity,  and  at  the  principles  of  republican  government.  The 
President  has  greatly  presumed  on  the  forbearance  which  the 
supporters  of  his  Administration  have  so  long  practiced,  in  view 
of  the  arduous  conflict  in  which  we  are  engaged,  and  the  reck- 
less ferocity  of  our  political  opponents.  But  he  must  understand 
that  our  support  is  of  a  cause  and  not  of  a  man ;  that  the  author- 
ity of  Congress  is  paramount  and  must  be  respected ;  that  the 
whole  body  of  the  Union  men  of  Congress  will  not  submit  to  be 
impeached  by  him  of  rash  and  unconstitutional  legislation ;  and 
if  he  wishes  our  support  he  must  confine  himself  to  his  executive 
duties — to  obey  and  to  execute,  not  make  the  laws — to  suppress 
by  arms  armed  rebellion,  and  leave  political  reorganization  to 
Congress.  If  the  supporters  of  the  Government  fail  to  insist  on 
this  they  become  responsible  for  the  usurpations  which  they  fail 
to  rebuke,  and  are  justly  liable  to  the  indignation  of  the  people 
whose  rights  and  security,  committed  to  their  keeping,  they  sac- 
rifice. Let  them  consider  the  remedy  of  these  usurpations,  and, 
having  found  it,  fearlessly  execute  it. 

Wendell  Phillips  also  strongly  opposed  President  Lincoln's  re- 
election, and  made  several  warm  speeches  against  Lincoln  and 
his  policy. 

When  asked  if  he  had  read  the  Wrade-Davis  Manifesto  or  any 
of  Phillips'  speeches,  the  president  replied : 


dents  may  be  related  concerning  Wade.  When  he  was  a  judge  in  Ohio,  a 
negro  was  introduced  as  a  witness,  and  was  objected  to  by  opposing  counsel. 
There  was  a  statute  that  forbade  such  testimony,  but  in  the  courts  of  North- 
ern Ohio  it  was  a  dead  letter  and  there  were  abundant  precedents  for  its 
non-observance.  One  lawyer  argued  the  statute  which  was  unmistakable, 
and  the  other  argued  the  precedents.  "Let  the  witness  be  sworn,"  said  Wade. 
"No  evidence  has  been  introduced  to  show  that  this  witness  is  a  negro." 

The  other  I  give  from  memory  as  I  heard  it  from  a  man  who  was  pres- 
ent at  a  Fourth  of  July  celebration  at  Jefferson,  Ohio,  while  the  war  was  in 
progress.  Wade  was  describing  his  last  interview  with  Jefferson  Davis,  in 
which  Davis  proposed  that  the  southern  states  should  be  permitted  to  secede 
peacefully,  taking  with  them  the  forts,  custom-houses,  and  other  pieces  of 
property  of  the  Federal  Government  located  within  them.     Said  Wade : 

"When  that  old  arch-traitor  made  that  proposal  to  me,  what  answer  do 
you  think  I  made  to  him?  I  said  to  him,  Til  see  you  in  hell  first!  With  the 
gate  locked!  And  the  key  thrown  away!  And  a  strong  northeast  wind 
blowing  cinders  into  your  damned  old  eyes  !'  " 

Wade  never  used  language  quite  as  strong  as  this  regarding  Lincoln 
but  it  was  not  very  gentle. 


THE  ELECTION  OF   1864  293 

"I  have  not  seen  them,  nor  do  I  care  to  see  them.  I  have  seen 
enough  to  satisfy  me  that  I  am  a  failure,  not  only  in  the  opinion 
of  the  people  in  rebellion,  but  of  many  distinguished  politicians 
of  my  own  party.  But  time  will  show  whether  I  am  right  or 
they  are  right,  and  I  am  content  to  abide  its  decision.  I  have 
enough  to  look  after  without  giving  much  of  my  time  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  subject  of  who  shall  be  my  successor  in  office. 
The  position  is  not  an  easy  one ;  and  the  occupant,  whoever  he 
may  be,  for  the  next  four  years,  will  have  little  leisure  to  pluck 
a  thorn  or  plant  a  rose  in  his  own  pathway." 

It  was  urged  that  this  opposition  must  be  embarrassing  to  his 
administration,  as  well  as  damaging  to  the  party.  He  replied  : 
"Yes,  that  is  true;  but  our  friends,  Wade,  Davis,  Phillips,  and 
others  are  hard  to  please.  I  am  not  capable  of  doing  so.  I  can 
not  please  them  without  wantonly  violating  not  only  my  oath, 
but  the  most  vital  principles  upon  which  our  government  was 
founded.  As  to  those  who,  like  Wade  and  the  rest,  see  fit  to  de- 
preciate my  policy  and  cavil  at  my  official  acts,  I  shall  not  com- 
plain of  them.  I  accord  them  the  utmost  freedom  of  speech  and 
liberty  of  the  press,  but  shall  not  change  the  policy  I  have 
adopted  in  the  full  belief  that  I  am  right.  I  feel  on  this  subject 
as  an  Illinois  farmer  once  expressed  himself  while  eating  cheese. 
He  was  interrupted  in  the  midst  of  his  repast  by  the  entrance  of 
his  son,  who  exclaimed,  'Hold  on,  dad !  there's  skippers  in  that 
cheese  you're  eating!' 

"  'Never  mind,  Tom;  said  he,  as  he  kept  on  munching  his 
cheese,  'if  they  can  stand  it  I  can.'  " 

Lincoln  could  not  always  refrain  from  an  apt  repartee  even 
when  he  knew  it  would  give  offense. 

Ward  H.  Lamon  told  this  story  of  President  Lincoln,  whom 
he  found  one  day  in  a  particularly  gloomy  frame  of  mind.  La- 
mon said : 

"The  President  remarked,  as  I  came  in,  T  fear  I  have  made 
Senator  Wade,  of  Ohio,  my  enemy  for  life.' 

"'How?'  I  asked. 


294  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

'Well,'  continued  the  president,  'Wade  was  here  just  now 
urging  me  to  dismiss  Grant,  and,  in  response  to  something  he 
said,  I  remarked,  "Senator,  that  reminds  me  of  a  story." 
'  'What  did  Wade  say  ?'  I  inquired  of  the  president. 
'  'He  said,  in  a  petulant  way,'  the  president  responded,  '  "It  is 
with  you,  sir,  all  story,  story !  You  are  the  father  of  every  mili  - 
tary  blunder  that  has  been  made  during  the  war.  This  govern- 
ment is  on  the  road  to  hell,  sir,  by  reason  of  your  obstinacy,  and 
you  are  not  a  mile  from  there  this  minute."  ' 

"  'What  did  you  say  then?' 

"  T  good-naturedly  said  to  him,'  the  president  replied,  '  "Sena- 
tor, that  is  just  about  the  distance  from  here  to  the  capitol,  is  it 
not?"  He  was  very  angry,  grabbed  up  his  hat  and  cane,  and 
went  away.'  " 

At  this  time  also,  Horace  Greeley,  being  assured  that  the  time 
had  come  for  a  new  effort  on  behalf  of  peace,  entered  into 
negotiations  with  certain  commissioners  of  the  Confederate  Gov- 
ernment, to  that  end.  Lincoln  had  no  faith  in  the  undertaking, 
but  gave  to  Greeley  the  following  document  written  in  the  presi- 
dent's own  hand : 

Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  July  18,  1864. 

To  whom  it  may  concern :  Any  proposition  which  embraces 
the  restoration  of  peace,  the  integrity  of  the  whole  Union,  and 
the  abandonment  of  slavery,  and  which  comes  by  and  with  an 
authority  that  can  control  the  armies  now  at  war  against  the 
United  States,  will  be  received  and  considered  by  the  Executive 
government  of  the  United  States,  and  will  be  met  by  liberal 
terms  on  other  substantial  and  collateral  points,  and  the  bearer 
or  bearers  thereof  shall  have  safe  conduct  both  ways. 

Abraham  Lincoln. 

Greeley  proceeded  to  Niagara  Falls,  where  he  met  the  Con- 
federate Commissioners,  Clement  C.  Clay,  Jacob  Thompson, 
James  P.  Holcombe  and  George  N.  Sanders,  offering  them  im- 
munity from  arrest  if  they  would  go  to  Washington  carrying 
with  them  authority  from  the  Confederate  Government  to  ne- 


THE  ELECTION  OF   1864  295 

gotiate  for  peace.  Those  commissioners,  however,  had  no  such 
credentials  as  could  justify  their  accepting  the  invitation.  Gree- 
ley found  himself  in  a  false  position,  and  without  stopping  to 
ask  whether  he  himself  was  not  to  blame  for  it,  he  blamed  the 
president.  In  a  letter  which  was  not  published  until  long  after- 
ward, Greeley  made  the  president  this  hysterical  proposal : 

I  fear  that  my  chance  for  usefulness  has  passed.  I  know  that 
nine-tenths  of  the  whole  American  people,  Xorth  and  South,  are 
anxious  for  peace — peace  on  almost  any  terms — and  utterly  sick 
of  human  slaughter  and  devastation.  I  know  that,  to  the  gen- 
eral eye,  it  now  seems  that  the  rebels  are  anxious  to  negotiate 
and  that  we  refuse  their  advances.  I  know  that  if  this  im- 
pression be  not  removed  we  shall  be  beaten  out  of  sight  next 
November.  I  firmly  believe  that,  were  the  election  to  take  place 
to-morrow,  the  Democratic  majority  in  this  State  and  Pennsyl- 
vania would  amount  to  100,000,  and  that  we  should  lose  Con- 
necticut also.  Now  if  the  rebellion  can  be  crushed  before  No- 
vember it  will  do  to  go  on ;  if  not,  we  are  rushing  to  certain  ruin. 

What,  then,  can  I  do  in  Washington?  Your  trusted  advisers 
nearly  all  think  I  ought  to  go  to  Fort  Lafayette  for  what  I  have 
done  already.  Seward  wanted  me  sent  there  for  my  brief  con- 
ference with  M.  Merrier.  The  cry  has  steadily  been.  No  truce! 
No  armistice!  No  negotiation!  No  mediation!  Nothing  but 
surrender  at  discretion !  I  never  heard  of  such  fatuity  before. 
There  is  nothing  like  it  in  history.  It  must  result  in  disaster,  or 
all  experience  is  delusive. 

Now  I  do  not  know  that  a  tolerable  peace  could  be  had,  but 
I  believe  it  might  have  been  last  month :  and,  at  all  events,  I 
know  that  an  honest,  sincere  effort  for  it  would  have  done  us 
immense  good.  And  I  think  no  Government  fighting  a  rebellion 
should  ever  close  its  ears  to  any  proposition  the  rebels  may  make. 

I  beg  you,  implore  you,  to  inaugurate  or  invite  proposals  for 
peace  forthwith.  And  in  case  peace  cannot  now  be  made  consent 
to  an  armistice  for  one  year,  each  party  to  retain  unmolested 
all  it  now  holds,  but  the  rebel  ports  to  be  opened.  Meantime 
let  a  national  convention  be  held,  and  there  will  surely  be  no 
more  war  at  all  events. 

Missouri  in  those  days  was  sadlv  divided.     Two  factions  each 


296  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

led  by  vigorous  men,  had  long  been  at  war  in  that  state,  and 
Lincoln  had  in  his  Cabinet  enough  to  remind  him  constantly  of 
the  hostility  of  some  of  the  Missouri  politicians.  It  was  not, 
however,  for  the  most  part  hostility  to  Lincoln.  But  he  was  so 
situated  as  to  take  the  bufferings  of  both  factions  on  occasion. 
The  divided  counsels  of  that  state  proved  a  bone  of  contention. 

It  was  conditions  such  as  these  which  confronted  the  president 
in  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1864. 

When  Lincoln  was  nominated  in  June  of  1864,  it  seemed  prob- 
able that  the  war  would  be  ended  within  a  few  months,  but  that 
summer  wore  away  and  the  war  did  not  end.  Grant  with  an 
army  of  120,000  men  started  what  had  ruined  many  a  brave 
general  before  him,  a  campaign  in  Virginia.  A  terrific  battle 
was  fought  in  the  Wilderness,  where  Lee's  52,000  men,  fight- 
ing on  the  defensive,  were  a  full  match  for  Grant's  120,000. 
Then  came  the  battle  of  Cold  Harbor,  with  more  loss  of  life. 
In  a  month's  campaign,  Grant  lost  nearly  60,000  men.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  the  country  was  appalled  by  these  losses. 
Any  previous  general  would  have  resigned  the  leadership  of  the 
army  in  despair.  Grant  doggedly  held  on.  His  loss  of  60,000 
men  had  caused  Lee  a  loss  of  30,000.  He  was  winning  the  war 
in  what  was  probably  the  shortest  way,  but  the  country  was  hor- 
rified by  so  much  apparently  fruitless  bloodshed. 

If  the  election  had  occurred  while  these  battles  were  in  pro- 
gress, Lincoln  would  have  been  defeated.  McClellan  would 
have  been  elected  on  his  platform  which  declared  the  war  to  be 
a  failure.  Lincoln  himself  on  August  twenty-third,  if  not  ear- 
lier, reached  definitely  the  opinion  that  he  was  to  be  defeated, 
and  he  handed  to  the  Cabinet  a  sealed  document  which  he  asked 
them  to  sign  and  witness.  What  it  contained  they  did  not  know, 
but  the  act  was  ominous. 

There  was,  however,  no  longer  any  doubt  what  the  armies 
were  fighting  for.  They  were  fighting  to  establish  the  truth 
that  this  was  one  nation.  Equally  they  were  fighting  to  establish 
the  truth  that  this  nation  was  a  free  nation. 


THE  ELECTION  OF  1864  297 

Early  in  the  war  the  soldiers  had  caught  up  a  negro  camp- 
meeting  melody  to  which  they  fitted  words  of  their  own : 

John  Brown's  body  lies  a-mouldering  in  the  grave, 
But  his  soul  goes  marching  on. 
Glory,  glory,  hallelujah, 
His  soul  goes  marching  on. 

The  song  went  into  other  stanzas  declaring  among  other 
things  the  intention  to  hang  Jeff  Davis  to  a  sour  apple  tree;  but 
these  did  not  obscure  the  real  spirit  of  the  song.  The  armies 
caught  the  step ;  they  were  marching  after  the  soul  of  Old  John 
Brown. 

Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe  caught  the  spirit  of  the  melody,  and 
wrote  her  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic : 

In  the  beauty  of  the  lilies,  Christ  was  born  across  the  sea, 
With  the  glory  in  His  bosom,  that  transfigures  you  and  me ; 
As  He  died  to  make  men  holy,  let  us  die  to  make  men  free, 
While  God  is  marching  on. 

Freedom  had  become  a  watchword.  George  F.  Root  had 
written  a  rallying  song  to  which  men  came,  "Shouting  the  Battle 
Cry  of  Freedom."  Lincoln  had  sought  as  his  paramount  object 
to  save  the  Union.  He  now  knew  he  was  equally  committed  to 
the  policy  of  making  the  whole  Union  free.  The  whole  nation 
had  come  clearly  to  recognize  this  modification  of  the  situation. 

All  through  the  conflict  up  and  down, 
Marched  Uncle  Tom  and  Old  John  Brown, 

One  face,  one  form,  ideal ; 
And  which  was  false  and  which  was  true, 
The  wisest  sybil  never  knew, 

Since  both  alike  were  real. 

As  to  slavery  and  the  border  states,  Lincoln  now  defined  his 
attitude,  tactfully  but  uncompromisingly,  in  a  letter  of  April  4, 
1864,  addressed  to  A.  G.  Hodges,  of  Kentucky: 


298  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  am  naturally  anti-slavery.  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  nothing 
is  wrong.  I  cannot  remember  when  I  did  not  so  think  and  feel, 
and  yet  I  have  never  understood  that  the  Presidency  conferred 
upon  me  an  unrestricted  right  to  act  officially  upon  this  judg- 
ment and  feeling.  .  .  .  When,  early  in  the  war,  General  Fre- 
mont attempted  military  emancipation,  I  forbade  it,  because  I  did 
not  then  think  it  an  indispensable  necessity.  When  still  later. 
General  Cameron,  the  Secretary  of  War,  suggested  the  arming 
of  the  blacks,  I  objected,  because  I  did  not  think  it  an  indis- 
pensable necessity.  When  still  later,  General  Hunter  attempted 
military  emancipation,  I  again  forbade  it,  because  I  did  not 
think  the  indispensable  necessity  had  come.  When  in  March, 
and  May,  and  July,  1862,  I  made  earnest  and  successive  appeals 
to  the  border  states  to  favor  compensated  emancipation,  I  be- 
lieved the  indispensable  necessity  for  military  emancipation  and 
arming  the  blacks  would  come,  unless  averted  by  that  measure. 
They  declined  the  proposition,  and  I  was,  in  my  best  judgment, 
driven  to  the  alternative  of  either  surrendering  the  Union,  and 
with  it,  the  Constitution,  or  of  laying  strong  hands  upon  the 
colored  element.  I  chose  the  latter.  In  choosing  it,  I  hoped  for 
greater  gain  than  loss,  but  of  this  I  was  not  entirely  confident. 
More  than  a  year  of  trial  now  shows  no  loss  by  it  in  our  foreign 
relations,  none  in  our  white  military  force,  no  loss  by  it  anyhow 
or  anywhere.  On  the  contrary,  it  shows  a  gain  of  quite  an  hun- 
dred and  thirty  thousand  soldiers,  seamen,  and  laborers.  These 
are  palpable  facts,  about  which,  as  facts,  there  can  be  no  caviling. 
We  have  the  men;  and  we  could  not  have  them  without  the 
measure.  .  .  . 

I  add  a  word  which  was  not  in  the  verbal  conversation.  In 
telling  this  tale,  I  attempt  no  compliment  to  my  own  sagacity. 
I  claim  not  to  have  controlled  events,  but  confess  plainly  that 
events  have  controlled  me.  Now,  at  the  end  of  three  years 
struggle,  the  nation's  condition  is  not  what  either  party  or  any 
man  devised  or  expected.  God  alone  can  claim  it.  Whither  it 
is  tending  seems  plain.  If  God  now  wills  the  removal  of  a  great 
wrong,  and  wills  that  we  of  the  North,  as  well  as  you  of  the 
South,  shall  pay  fairly  for  our  complicity  in  that  wrong,  impar- 
tial history  will  find  therein  new  cause  to  attest  and  revere  the 
justice  and  goodness  of  God. 

The  president  was  gratified  by  the  reception  which  the  news- 


, 


THE  ELECTION  OF   1864  299 

papers  accorded  this  letter.     John  Hay  wrote  on  April  30,  1864: 

The  President  came  loafing  in  as  it  grew  late,  and  talked 
about  the  reception  which  his  Hodges  letter  had  met  with.  He 
seemed  rather  gratified  that  the  tribute  was  in  the  main  inspired 
by  a  kindly  spirit  in  its  criticism.  He  thought  of,  and  found,  ^ 
and  gave  me  to  decipher,  Greeley's  letter  to  him  of  29  July, 
1861.*  This  most  remarkable  letter  still  retains  for  me  its 
wonderful  interest  as  the  most  insane  specimen  of  pusillanimity 
that  I  have  ever  read.  When  I  finished  reading,  Nicolay  said: 
"That  would  be  nuts  to  the  Herald;  Bennett  would  willingly 
give  $10,000  for  that."  To  which  the  President,  tying  red  tape 
around  the  package,  answered,  "I  need  $10,000  very  much,  but 
he  can't  have  it  for  many  times  that." 

Lincoln  made  no  campaign  speeches  either  in  i860  or  in  1864. 
In  his  brief  occasional  utterances  during  the  latter  campaign, 
he  made  no  references  to  his  own  reelection  or  to  the  men  who 
were  opposing  him.  He  wrote  no  letters  for  publication,  and 
authorized  no  interviews  containing  any  direct  reference  to  the 
contest  between  him  and  General  McClellan.  He  did,  howrever, 
write  out  what  he  regarded  as  the  platform  upon  which  he  was 
seeking  reelection.  He  was  invited  to  attend  a  union  mass  meet- 
ing at  Buffalo.  He  declined  the  invitation,  but  had  some  thought 
that  it  might  be  well  to  send  a  letter  outlining  his  views  on  the 
campaign.  He  finally  decided  that  it  would  be  more  dignified 
to  maintain  his  silence,  but  the  following  fragment  found  among 
his  papers  after  he  died,  gives  the  platform  upon  which  Lincoln 
understood  himself  to  be  accepting  his  renomination : 

Yours  inviting  me  to  attend  a  Union  mass  meeting  at  Buffalo 
is  received.  Much  is  being  said  about  peace,  and  no  man  desires 
peace  more  ardently  than  I.  Still  I  am  yet  unprepared  to  give 
up  the  Union  for  a  peace  which,  so  achieved,  could  not  be  of 
much  duration.  The  preservation  of  our  Union  was  not  the  sole 
avowed  object  for  which  the  war  was  commenced.     It  was  com- 

*The  text  of  this  letter  which  followed  the  Battle  of  Bull  Run,  is  quoted 
in  the  chapter  relating  to  that  battle. 


300  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

menced  for  precisely  the  reverse  object — to  destroy  our  Union. 
The  insurgents  commenced  it  by  firing  upon  the  Star  of  the 
West  and  on  Fort  Sumter,  and  by  other  similar  acts.  It  is  true, 
however,  that  the  Administration  accepted  the  war  thus  com- 
menced for  the  sole  avowed  object  of  preserving  our  Union ;  and 
it  is  not  true  that  it  has  since  been,  or  will  be,  prosecuted  by  this 
Administration  for  any  other  object.  In  declaring  this  I  only 
declare  what  I  can  know,  and  do  know,  to  be  true,  and  what  no 
other  man  can  know  to  be  false. 

In  taking  the  various  steps  which  have  led  to  my  present  po- 
sition in  relation  to  the  war,  the  public  interest  and  my  private 
interest  have  been  perfectly  parallel,  because  in  no  other  way 
could  I  serve  myself  so  well  as  by  truly  serving  the  Union.  The 
whole  field  has  been  open  to  me  where  to  choose.  No  place- 
hunting  necessity  has  been  upon  me  urging  me  to  seek  a  posi- 
tion of  antagonism  to  some  other  man,  irrespective  of  whether 
such  position  might  be  favorable  or  unfavorable  to  the  Union. 

Of  course,  I  may  err  in  judgment ;  but  my  present  position  in 
reference  to  the  rebellion  is  the  result  of  my  best  judgment,  and, 
according  to  that  best  judgment,  it  is  the  only  position  upon 
which  any  executive  can  or  could  save  the  Union.  Any  substan- 
tial departure  from  it  insures  the  success  of  the  rebellion.  An  ar- 
mistice— a  cessation  of  hostilities — is  the  end  of  the  struggle, 
and  the  insurgents  would  be  in  peaceable  possession  of  all  that 
has  been  struggled  for.  Any  different  policy  in  regard  to  the 
colored  man  deprives  us  of  his  help,  and  this  is  more  than  we 
can  bear.  We  cannot  spare  the  hundred  and  forty  or  fifty 
thousand  now  serving  us  as  soldiers,  seamen,  and  laborers.  This 
is  not  a  question  of  sentiment  or  taste,  but  one  of  physical  force, 
which  may  be  measured  and  estimated  as  horse-power  and 
steam-power  are  measured  and  estimated.  Keep  it,  and  you  can 
save  the  Union.  Throw  it  away,  and  the  Union  goes  with  it. 
Nor  is  it  possible  for  any  administration  to  retain  the  services  of 
these  people  with  the  express  or  implied  understanding  that  upon 
the  first  convenient  occasion  they  are  to  be  reenslaved.  It  can- 
not be,  and  it  ought  not  to  be. 

This  defined  the  issue  as  Lincoln  held  it  in  his  own  mind. 
This  was  what  the  country  accepted  as  the  policy  of  Lincoln's 
administration  in  its  second  term.  This  was  the  platform  upon 
which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  reelected.     It  was  uncompromising 


i 


THE  ELECTION  OF  1864  301 

in  its  faith  in  an  undivided  Union  which  was  also  to  be  a  free 
nation. 

The  question  to  what  extent  Lincoln  permitted  his  power  of 
patronage  to  be  used  in  1864  to  carry  the  national  election,  is  one 
whose  answer  depends  somewhat  upon  the  form  of  the  question 
and  definition  of  method.  Campaign  assessments  were  levied 
against  officeholders  according  to  the  established  custom  of  the 
time,  and  when  Lincoln  was  informed  of  this  fact  he  did  not  in- 
terfere. Perhaps  he  did  not  know  of  any  other  way  in  which 
the  necessary  expenses  of  a  campaign  could  be  secured  than  that 
which  was  then  a  recognized  and  established  method.  On  the 
other  hand,  Mr.  Arnold  declares,  and  he  was  in  position  to 
know,  that : 

During  the  canvass  made  by  the  friends  of  the  President  for 
his  nomination  and  election  he  never  used  his  power  or  his  pat- 
ronage to  insure  success. 

The  following  note,  written  in  behalf  of  a  friend  in  Illinois  to 
an  office-holder  who  was  charged  with  using  his  power  against 
his  friend,  will  illustrate  the  views  of  the  President  :* 

Executive  Mansion,  Washington,  July  4th,  1864. 

To Esq. 

Dear  Sir :  Complaint  is  made  to  me  that  you  are  using  your 
official  power  to  defeat  Mr. 's  nomination  to  Con- 
gress. I  am  well  satisfied  with  Mr. ,  as  a  member  of  Con- 
gress, and  I  do  not  know  that  the  man  who  might  supplant  him 
would  be  as  satisfactory.  But  the  correct  principle  I  think  is, 
that  all  our  friends  should  have  absolute  freedom  of  choice 
among  our  friends.  My  wish  therefore  is,  that  you  will  do  just 
as  you  think  fit  with  your  own  suffrage  in  the  case,  and  not 
constrain  any  of  your  subordinates  to  do  other  than  he  thinks  fit 
with  his.  This  is  precisely  the  rule  I  inculcated  and  adhered  to 
on  my  part,  when  a  certain  other  nomination  now  recently  made 
was  being  canvassed  for. 

Yours  very  truly, 

A.  Lincoln. 


*Quoted  in  Arnold :  Life  0/  Lincoln,  p.  293. 


302  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Fortunately  for  the  party  that  had  nominated  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, the  situation  of  the  Union  Armies  improved  during  the 
autumn  months.  From  the  depression  of  midsummer  there 
grew  an  enthusiasm  and  a  degree  of  confidence  which  made  the 
election  of  Lincoln  certain.  Only  three  states,  New  Jersey,  Del- 
aware and  Kentucky*  gave  their  vote  to  McClellan.  Lincoln 
had  212  of  the  233  electoral  votes.  He  had  also  a  clear  popu- 
lar majority.  In  a  total  vote  of  4,015,902,  Lincoln's  majority 
was  411,428. 

The  election,  as  Lincoln  said,  showed  how  strong  and  sound 
the  nation  was.  It  "demonstrated  that  a  people's  government 
can  sustain  a  national  election  in  the  midst  of  a  great  Civil 
War."f 


*Although  Kentucky  voted  for  McClellan,  Lincoln  had  a  strong  vote 
there.  It  is  interesting  to  know  that  his  native  county  showed  a  larger  vote 
for  him  in  1864  than  in  i860,  and  that  that  county  furnished  a  considerable 
number  of  Union  soldiers. 

The  official  vote  of  Hardin  County  for  president  in  i860  was  :  Brecken- 
ridge,  144;  Bell,  1,029;  Douglas,  912;  Lincoln,  6.  Of  Larue  County:  Brecken- 
ridge,  32;  Bell,  401;  Douglas,  50;  Lincoln,  3.  (Frankfort  Tri-Weekly  Yeo- 
man, Nov.  13,   i860.) 

The  official  vote  of  Hardin  County  for  president  in  1864  was  :  Lincoln, 
83;  McClellan,  1,010;  Of  Larue  County:  Lincoln,  17;  McClellan,  700. 
(Frankfort  Commonwealth,  Nov.  22,  1864.) 

On  August  31,  1864,  the  nearest  feasible  date  preceding  the  second  draft, 
Hardin's  total  quotas  were  1,210,  its  total  credits  797,  and  its  resulting  defi- 
ciency, 413.  Larue's  total  quotas  were  527,  its  total  credits  495,  and  its  result- 
ing deficiency,  132.  The  net  surplus  for  the  fourth  district,  containing  these 
counties,  was  1,346,  and  the  net  surplus  for  the  entire  state  was  7,065.  (U. 
S.  adjutant-general's  office.  Sen.  doc.  142,  61st  Cong.,  1st  sess.,  p.  13,  14.) 
Thus,  although  Lincoln's  native  county  furnished  a  large  number  of  Con- 
federate soldiers,  its  contribution  to  the  Union  Army  was  not  small. 

fAn  incident  may  illustrate  the  spirit  in  which  some  men  cast  their 
ballots  for  Lincoln  in  1864.  There  was  then  living  on  a  farm  in  the  corner 
made  by  La  Salle,  Bureau  and  Lee  Counties,  Illinois,  an  aged  farmer,  whose 
house  stood  in  La  Salle  County,  just  across  the  line  from  Lee,  and  whose 
vote  had  to  be  cast  in  Mendota.  The  day  was  cold  and  the  road  was  rough, 
and  the  conveyance  was  a  heavy  farm  wagon  without  springs.  He  had  not 
been  out-of-doors  for  several  days,  and  was  wholly  unfit  to  make  the  jour- 
ney of  five  miles,  but  he  made  it.  Arriving  at  Mendota,  he  found  that  the 
polling-place  was  in  a  hall,  up-stairs.  He  sent  up  word  that  he  was  unable 
to  ascend  the  stairs,  and  asked  if  the  ballot-box  might  be  brought  down. 
This  was  deemed  illegal,  but  willing  friends  offered  to  carry  him  up-stairs. 
He  declined  the  proffered  assistance,  and,  though  he  had  not  for  months  as- 
cended the  stairs  in  his  own  house,  he  painfully  climbed  the  stairway  on  his 
knees.  When  he  reached  the  top  of  the  stairs,  he  did  not  rise.  Again  de- 
clining the  assistance  of  those  who  offered  to  help  him,  he  moved  down  the 


THE  ELECTION  OF  1864  303 

On  election  night,  November  8,  1864,  John  Hay  wrote: 

The  house  has  been  still  and  almost  deserted  today.  Every- 
body in  Washington,  not  at  home  voting,*  seems  ashamed  of  it, 
and  stays  away  from  the  President.  I  was  talking  with  him 
to-day.  He  said:  "It  is  a  little  singular  that  I,  who  am  not  a 
vindictive  man,  should  have  always  been  before  the  people  for 
election  marked  for  their  bitterness — always  but  once.  When  I 
came  to  Congress,  it  was  a  quiet  time.  But  always  beside  that, 
the  contests  in  which  I  have  been  present  have  been  marked  by 
great  rancor !" 

The  returns  received  at  the  White  House  that  night  indicated 
the  overwhelming  defeat  of  two  men  who  had  been  Lincoln's  bit- 
terest critics,  one  of  them  being  Henry  Winter  Davis.  Lin- 
coln's secretaries  and  the  others  in  small  groups  assembled  at  the 
White  House,  expressed  deep  satisfaction  in  the  rebuke  which 
Davis  and  his  associates  had  received  at  the  hands  of  their  con- 
stituents.    After  a  little  Lincoln  said : 

You  have  more  of  the  feeling  of  personal  resentment  than  I. 
Perhaps  I  may  have  too  little  of  it,  but  I  never  thought  it  paid. 
A  man  has  not  time  to  spend  half  his  life  in  quarrelling.  If  any 
man  ceases  to  attack  me,  I  never  hold  the  past  against  him.     It 

hall,  still  on  his  knees,  and  did  not  rise  till  he  stood  up  to  put  his  ballot  in 
the  box.  He  was  too  simple-minded  a  man  to  have  done  it  for  effect.  The 
idea  came  to  him  as  he  was  making  his  slow  way  up  the  stairs.  He  had  a 
son  in  the  army;  he,  himself  had  carried  his  regiment's  flag  in  the  War  of 
1812.  He  doubted  if  he  could  ever  recover,  and  he  did  not  recover,  from  the 
strain  and  exposure  of  that  day.  A  few  weeks  later,  a  little  lad  not  yet  four 
years  of  age  was  lifted  up  and  permitted  to  look  at  his  face  as  it  lay  in  his 
coffin,  and  he  still  remembers  the  dignity  and  honesty  and  strong  character 
that  showed  in  the  features  of  the  dead  man.  This  is  the  story  of  the  last 
ballot,  and  the  last  crossing  of  his  own  threshold,  of  Eleazer  Barton,  my 
grandfather. 

*Some  of  the  states  arranged  for  the  voting  of  soldiers  in  the  field,  and 
where  such  provision  was  not  made,  there  was  generous  issue  of  furloughs 
to  soldiers  who  wanted  to  go  home  to  vote.  In  some  regiments  voting  in 
the  field,  small  account  was  made  of  the  record  of  the  family  Bible.  Jean  F. 
Loba,  who  afterward  became  a  distinguished  clergyman  and  a  Doctor  of  Di- 
vinity, was  then  a  private,  aged  seventeen.  His  colonel  called  to  him  and  asked 
him  whether  he  had  voted.  "I  am  not  of  age,"  answered  Loba.  "Come  up 
and  vote,"  answerer!  the  colonel :  '"any  man  that  is  old  enough  to  carry  a  gun 
in  the  Union  Army  is  old  enough  to  vote  for  Lincoln."' 


304  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

has  seemed  to  me  recently  that  Winter  Davis  was  growing  more 
sensible  to  his  true  interest  and  had  ceased  wasting  his  time  by 
attacking  me.  I  hope  for  his  own  good  he  has.  He  has  been 
very  malign  against  me  but  has  injured  only  himself  by  it.  His 
conduct  has  been  very  strange  to  me.  I  came  here  as  his  friend 
and  wishing  to  continue  so.  I  had  heard  nothing  but  good  of 
him ;  he  was  the  cousin  of  my  intimate  friend  Judge  Davis.  But 
I  had  scarcely  been  elected  when  I  heard  of  his  attacking  me 
on  all  possible  occasions. 

Lincoln  took  his  reelection  rather  calmly.  His  most  signifi- 
cant remark  was  that  apparently  the  people  thought  "not  well  to 
swap  horses  while  crossing  the  stream."  On  November  u, 
1864,  a  Cabinet  meeting  was  held.  Again  we  rely  on  the  con- 
temporary record  of  John  Hay's  diary : 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Cabinet  to-day,  the  President  took  out  a 
paper  from  his  desk  and  said :  "Gentlemen,  do  you  remember 
last  summer  I  asked  you  to  sign  your  names  on  the  back  of  a 
paper  of  which  I  did  not  show  you  the  inside  ?  This  is  it.  Now, 
Mr.  Hay,  see  if  you  can  get  this  open  without  tearing  it?" 

The  outside  of  the  paper  bore  the  endorsement  of  William  H. 
Seward,  W.  P.  Fessenden,  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Gideon  Welles, 
Edw.  Bates,  M.  Blair  and  J.  P.  Usher.  The  president  had  pasted 
it  up  in  so  singular  a  style  that  Hay  had  difficulty  in  getting  it 
open,  and  it  required  some  cutting  to  accomplish  this  result  with- 
out mutilating  either  the  contents  within  or  the  signatures  upon 
the  back.     This  was  what  the  document  contained : 

"Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  Aug.  23,  1864. 
This  morning  and  for  some  days  past,  it  seems  exceedingly 
probable  that  this  Administration  will  not  be  reelected.  Then  it 
will  be  my  duty  to  so  cooperate  with  the  President  elect,  as  to 
save  the  Union  between  the  election  and  the  inauguration ;  as 
he  will  have  secured  his  election  on  such  ground  that  he  cannot 
possibly  save  it  afterward. 

A.  Lincoln. 


THE  ELECTION  OF  1864  305 

The  president  explained  to  the  Cabinet  his  reasons  for  having 
asked  them  to  sign  their  names  as  witnesses  of  this  sealed  paper : 

"You  will  remember  that  this  was  written  at  a  time,  six  days 
before  the  Chicago  nominating  convention  when  as  yet  we  had 
no  adversary,  and  seemed  to  have  no  friends.  I  then  solemnly 
resolved  on  the  course  of  action  indicated  above.  I  resolved  in 
case  of  the  election  of  General  McClellan.  being  certain  that  he 
would  be  the  candidate,  that  I  would  see  him  and  talk  matters 
over  with  him.  I  would  say,  'General,  the  election  has  demon- 
strated that  you  are  stronger,  have  more  influence  with  the 
American  people  than  I.  Now  let  us  get  together,  you  with 
your  influence,  and  I  with  all  the  executive  power  of  the  gov- 
ernment, and  try  to  save  the  country.  You  raise  as  many  troops 
as  you  possibly  can  for  this  final  trial,  and  I  will  devote  all  my 
energy  to  assisting  and  pushing  the  war.'  " 

Stanton  said:  "And  the  general  would  answer  you,  'Yes,  yes.' 
and  the  next  day  when  you  saw  him  again  and  pressed  these 
views  upon  him  he  would  say  'Yes,  yes,'  and  so  on  forever ;  and 
would  have  done  nothing  at  all." 

"At  least,"  added  Lincoln,  "I  should  have  done  my  duty,  and 
have  stood  clear  before  my  own  conscience." 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  history  contains  any  parallel 
for  Lincoln's  magnanimity  in  this  incident.  Only  a  man  with 
the  highest  and  finest  nobility  of  soul  could  have  done  what, 
under  those  circumstances,  Lincoln  did  regarding  a  man  who 
had  so  disappointed  and  abused  him,  and  on  behalf  of  a  country 
that  seemed  about  to  repudiate  him. 

In  another  act  equally  magnanimous  Lincoln  had  already  risen 
above  all  partisan  relations  with  Governor  Seymour,  of  Xew 
York.  According  to  Thurlow  Weed,  shortly  after  Seymour's 
election  as  governor  in  the  fall  of  1862,  Lincoln  authorized  Weed 
to  go  to  Seymour  and  say  to  him  that  Seymour,  as  the  Demo- 
cratic governor  of  Xew  York,  could,  if  he  desired,  bring  his 
whole  party  into  line  in  an  effort  to  save  the  Union ;  and  that  if  he 
would  do  so,  Lincoln  would  do  everything  in  his  power  to  pave 


306  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  way  for  Seymour  to  become  president  in  1864.  Even  if 
Weed's  memory  of  this  incident  led  him  somewhat  to  exaggerate 
the  affair,  and  Lincoln's  offer  to  Seymour  was  somewhat  less 
definite  and  specific,  still  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Lincoln 
held  toward  Seymour  essentially  the  attitude  which  Weed  de- 
scribes. In  this  matter  we  have  Lincoln's  own  very  gracious  let- 
ter to  Seymour,  and  Seymour's  exceedingly  distant  and  very 
guarded  reply.  Lincoln  wrote  to  Seymour  addressing  him  as 
"the  head  of  the  greatest  State  in  the  nation,"  and  asking  for  a 
frank  understanding  with  him  as  to  their  substantial  agreement 
concerning  their  joint  duty  in  "maintaining  the  nation's  life  and 
integrity."  Seymour  declined  to  commit  himself  in  this  mat- 
ter, but  said  that  he  was  confident  that  his  opinions  were  shared 
by  fully  one-half  of  the  population  of  the  northern  states,  and 
he  said: 

I  intend  to  show  to  those  charged  with  the  administration  of 
public  affairs  a  due  deference  and  respect,  and  to  yield  them  a 
just  and  generous  support  in  all  measures  they  may  adopt  within 
the  scope  of  their  constitutional  powers.  For  the  preservation 
of  this  Union  I  am  ready  to  make  any  sacrifice  of  interest,  party 
or  prejudice. 

The  first  of  these  two  sentences  was  the  really  significant 
one.  Governor  Seymour  did  very  little  if  anything,  to  show  his 
deep  interest  in  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  and  he  did  very 
much  to  show  that  he  was  no  friend  of  Lincoln. 

The  president's  message  to  Congress  in  December,  1864,  took 
occasion  to  comment  upon  the  election  in  its  relation  to  his  own 
war  policy,  and  he  viewed  it  with  frank  satisfaction.  Moreover, 
he  reflected  that  the  nation's  losses,  heavy  as  they  had  been,  had 
not  really  weakened  it  to  a  point  below  its  effective  strength  when 
the  war  began.     He  said : 

While  it  is  melancholy  to  reflect  that  the  war  had  filled  so 
many  graves,  and  carried  mourning  to  so  many  hearts,  it  is  some 
relief  to  know  that  compared  with  the  surviving,  the  fallen  have 


THE  ELECTION  OF  1864  307 

been  so  few.  While  corps,  and  divisions,  and  brigades,  and  regi- 
ments have  formed,  and  fought,  and  dwindled,  and  gone  out  of 
existence,  a  great  majority  of  the  men  who  composed  them  are 
still  living.  The  same  is  true  of  the  naval  service.  The  election 
returns  prove  this.  So  many  voters  could  not  else  be  found.  The 
States  regularly  holding  elections,  both  now  and  four  years  ago 
.  .  .  cast  3,982,011  votes  now,  against  3,870,222  cast  then: 
showing  an  aggregate  now  of  3,982,011.  To  this  is  to  be  added 
33,762  cast  now  in  the  new  States  of  Kansas  and  Nevada,  which 
States  did  not  vote  in  i860;  thus  swelling  the  aggregate  to 
4,015,773,  and  the  net  increase  during  the  three  years  and  a  half 
of  war,  to  145,551.  .  .  .  To  this  again  should  be  added  the 
number  of  all  soldiers  in  the  field  from  Massachusetts,  Rhode 
Island  and  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Cali- 
fornia, who  by  the  laws  of  those  States  could  not  vote  away 
from  their  homes,  and  which  number  cannot  be  less  than  90,000. 
Nor  yet  is  this  all.  The  number  in  organized  Territories  is  triple 
now  what  it  was  four  years  ago,  wrhile  thousands,  white  and 
black,  join  us  as  the  national  arms  press  back  the  insurgent  lines. 
So  much  is  shown,  affirmatively  and  negatively  by  the  election. 
It  is  not  material  to  inquire  how  the  increase  has  been  pro- 
duced, or  to  show  that  it  would  have  been  greater  but  for  the 
war,  which  is  probably  true.  The  important  fact  remains  dem- 
onstrated that  we  have  more  men  now  than  we  had  when  the 
war  began ;  that  we  are  not  exhausted,  nor  in  process  of  exhaus- 
tion; that  we  are  gaining  strength,  and  may,  if  need  be,  maintain 
the  contest  indefinitely.  This  as  to  men.  Material  resources  are 
now  more  complete  and  abundant  than  ever. 

Lincoln  took  occasion  in  this  same  message  to  consider  the 
importunity  of  those  who  were  insisting  that  he  should  hold  a 
conference  with  Jefferson  Davis  in  an  effort  the  more  speedily 
to  win  the  war.  The  election  had  given  him  new  assurance  that 
the  nation  was  prepared  to  stand  by  and  see  the  war  through  to  a 
successful  finish.  This,  he  believed,  was  the  plain  duty  of  the 
nation.  The  victory  at  the  polls  was  also  virtually  a  victory  upon 
the  battle-field  : 

On  careful  consideration  of  all  the  evidence  accessible,  it  seems 
to  me  that  no  attempt  at  negotiation  with  the  insurgent  leader 


308  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

could  result  in  any  good.  He  would  accept  nothing  short  of  sev- 
erance of  the  Union — precisely  what  we  will  not  and  cannot  give. 
His  declarations  to  this  effect  are  explicit  and  oft  repeated.  He 
does  not  attempt  to  deceive  us.  He  affords  us  no  excuse  to  de- 
ceive ourselves.  He  cannot  voluntarily  re-accept  the  Union;  we 
cannot  voluntarily  yield  it.  Between  him  and  us  the  issue  is  dis- 
tinct, simple,  and  inflexible.  It  is  an  issue  which  can  only  be 
tried  by  war,  and  decided  by  victory.  If  we  yield,  we  are  beat- 
en ;  if  the  Southern  people  fail  him,  he  is  beaten.  Either  way  it 
would  be  the  victory  and  defeat  following  war. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


THE    SECOND    INAUGURAL 


Lincoln  entered  upon  his  second  administration  with  a  num- 
ber of  changes  certain  in  his  group  of  intimate  associates.  Hanni- 
bal Hamlin,  vice-president  in  his  first  administration,  gave  place 
to  Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee.  Mr.  Hamlin  would  have 
welcomed  a  renomination  and  reelection.  Lincoln  carefully  con- 
cealed from  Hamlin  his  own  preference  in  the  matter.  It  appears 
to  be  quite  certain,  however,  that  Lincoln  favored  Johnson.  The 
reason  was  not  that  Hamlin  was  either  personally  or  politically 
repugnant  to  Lincoln ;  but  that  important  changes  had  occurred 
since  i860.  In  that  year  a  former  Democratic  vice-president 
from  Xew  England  had  been  desirable;  in  1864  it  seemed  to  Lin- 
coln more  important  that  the  vice-president  should  represent  the 
loyal  South.  It  can  not  be  said  that  the  country  profited  by 
changing  Hamlin  for  Johnson. 

There  were  changes  in  the  Cabinet.  Montgomery  Blair  was 
unpopular  with  a  large  faction  of  the  Republican  Party,  and  he 
wearied  Lincoln  with  his  own  suspicion  against  other  prominent 
men.  ■  A  little  more  than  a  month  before  the  election,  Mr.  Lincoln 
asked  for  Blair's  resignation,  which  Blair  promptly  tendered  in  a 
spirit  much  to  his  credit.*  Lincoln  appointed  as  his  successor 
Governor  William  Dennison,  of  Ohio. 

Mr.  Bates,  the  Attorney  General,  also  found  himself  wearied 
with  his  administrative  cares,  and  out  of  sympathy  with  the  fac- 


*Blair  considered  the  request  for  his  resignation  ''a  peace-offering  to 
General  Fremont  and  his  friends,  dictated  by  Seward  at  the  request  of  Thur- 
low  Weed." 

309 


310  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tions  that  had  come  to  control  the  Republican  interests  of  his  own 
state.  He  resigned,  his  resignation  to  take  effect  the  last  of 
November,  1864.  Lincoln  accepted  this  resignation,  and  after  an 
endeavor  to  secure  as  attorney  general  Judge  Joseph  Holt,  of 
Kentucky,  he  appointed  to  the  vacant  position  James  Speed  of 
the  same  state,  a  brother  of  his  early  friend,  Joshua  F.  Speed. 

Most  important,  however,  of  the  changes  in  Lincoln's  official 
family,  was  the  resignation  of  Secretary  Chase,  which  had  al- 
ready occurred,  January  29,  1864.  This  event  had  been  long  in 
coming,  and  like  all  events  long  expected,  its  arrival  was  a  shock. 

After  Lincoln's  removal  of  General  W.  S.  Rosecrans  following 
his  defeat  at  Chickamauga,  September  19  and  20,  1863,  Hay  re- 
corded in  his  diary : 

I  told  the  President  Chase  would  try  to  make  capital  out  of  this 
Rosecrans  business.  He  laughed  and  said,  "I  suppose  he  will, 
like  the  blue-bottle  fly,  lay  his  eggs  in  every  rotten  place  he  can 
find."  He  seems  much  amused  at  Chase's  mad  hunt  after  the 
presidency.     He  hopes  the  country  will  never  do  worse. 

Only  a  great  man  could  have  borne  this  situation  as  Lincoln 
did,  and  he  had  his  reward.  Lincoln  bore  with  Chase,  utilized 
him,  and  by  his  courtesy  and  magnanimity,  strengthened  his  own 
administration. 

In  1864  when  Chase's  plan  to  secure  the  nomination  had  be- 
come public  property,  Chase  offered  to  resign  and  Lincoln  would 
not  accept  his  resignation.     He  said : 

It  is  a  question  which  I  will  not  allow  myself  to  consider  from 
any  standpoint  other  than  my  judgment  of  the  public  service,  and 
in  that  view  I  do  not  perceive  occasion  for  change. 

Some  of  Lincoln's  intimate  friends  once  called  his  attention  to 
the  fact  that  Chase,  while  a  member  of  his  Cabinet,  was  quietly 
working  to  secure  a  nomination  for  the  presidency,  although 
knowing  that  Lincoln  was  to  be  a  candidate  for  reelection.  Lin- 
coln's friends  insisted  that  a  Cabinet  officer  ought  to  be  made 


THE  SECOND  INAUGURAL  311 

to  give  up  his  presidential  aspirations  or  be  removed  from  office. 
The  situation  reminded  Lincoln  of  a  story:  ''My  brother  and  I," 
he  said,  "were  once  plowing  corn,  I  driving  the  horse  and  he 
holding  the  plow.  The  horse  was  lazy,  but  on  one  occasion  he 
rushed  across  the  field  so  that  I,  with  my  long  legs,  could 
scarcely  keep  pace  with  him.  On  reaching  the  end  of  the  furrow, 
I  found  an  enormous  chin-fly  flying  up  and  striking  him  under 
the  chin  and  I  knocked  him  off.  My  brother  asked  me  what  I 
did  that  for.  I  told  him  I  didn't  want  the  old  horse  bitten  in 
that  way.  'Why,'  said  my  brother,  'that's  all  that  made  him  go.' 
Now,  if  Mr.  Chase  has  a  presidential  chin-fly  biting  him,  I'm 
not  going  to  knock  him  off,  if  it  will  only  make  his  Department 
go." 

The  resignation  of  Chase  at  first  threatened  seriously  to 
weaken  Lincoln's  cause  with  the  financiers  of  the  country. 
Money  is  notoriously  timid.  The  financiers  of  the  country  be- 
lieved in  Chase  and  were  apprehensive  of  change  of  policy  under 
his  successor.  As  John  Hay  moved  around  Washington,  he 
overheard  many  comments  which  made  him  wish  that  the  presi- 
dent who  had  been  patient  so  long,  could  have  been  patient  a 
little  longer.     He  wrote  in  his  diary: 

If  the  President  has  made  a  mistake  (as  I  think  he  has)  in 
allowing  Chase  to  shirk  his  part  of  duty,  Chase's  leaving  at  this 
time  is  little  less  than  a  crime. 

Speaking  to  Whitelaw  Reid,  Chase  said  that  he  supposed  that 
the  root  of  the  matter  was  a  difference  in  temperament  between 
Lincoln  and  himself.  "The  truth  is  that  I  have  never  been  able 
to  make  a  joke  out  of  this  war."  There  is  good  reason  to  believe 
that  when  Chase's  resignation  had  actually  been  accepted,  he 
regretted  having  sent  it  in.  He  had  become  so  used  to  resigning 
and  being  urged  to  remain,  he  supposed  the  process  could  go 
on  forever.  But  he  did  not  long  have  occasion  to  regret  his 
rashness.  A  providential  event  occurred  which  made  a  better 
place  for  Chase  and  displayed  again  the  magnanimity  of  Lincoln. 


312  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

From  the  beginning  of  his  administration,  Lincoln  had  looked 
forward  to  the  time  when  he  could  have  opportunity  to  fill  the 
place  of  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The  four  years  of 
his  administration  went  by,  and  Chief  Justice  Taney  clung  to 
life  as  a  withered  oak-leaf  clings  through  the  winter  and  the 
early  spring.     Lincoln  said: 

Xo  man  ever  prayed  as  I  did  that  Taney  might  outlive  James 
Buchanan's  term,  and  now  I  am  afraid  I  have  overdone  it. 

There  was  indeed  some  occasion  for  Lincoln's  fear  that  he 
had  prayed  too  hard.  If  Taney  had  lived  to  have  his  successor 
appointed  either  by  George  B.  McClellan  or  by  Andrew  Johnson, 
it  might  have  gone  ill  with  the  Supreme  Court. 

On  October  12,  1864,  Chief  Justice  Roger  Taney  died.  The 
announcement  of  his  death  came  in  the  midst  of  rejoicing  over 
LTiion  victories  and  over  the  election  returns  from  the  October 
states,  making  the  reelection  of  Lincoln  more  than  ever  certain. 
Lincoln's  opportunity  had  come  to  appoint  to  the  Supreme  bench 
a  man  of  his  own  choosing.  It  was  by  all  odds  the  most  im- 
portant appointment  he  could  ever  hope  to  make.  Lincoln 
thoughtfully  considered  the  matter  until  December  sixth,  and  then 
without  communicating  his  intention  to  any  one,  not  even  to  his 
appointee  or  to  any  member  of  the  Cabinet,  he  wrote  out  with 
his  own  hand  his  nomination  for  the  position  of  chief  justice  and 
sent  it  to  the  Senate.  The  Senate  confirmed  the  appointment 
without  an  hour's  delay.  That  night  when  Salmon  P.  Chase 
went  to  his  home,  his  daughter  Kate  met  him  at  the  door,  and 
saluted  him  as  chief  justice  of  the  United  States. 

In  three  important  particulars  the  Cabinet  stood  unchanged. 
Seward  had  become  one  of  Lincoln's  closest  friends  and  sincerest 
admirers.  Stanton,  too,  had  long  since  ceased  to  refer  to  the 
president  in  terms  of  contempt.  Both  these  men  were  ready  and 
were  destined  to  stand  by  Lincoln  until  the  end.  Seward  almost 
shared  his   martyrdom,   and    Stanton   was    faithful   unto    death. 


THE  SECOXD  INAUGURAL  313 

Gideon   Welles,   also,    retained   his   position   as    secretary   of   the 
navy. 

One  incident  may  he  given,  especially  as  it  relates  to  an  inter- 
esting aspect  which  the  draft  assumed  in  the  later  months  of  the 
war.  So  continuous  had  been  the  calls  for  troops  that  many 
states  and  districts  were  far  behind  in  their  quotas.  Continued 
remonstrance  was  made  to  Lincoln  that  the  quota  of  some  par- 
ticular state  or  district  was  too  large.  It  was  a  great  relief 
when  any  state  or  military  division  filled  its  quota  completely. 
In  the  later  months  of  the  war  there  were  Indian  uprisings  in  the 
West,  and  these  caused  the  withdrawal  of  certain  regiments 
from  the  front.  It  was  suggested  that  there  were  many  Con- 
federate soldiers  confined  in  northern  prisons,  who  would  be 
glad  to  enlist  in  the  United  States  Army  to  fight  against  the 
Indians,  if  they  were  assured  that  they  would  not  be  sent  South 
to  fight  against  their  own  people.  The  Federal  authorities  had 
'topped  the  exchange  of  prisoners.  One  Confederate  soldier 
shut  safely  away  in  a  northern  prison,  was  more  than  the  equiva- 
lent to  a  L'nion  soldier  sent  back  from  the  South  unfit  for  mili- 
tary service.  The  Confederate  prisoners  had  become  convinced 
that  there  was  no  hope  of  being  exchanged. 

A  prominent  man  in  Pennsylvania  conceived  a  brilliant  idea. 
His  district  was  behind  in  its  quota.  If  he  might  be  permitted 
to  go  to  the  Federal  prisons  he  could  offer  a  small  bounty  which 
his  district  would  very  gladly  pay,  and  recruit  a  regiment  of 
soldiers  to  fight  against  the  Indians.  Presumably  they  would 
very  gladly  accept  a  hundred  dollars  bounty,  and  the  current 
rates  were  as  high  as  a  thousand.  He  went  to  the  president  and 
set  forth  his  theory.  He  said  that  even  the  thousand-dollar  vol- 
unteer was  likely  to  be  a  foreigner,  and  quite  possibly  a  coward 
and  a  bounty  jumper.  Whereas,  the  Confederates  were  fighters 
and  would  gladly  devote  their  unexpended  military  energy  to 
the  conquest  of  Indians.  Lincoln  thought  the  idea  a  good  one, 
and  went  with  the  Pennsylvania  official  to  Stanton.  Stanton 
was  not  sure  that  these  prisoners  would  make  good  soldiers,  but 


314  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

was  willing  to  give  the  experiment  a  trial.  He  was  utterly  op- 
posed, however,  to  the  idea  that  Pennsylvania  should  receive  any 
credit  on  her  quota  for  such  enlistments.  Why  should  Penn- 
sylvania save  her  own  manhood  in  this  fashion,  or  be  permitted 
to  buy  herself  off  at  a  saving  of  nine  hundred  dollars  a  soldier? 
These  prisoners  belonged  to  the  United  States,  and  if  they  were 
enlisted  for  service,  no  one  state  should  have  the  credit  for  them. 
Stanton  was  indubitably  right  in  this  contention.  Pennsyl- 
vania deserved  no  credit  at  all  for  any  such  enlistment.  But 
Lincoln  had  approved  the  idea  with  the  promise  of  this  credit  to 
the  state  from  which  the  suggestion  had  come.  If  Stanton's 
logic  convinced  him,  as  it  seems  it  must  have  done,  at  least  it  did 
not  change  his  resolution.  Quietly  but  firmly  Lincoln  overrode 
Stanton,  and  Pennsylvania  received  credit  for  the  first  group  of 
these  enlistments.  It  will  be  of  interest  to  note  that  the  idea 
proved  to  be  a  good  one.  Major  Rathbone,  a  personal  friend  of 
Lincoln,  and  the  same  who  was  with  the  president  in  the  box  at 
Ford's  Theater  on  the  night  when  the  president  was  assassinated, 
was  sent  to  the  Federal  prison  at  Rock  Island,  Illinois,  where 
eighteen  hundred  Confederate  prisoners  were  enlisted  as  soldiers. 
Their  readiness  to  enlist  caused  the  plan  to  be  tried  in  other 
prisons  and  with  like  success.* 


*The  secretary  of  war  furnishes  this  information:  In  the  years  1864 
and  1865  there  were  organized  six  Union  regiments  of  volunteer  infantry, 
the  enlisted  men  of  which  were  principally  deserters  and  refugees  from  the 
Confederate  Army  and  prisoners  of  war  who  had  taken  the  oath  of  allegi- 
ance to  the  United  States.  A  historical  memorandum  on  the  subject  was 
printed  in  the  Congressional  Record  of  March  20,  1908,  pages  3752-3754. 
Those  regiments  were  called,  respectively,  the  1st,  2nd,  3rd,  4th,  5th  and  6th 
United  States  Volunteer  Infantry.  They  were  organized  respectively,  as  fol- 
lows: 1st  at  Point  Lookout,  Maryland,  March  to  June,  1864;  2nd  at  Point 
Lookout,  Maryland,  October,  1864;  3rd  at  Rock  Island,  Illinois,  October,  1864; 
4th  at  Point  Lookout,  Maryland,  October  1864:  5th  at  Alton,  Illinois,  and 
Camp  Douglas,  Illinois,  May,  1865 ;  6th  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  Camp  Morton, 
Indiana  and   Camp  Douglas,   Illinois,  April   1865. 

It  appears  that  the  members  of  those  regiments  were  enlisted  without 
any  special  written  stipulations  relative  to  pay,  bounty  or  pension  or  as  to 
where  they  should  serve,  although  it  appears  to  have  been  the  understanding 
that  they  enlisted  without  expectation  of  bounty  or  pension.  These  regiments 
were  employed  principally  on  the  western  plains,  some  of  them  in  connection 
with  Indian  hostilities.  Some  of  the  men  at  least  received  bounty,  and  the 
members   have   been  accorded  a  pensionable   status. 


THE  SECOND  INAUGURAL  315 

Colonel   H.    S.    Huidekoper   in   his   pamphlet   of   Personal 
Notes  and  Reminiscences,  says: 

The  eighteen  hundred  soldiers  enlisted  as  above  described, 
were  formed  into  two  regiments,  which  did  excellent  service 
till  the  end  of  the  war.  Not  a  man  ever  deserted,  and  all  proved 
loyal  to  their  new  allegiance.  From  other  prisons,  other  men 
were  subsequently  enlisted,  making  in  all  5.738  reconstructed 
Rebels  who  served  under  the  old  flag  before  the  close  of  the 
war.* 

Thus  Lincoln  was  ready  for  his  second  administration  with  a 
Cabinet  considerably  changed ;  but  his  secretaries  of  state,  war 
and  navy  remained  with  him. 

The  story  of  Andrew  Johnson  does  not  belong  to  this  volume. 
Yet  it  must  be  recorded  that  the  auspices  under  which  he  as- 
sumed the  office  of  vice-president  were  inauspicious  from  the 
beginning.  It  was  widely  if  not  generally  believed  by  those  who 
saw  him  inducted  into  office,  that  the  vice-president  was  intoxi- 
cated at  the  time.  Honorable  John  W.  Forney  thus  recorded 
his  experience : 

I  can  never  forget  President  Lincoln's  face  as  he  came  into 
the  Senate  chamber  while  Johnsor  was  delivering  his  incoherent 
harangue.  Lincoln  had  been  detained  signing  the  bills  that  had 
just  passed  the  old  Congress,  and  could  not  witness  the  regular 
opening  of  the  new  Senate  until  the  ceremonies  had  fairly  com- 
menced. He  took  his  seat  facing  the  brilliant  and  surprised 
audience  and  heard  all  that  took  place  with  unutterable  sorrow. 
He  then  spoke  his  own  short  inaugural  from  the  middle  portico 
of  the  Capitol,  and  rode  quickly  home.     Bitter  maledictions  were 

*A  story  is  related  concerning  a  regiment  of  a  thousand  men  who  were 
enlisted  at  Alton.  Illinois,  and  Camp  Douglas,  in  Chicago.  They  left  Chicago 
on  two  special  trains.  Each  man  had  in  his  pocket  two  hundred  dollars  boun- 
ty in  United  States  greenbacks,  and  none  of  them  had  any  other  money. 
During  the  period  of  their  imprisonment  the  most  of  them  had  become 
habitual  card  players,  if  they  had  not  previously  been  so.  It  is  said  that  be- 
fore they  reached  their  destination  a  very  few  individuals  had  the  lion's 
share  of  the  money.  Perhaps  never  before  on  earth  was  there  so  equitable 
an  experiment  in  the  results  of  starting  men  out  in  life  on  the  basis  of  an 
equal  division  of  property.  The  equal  division  appears  not  to  have  lasted 
very  long. 


316  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

immediately  hurled  against  the  new  Vice  President.  I  hastened 
to  his  defense  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  believing  the  affair  to 
have  been  an  accident.  Threats  of  impeachment  were  common 
in  both  parties,  especially  among  the  Democrats ;  and  the  cru- 
sade got  so  fierce  at  last,  that  I  found  myself  included  among 
those  who  had  helped  Mr.  Johnson  to  his  exposure.  But  no 
voice  of  anger  was  heard  from  Abraham  Lincoln.  When  nearly 
all  censured,  and  many  threatened,  Mr.  Lincoln  simply  said,  "It 
has  been  a  severe  lesson  for  Andy,  but  I  do  not  think  he  will  do  it 
again." 


So  it  came  about  that,  soon  after  one  o'clock  on  March  4, 
1865,  Abraham  Lincoln  stood  for  the  second  time  upon  a  plat- 
form at  the  eastern  portico  of  the  capitol  and  took  the  oath  of 
office  as  president  of  the  United  States.  The  morning  was  cold,, 
stormy  and  cloudy,  but  at  noon  the  rain  ceased  and  the  sun  came 
forth.  The  procession  from  the  White  House  was  dignified  and 
solemn.  In  the  group  that  surrounded  the  platform,  large  num- 
bers of  wounded  soldiers  were  conspicuous.  Behind  the  presi- 
dent as  he  took  his  place  upon  the  platform  were  the  judges  of 
the  Supreme  Court  in  their  official  robes,  the  diplomatic  corps 
in  their  uniforms,  and  distinguished  officers  of  the  government 
both  in  military  and  civil  life.  Among  these  appeared  the  tall 
form  of  the  president  advancing  to  take  the  oath  of  office. 
Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  not  there  to  hold  his  hat.  Roger  B. 
Taney  was  not  there  to  administer  the  oath  of  office.  Both 
these  distinguished  men  were  dead.  Salmon  P.  Chase,  the  new 
chief  justice  of  tjie  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  stepped 
forward  with  a  Bible  open  at  the  fifth  chapter  of  Isaiah,  which 
the  president  reverently  kissed,  and  which  the  chief  justice  later 
presented  to  Mrs.  Lincoln. 

The  oath  of  office  was  administered  by  the  man  who  had 
sought  to  supplant  Lincoln,  and  to  whom  Lincoln  had  returned 
good  for  evil  by  placing  him  in  this  highest  judicial  position. 

The  second  inaugural  address  measures  the  intellectual  power 
and  the  moral  purpose  of  Abraham  Lincoln  at  high-water  mark. 


THE  SECOND  INAUGURAL  317 

Noble  as  was  the  Gettysburg  Address,  this  rises  to  a  still  higher 
level  of  nobility.  Perhaps  there  is  no  state  paper  in  the  history 
of  the  government  of  modern  nations  that  breathes  so  distinctly 
a  religions  tone.  The  first  inaugural  was  conciliatory,  patient 
and  persuasive ;  the  second  embodied  a  spirit  as  generous  and 
devout  as  it  was  wise  and  statesmanlike.  It  is  the  greatest  of 
the  addresses  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  registers  his  intellectual 
and  spiritual  power  at  their  highest  altitude. 

In  a  clear  voice,  which  sometimes  trembled  with  emotion,  Lin- 
coln read  his  second  inaugural : 

Fellow  Countrymen : — At  this  second  appearing  to  take  the 
oath  of  the  Presidential  office,  there  is  less  occasion  for  an  ex- 
tended address  than  there  was  at  the  first.  Then,  a  statement 
somewhat  in  detail  of  a  course  to  be  pursued,  seemed  very  fitting 
and  proper.  Now.  at  the  expiration  of  four  years,  during  which 
public  declarations  have  been  constantly  called  forth  on  every 
point  and  phase  of  the  great  contest  which  still  absorbs  the  atten- 
tion and  engrosses  the  energies  of  the  nation,  little  that  is  new 
could  be  presented.  The  progress  of  our  arms,  upon  which  all 
else  chiefly  depends,  is  as  well  known  to  the  public  as  to  myself, 
and  it  is.  I  trust,  reasonably  satisfactory  and  encouraging  to  all. 
With  high  hope  for  the  future,  no  prediction  in  regard  to  it  is 
ventured. 

On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this,  four  years  ago,  all 
thoughts  were  anxiously  directed  to  an  impending  civil  war.  All 
dreaded  it,  all  sought  to  avoid  it.  While  the  inaugural  address 
was  being  delivered  from  this  place,  devoted  altogether  to  sav- 
ing the  Lnion  without  war,  insurgent  agents  were  in  the  city, 
seeking  to  destroy  it  with  war, — seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union, 
and  divide  the  effects  by  negotiation.  Both  parties  deprecated 
war,  but  one  of  them  would  make  war  rather  than  let  the  nation 
survive,  and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather  than  let  it  perish : 
and  the  war  came.  One-eighth  of  the  whole  population  were 
colored  slaves,  not  distributed  generally  over  the  Lnion,  but 
localized  in  the  southern  part  of  it.  These  slaves  constituted  a 
peculiar  and  powerful  interest.  All  knew  that  this  interest  was 
somehow  the  cause  of  the  war.  To  strengthen,  perpetuate,  and 
extend   this   interest,    was   the    object    for   which   the   insurgents 


318  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

would  rend  the  Union  by  war,  while  the  government  claimed  no 
right  to  do  more  than  to  restrict  the  territorial  enlargement  of  it. 

Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magnitude  or  the  dura- 
tion which  it  has  already  attained.  Neither  anticipated  that  the 
cause  of  the  conflict  might  cease  with,  or  even  before  the  con- 
flict itself  should  cease.  Each  looked  for  an  easier  triumph, 
and  a  result  less  fundamental  and  astounding. 

Both  read  the  same  Bible,  and  pray  to  the  same  God,  and  each 
invokes  His  aid  against  the  other.  It  may  seem  strange  that 
any  men  should  dare  to  ask  a  just  God's  assistance  in  wringing 
their  bread  from  the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces.  But  let  us 
judge  not,  that  we  be  not  judged.  The  prayer  of  both  could 
not  be  answered.  That  of  neither  has  been  answered  fully.  The 
Almighty  has  his  own  purposes.  "Woe  unto  the  world  because 
of  offenses,  for  it  must  needs  be  that  offenses  come,  but  woe  to 
that  man  by  whom  the  offense  cometh."  If  we  shall  suppose 
that  American  slavery  is  one  of  these  offenses,  which  in  the 
providence  of  God  must  needs  come,  but  which,  having  con- 
tinued through  his  appointed  time,  he  now  wills  to  remove,  and 
that  he  gives  to  both  North  and  South  this  terrible  war  as  the 
woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offense  came,  shall  we  discern 
there  any  departure  from  those  divine  attributes  which  the  be- 
lievers in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  him?  Fondly  do  we 
hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may 
speedily  pass  away.  Yet  if  God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all 
the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood 
drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  by  the 
sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be 
said,  that  "the  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  al- 
together." 

With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness 
in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  finish  the 
work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him 
who  shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  his  or- 
phans, to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  a  last- 
ing peace  among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations. 


CHAPTER  XXII 


LIBERTY   AND   UNION 


The  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  was  a  war  measure.  Ac- 
cording to  the  president's  interpretation  of  his  own  constitutional 
prerogative,  he  had  no  authority  to  issue  such  a  proclamation  on 
other  grounds  than  those  of  military  necessity.  The  proclama- 
tion went  into  effect  on  January  i,  1863,  and  it  became  imme- 
diately effective  in  states  that  were  then  in  rebellion  against  the 
government  wherever  the  armies  of  the  United  States  con- 
trolled the  situation.  The  area  within  which  the  proclamation 
operated  widened  with  each  success  of  the  Federal  Army.  Great 
numbers  of  slaves  in  territory  still  held  by  the  Confederates  es- 
caped through  the  lines  and  sought  shelter  and  protection  from 
the  Union  Army.  What  to  do  with  them  was  a  question,  nor 
had  it  been  certain  in  the  early  days  of  the  war  by  what  legal 
right  they  could  be  held.  General  Butler  had  proclaimed  them 
"contraband  of  war."  This  ingenious  definition  availed,  and 
was  employed  with  great  freedom  and  elasticity  until  the  Proc- 
lamation of  Emancipation  was  issued.  After  that  negroes  escap- 
ing from  bondage  in  the  states  in  rebellion  were  free  whenever 
they  could  get  to  where  their  freedom  could  be  made  effective. 
A  hundred  thousand  negro  soldiers  were  soon  bearing  arms  and 
fighting  for  their  own  freedom ;  and  that  number  before  the  end 
of  the  war  was  practically  doubled. 

As  the  end  of  the  war  grew  visibly  near,  the  question  became 
a  pressing  one  whether  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  distinct- 
ly issued  as  a  war  measure,  would  hold  after  the  war  was  over. 
Lincoln  himself  believed  that,  with  the  return  of  peace,  the  voters 

319 


320  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

t> 
of  each  state  would  have  to  settle  whether  that  state  was  to  be 
free  or  slave. 

Furthermore,  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  was  limited 
in  its  operation  to  those  states  actually  in  rebellion.  The  presi- 
dent had  no  authority  to  extend  its  operation  into  the  border 
states  where  slavery  existed  but  rebellion  did  not.  Lincoln  had 
from  the  very  first  dealt  very  tenderly  with  the  border  states. 
He  had  understood  them  better  than  any  one  else  in  Washing- 
ton. He  realized  their  value  to  the  Union  cause.  It  was  hard 
enough  for  them  to  remain  within  the  LTnion,  even  with  the 
slavery  question  eliminated  from  their  immediate  consideration. 
Lincoln  therefore  was  very  desirous  of  relieving  the  border 
states  from  every  needless  divisive  question. 

But  it  became  evident  as  the  war  drew  near  the  close  that 
slavery  must  by  some  means  be  prevented  from  reasserting  itself 
in  the  territory  that  had  belonged  to  the  Confederacy;  and  it 
also  became  a  question  whether  the  government  was  to  have  two^ 
great  free  areas,  one  north  and  the  other  south,  with  slavery 
existing  and  protected  within  a  thin  buffer  area  between  these 
two.  Such  a  consideration  was  preposterous.  Lincoln  again 
took  ground  upon  his  declaration  preceding  his  debates  with 
Douglas  that  this  nation  could  not  permanently  exist  partly  slave 
and  partly  free.  The  divided  house  must  no  longer  remain 
divided. 

Lincoln  was  a  firm  believer  in  the  Constitution.  He  believed 
that  in  the  time  of  war  the  Constitution  gave  to  the  president 
power  which  would  be  dangerous  for  a  chief  executive  to  possess 
in  time  of  peace.  He  gave  earnest  thought  to  the  question  of 
the  status  of  the  freed  slaves,  when  the  president's  war  powers 
should  cease.  Three  questions  he  propounded  for  himself  as 
follows : 

Firstly — Had  the  president  of  the  United  States,  in  the  exercise 
of  his  war  powers,  a  right,  under  the  Constitution  and  by  public 
law,  to  decree,  on  grounds  of  military  necessity,  the  emancipa- 


LIBERTY  AND  UNION  321 

tion  and  perpetual  enfranchisement  of  slaves  in  the  insurgent 
states  and  parts  of  states? 

Secondly — Did  such  proclamation  work,  by  its  own  vigor,  the 
immediate,  the  unconditional  and  the  perpetual  emancipation  of 
all  slaves  in  the  districts  affected  by  it? 

Thirdly — Did  such  proclamation,  working  proprio  vigor e,  not 
only  effect  the  emancipation  of  all  existing  slaves  in  the  insur- 
gent territory,  but,  with  regard  to  slaves  so  liberated,  did  it 
extinguish  the  status  of  slavery  created  by  municipal  law,  inso- 
much that  they  would  have  remained  forever  free,  in  fact  and 
law,  provided  the  Constitution  and  the  legal  rights  and  relations 
of  the  states  under  it  had  remained,  on  the  return  of  peace,  what 
they  were  before  the  war? 

Lincoln  knew  well  the  degree  of  legal  uncertainty  in  the  answer 
to  each  of  these  questions. 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  extra-constitutional.  Not 
even  on  the  plea  of  military  necessity  could  the  president  amend 
the  Constitution.  Furthermore,  it  fell  outside  the  jural  rela- 
tions of  slavery  under  international  law.  The  slaves  were  prop- 
erty when  the  war  began,  and  that  relation  was  implied  in  the 
proclamation  itself.  Under  what  terms  and  for  what  purposes 
might  enemy  property,  confiscated  in  time  of  war,  and  as  prop- 
erty, be  changed  in  character  from  property  to  persons,  and  re- 
tain that  character  after  the  close  of  war?  Were  they  confiscated 
as  "enemy  property"  and  for  the  purpose  of  weakening  the  en- 
emy, or  was  the  confiscation  penal  in  character,  as  a  punishment 
for  treason?  In  either  event,  the  confiscation  should  legally  have 
been  by  legal  process ;  and  there  had  been  no  such  process.  Was 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation  ever  legal?  Many  of  the  ablest 
lawyers  denied  its  legality  even  as  a  war  measure ;  few  doubted 
its  illegality  after  peace  was  restored.  Moreover,  it  was  only 
slaves  of  enemies,  escaping  to  the  Union  lines,  and  slaves  in  cer- 
tain designated  states  in  rebellion  that  were  freed.  No  one  knew 
better  than  Lincoln  that  his  proclamation  stood  by  virtue  of  bay- 
onets of  the  armv,  not  by  affirmative  decision  of  the  courts. 


Z22  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

At  the  opening  of  Congress  on  December  14,  1863,  Honorable 
James  M.  Ashley,  of  Ohio,  introduced  a  joint  resolution  sub- 
mitting to  the  states  a  proposition  to  amend  the  Constitution  by 
abolishing  and  prohibiting  slavery.  Other  members  of  the 
House  and  Senate  introduced  resolutions  slightly  differing  in 
form,  but  to  the  same  purport.  The  real  author  of  the  amend- 
ment, as  it  was  ultimately  adopted,  was  Lyman  Trumbull,  Senator 
from  Illinois.  He  was  now  chairman  of  the  Judiciary  Com- 
mittee of  the  Senate,  and  was  a  legislator  of  great  practical  abil- 
ity, a  ready  speaker  and  an  able  debater. 

In  support  of  his  resolution  Senator  Trumbull  said: 

No  superficial  observer  even  of  our  history,  North  or  South, 
or  of  any  party,  can  doubt  that  slavery  lies  at  the  bottom  of  our 
present  troubles.  Our  fathers  who  made  the  Constitution  re- 
garded it  as  an  evil,  and  looked  forward  to  its  early  extinction. 
They  felt  the  inconsistency  of  their  position,  while  proclaiming 
the  equal  rights  of  all  to  life,  liberty,  and  happiness,  they  denied 
liberty,  happiness,  and  life  itself  to  a  whole  race,  except  in  subor- 
dination to  them.  It  was  impossible  in  the  nature  of  things,  that 
a  government  based  on  such  antagonistic  principles  could  per- 
manently and  peacefully  endure,  nor  did  its  founders  expect  it 
would.  They  looked  forward  to  the  not  distant  nor,  as  they 
supposed,  uncertain  period,  when  slavery  should  be  abolished,  and 
the  government  become  in  fact  what  they  made  it  in  name,  one 
securing  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  all.  The  history  of  the  last 
seventy  years  has  proven  that  the  founders  of  the  republic  were 
mistaken  in  their  expectations ;  and  slavery,  so  far  from  gradually 
disappearing  as  they  had  anticipated,  had  so  strengthened  itself, 
that  in  i860,  its  advocates  demanded  the  control  of  the  nation  in 
its  interests,  failing  in  which,  they  attempted  its  overthrow.  .    .    . 

I  think,  then,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose,  that  if  this  proposed 
amendment  passes  Congress,  it  will  within  a  year  receive  the 
ratification  of  the  requisite  number  of  states  to  make  it  a  part  of 
the  Constitution.  That  accomplished,  and  we  are  forever  freed 
of  this  troublesome  question.  We  accomplish  then  what  the 
statesmen  of  this  country  have  been  struggling  to  accomplish  for 
years.  We  take  this  question  entirely  away  from  the  politics  of 
the  country.     We  relieve  Congress  of  sectional  strife,  and  what 


LIBERTY  AND  UNION  323 

is  better  than  all,  we  restore  to  a  whole  race  that  freedom  which 
is  theirs  by  the  gift  of  God,  but  which  we  for  generations  have 
wickedly  denied  them. 

Among  the  foremost  advocates  of  the  amendment  was  Henry 
Wilson.  He  had  been  a  diligent  student  and  an  earnest  advocate 
of  universal  freedom.  He  had  in  preparation  a  book  on  the  anti- 
slavery  legislation  of  the  war  congresses.  This  he  afterward 
expanded  into  a  large  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power  in 
America.     He  said : 

The  enforcement  of  this  proclamation  will  give  peace  and 
order,  freedom  and  unity,  to  a  now  distracted  country ;  the  failure 
to  enforce  it  will  bring  with  it  discord  and  anarchy,  a  dissevered 
Union,  and  a  broken  nation.  .  .  .  But,  sir,  the  crowning  act  in 
this  series  of  acts  for  the  restriction  and  extinction  of  slavery  in 
America,  is  this  proposed  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  prohib- 
iting the  existence  of  slavery  forevermore  in  the  republic  of  the 
United  States. 

Both  in  its  language  and  in  the  form  of  argument  this  para- 
graph so  precisely  follows  the  thought  of  Lincoln,  I  suspect  that 
the  president  himself  was  the  author  of  it. 

The  amendment  passed  the  Senate  on  April  8,  1864,  though 
not  without  vigorous  opposition.  In  the  House,  the  debate 
began  on  March  19,  1864,  and  was  not  ended  until  June  fifteenth. 

During  this  debate  it  is  probable  that  no  one  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  stood  closer  to  Lincoln  than  Honorable  Isaac 
N.  Arnold,  of  Illinois.  His  address  before  the  House  contained 
the  following  impassioned  appeal : 

Our  aim  is  national  unity  without  slavery.  Not  "the  Union  as 
it  was,  and  the  Constitution  as  it  is,"  but  a  nation  without  slav- 
ery, the  Constitution  the  Magna  Charta  which  shall  secure  liberty 
to  all.  ...  The  wandering  stars  must  be  brought  back  with 
their  lustre  brightened  by  the  ordeal  through  which  they  have 
passed.  .  .  .  We  can  have  no  national  harmony  and  union 
without  freedom.     The  fearful  error  of  uniting  free  and  slave 


324  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

states,  we  shall  never  repeat.  But  if  the  grand  idea  can  be  realized 
of  a  free,  homogeneous  people,  united  in  a  great  continental 
republic  based  on  liberty  for  all,  and  retaining  the  great  principles 
of  Magna  Charta,  we  shall  see  realized  the  noblest  structure  of 
government  and  national  polity  ever  organized  on  earth.  .  .  . 

The  Thirty-seventh  Congress  will  live  in  history  as  the  Con- 
gress which  prohibited  slavery  in  all  the  territories  of  the  Union, 
and  abolished  it  at  the  national  capital.  The  President  of  the 
L^nited  States  will  be  remembered  as  the  author  of  the  proclama- 
tion of  emancipation,  as  the  liberator  of  a  race,  the  apostle  of 
freedom,  the  great  emancipator  of  his  country.  The  Thirty- 
eighth  Congress,  if  we  pass  this  joint  resolution,  will  live  in 
history  as  that  which  consummated  the  great  work  of  freeing  a 
continent  from  the  curse  of  human  bondage.  Never,  since  the 
day  when  John  Adams  plead  for  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
has  so  important  a  question  been  submitted  to  an  American  Con- 
gress, as  that  upon  which  you  are  now  about  to  vote.  The  sign- 
ing of  the  immortal  Declaration  is  a  familiar  picture  in  every 
log  cabin  and  home  all  over  the  land.  Pass  this  resolution,  and 
the  vote  which  knocks  off  the  fetters  of  a  whole  race,  will  make 
this  scene  immortal.  Live  a  century,  nay  a  thousand  years,  and 
no  such  opportunity  to  do  a  great  deed  for  humanity,  for  liberty, 
for  peace  and  for  your  country,  will  ever  again  present  itself. 
Pass  this  joint  resolution,  and  you  will  win  a  victory  over  wrong 
and  injustice,  lasting  as  eternity.  The  whole  world  will  rise  up 
to  do  you  honor. 

When  the  vote  was  reached  on  June  15,  1864,  it  stood  ninety-, 
three  in  favor  and  sixty-five  opposed.  This  was  less  than  two- 
thirds  vote. 

Lincoln  was  disappointed  and  much  chagrined.  He  had  held 
repeated  conferences  with  the  friends  of  the  measure,  and  had 
himself  dictated  a  form  of  test  vote  which  he  thought  would 
pretty  certainly  indicate  a  final  alignment.  His  test  resolution 
passed  the  House  by  a  substantial  majority,  but  lacked  the 
necessary  two-thirds.  Lincoln,  therefore,  was  prepared  for  this 
defeat,  but  nevertheless,  was  saddened  by  it. 

When  the  Republican  Convention  convened  in  Baltimore  in 
June,   1864,  Lincoln  himself  wrote  the  third  article  of  the  plat- 


LIBERTY  AXD  UNION  325 

form,  and  gave  it  to  Senator  Morgan,  of  New  York,  Chairman 
of  the  National  Committee,  with  instructions  to  make  it  the  key- 
note of  the  convention.     That  article  read: 

Resolved,  That  as  slavery  was  the  cause,  and  now  constitutes 
the  strength,  of  this  rebellion,  and  as  it  must  be,  always  and  every- 
where, hostile  to  the  principles  of  republican  government,  justice 
and  the  national  safety  demand  its  utter  and  complete  extirpation 
from  the  soil  of  the  republic;  and  that  while  we  uphold  and 
maintain  the  acts  and  proclamations  by  which  the  government,  in 
its  own  defense  has  aimed  a  death-blow  at  this  gigantic  evil,  we 
are  in  favor,  furthermore,  of  such  an  amendment  to  the  Consti- 
tution, to  be  made  by  the  people  in  conformity  with  its  provisions, 
as  shall  terminate  and  forever  prohibit  the  existence  of  slavery 
within  the  limits  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States. 

When  Congress  convened  in  1864,  after  Lincoln's  election, 
Lincoln  reminded  that  body  that  the  national  vote  by  which  he 
had  been  reelected  had  virtually  reversed  their  action  of  the  pre- 
ceding year  in  refusing  to  submit  to  the  states  a  constitutional 
amendment  abolishing  slavery.  The  Congress  to  whom  he  de- 
livered this  message  was  the  same  that  had  refused  the  necessary 
two-thirds  vote  in  favor  of  the  amendment.  New  members  had 
been  elected,  but  they  would  not  take   their   seats   until   March 

4. 1865. 

Very  courteously  and  tactfully  he  proposed  to  this  session  of 
Congress  that  it  should  not  wait  to  have  its  action  reversed  by 
the  new  Congress  which  had  already  been  elected.     He  said : 

Although  the  present  is  the  same  Congress  and  nearly  the  same 
members,  and  without  questioning  the  wisdom  or  patriotism  of 
those  who  stood  in  opposition,  I  venture  to  recommend  the 
reconstruction  and  passage  of  the  measure  at  the  present  session. 
Of  course  the  abstract  question  is  not  changed,  but  an  intervening 
election  shows,  almost  certainly,  that  the  next  Congress  will  pass 
the  measure  if  this  does  not.  Hence  there  is  only  a  question  of 
time  as  to  when  the  proposed  amendment  will  go  to  the  States 
for  their  action.     And  as  it  is  to  so  go,  at  all  events,  may  we  not 


326  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

agree  that  the  sooner  the  better?  It  is  not  claimed  that  the 
election  has  imposed  a  duty  on  members  to  change  their  views 
or  their  votes  any  further  than  as  an  additional  element  to  be 
considered,  their  judgment  may  be  affected  by  it.  It  is  the 
voice  of  the  people  now  for  the  first  time  heard  upon  the 
question.  In  a  great  national  crisis  like  ours,  unanimity  of  action 
among  those  seeking  a  common  end  is  very  desirable — almost 
indispensable. 

Under  these  conditions  it  would  seem  that  the  passage  of  the 
amendment  must  have  been  a  foregone  conclusion.  The  Senate, 
which  already  had  acted  favorably  upon  it,  repeated  its  favorable 
action,  but  no  one  knew  how  the  House  would  stand.  Opposition 
there  was  very  strong.  The  most  notable  speech  upon  the  sub- 
ject was  delivered  by  Thaddeus  Stevens.  He  was  chairman  of 
the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  and  the  recognized  leader  of 
the  House.  He  was  aged  and  infirm.  He  seemed  hardly  equal 
to  the  making  of  a  speech,  but  every  one  knew  that  if  he  spoke 
his  words  would  be  notable.  As  he  clumped  down  the  aisle  to 
begin  his  address,  his  club-foot  seemed  to  waken  reverberations 
that  went  through  the  Capitol.  Senators  rushed  in,  and  judges 
from  the  Supreme  Court  left  the  bench,  and  every  available 
inch  of  space  in  the  House  was  occupied  as  Stevens  spoke.  He 
said: 

When,  fifteen  years  ago,  I  was  honored  with  a  seat  in  this 
body,  it  was  dangerous  to_talk  against  this  institution,  a  danger 
which  gentlemen  now  here  will  never  be  able  to  appreciate.  Some 
of  us,  however,  have  experienced  it;  my  friend  from  Illinois  on 
my  right  [Mr.  Washburne]  has.  And  yet,  sir,  I  did  not  hesitate, 
in  the  midst  of  bowie  knives  and  revolvers,  and  howling  demons 
upon  the  other  side  of  the  House,  to  stand  here  and  denounce  this 
infamous  institution  in  language  which  possibly  now,  on  looking 
at  it,  I  might  deem  intemperate,  but  which  I  then  deemed  neces- 
sary to  rouse  the  public  attention,  and  cast  odium  upon  the  worst 
institution  upon  earth,  one  which  is  a  disgrace  to  man,  and 
would  be  an  annoyance  to  the  infernal  spirits.   .    .    . 

Perhaps  I  ought  not  to  occupy  so  much  time,  and  I  will  only 


LIBERTY  AND  UNION  327 

say  one  word  further.  So  far  as  the  appeals  of  the  learned 
gentleman  [Mr.  P^endleton]  are  concerned,  his  pathetic  winding 
up,  I  will  be  willing  to  take  my  chance  when  we  all  molder  in 
the  dust.  He  may  have  his  epitaph  written,  if  it  be  truly  written, 
'Here  rests  the  ablest  and  most  pertinacious  defender  of  slavery 
and  opponent  of  liberty,"  and  I  will  be  satisfied  if  my  epitaph 
shall  be  written  thus :  "Here  lies  one  who  never  rose  to  any  emi- 
nence, and  who  only  courted  the  low  ambition  to  have  it  said  that 
he  had  striven  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  poor,  the  lowly, 
the  downtrodden  of  every  race  and  language  and  color." 

I  shall  be  content,  with  such  an  eulogy  on  his  lofty  tomb,  and 
such  an  inscription  on  my  humble  grave,  to  trust  our  memories 
to  the  judgment  of  other  ages. 

We  have  suffered  for  slavery  more  than  all  the  plagues  of 
Egypt.  More  than  the  first  born  of  every  household  has  been 
taken.  We  still  harden  our  hearts,  and  refuse  to  let  the  people 
go.  The  scourge  still  continues,  nor  do  I  expect  it  to  cease 
until  we  obey  the  behests  of  the  Father  of  men.  We  are  about 
to  ascertain  the  national  will  by  an  amendment  to  the  Constitu- 
tion. If  the  gentlemen  opposite  will  yield  to  the  voice  of  God 
and  humanity  and  vote  for  it,  I  verily  believe  the  sword  of  the 
destroying  angel  will  be  stayed,  and  this  people  be  re-united.  If 
we  still  harden  our  hearts,  and  blood  must  still  flow,  may  the 
ghosts  of  the  slaughtered  victims  sit  heavily  upon  the  souls  of 
those  who  cause  it. 

Although  the  Republicans  had  a  substantial  majority,  and 
every  Republican  vote  was  certain  to  be  favorable  to  the  pas- 
sage of  the  amendment,  it  was  necessary  that  there  should  be 
some  Democratic  votes  if  the  amendment  passed  the  House. 
There  were  no  test  votes.  The  only  roll-call  which  indicated  the 
probable  success  or  failure  of  the  amendment  was  that  on  the 
main  issue.  Schuyler  Colfax  was  in  the  chair,  and  the  House 
and  its  assembed  audience  waited  breathlessly  for  his  reading  of 
the  result  of  the  vote.  It  stood,  ayes  119,  noes  56.  The  consti- 
tutional majority  of  two-thirds  had  voted  in  the  affirmative,  the 
joint  resolution  had  passed. 

The  language  of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  was  substantially 
that  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  under  which  slavery,  or  involun- 


328  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tary  servitude,  except  for  punishment  of  crime,  was  forever 
prohibited  from  the  Northwest  Territory  out  of  which  had  been 
carved  the  five  states  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan  and 
Wisconsin. 

The  Constitution  may  be  amended  only  by  a  two-thirds  vote 
of  both  Houses  of  Congress,  and  a  confirming  vote  of  three- 
fourths  of  the  states.  Some  of  the  states  were  certain  to  vote 
against  the  amendment.  Could  a  three-fourths  vote  of  the  states 
be  counted  on?  A  new  state  had  been  admitted  to  the  Union  in 
1863.  Forty-eight  of  the  western  counties  of  Virginia,  lying 
principally  west  of  the  Alleghenies,  contained  a  population  over- 
whelmingly loyal.  In  the  summer  of  1861  these  counties  had 
taken  measures  to  form  themselves  into  a  separate  state,  and  in 
April,  1862,  they  adopted  a  state  constitution. 

Lincoln  had  not  been  enthusiastic  over  the  admission  of  West 
Virginia  as  a  state.  He  did  not  feel  sure  that  it  was  consistent 
on  the  part  of  the  government  to  be  waging  a  war  to  disprove 
the  right  of  a  state  to  secede  from  the  nation,  and  at  the  same 
time  approve  of  the  secession  of  a  part  of  a  state  from  the  state 
itself.  Senator  Browning,  who  took  to  Lincoln  on  December 
15,  1862,  the  bill  for  the  admission  of  West  Virginia,  recorded 
in  his  Diary  that  Lincoln  was  "much  distressed."  Before  de- 
ciding whether  to  approve  or  veto  the  bill,  Lincoln  presented 
to  his  Cabinet  a  request  that  each  member  submit  a  written 
opinion  in  answer  to  two  questions:  1.  Is  the  Act  constitu- 
tional? 2.  Is  it  expedient?  There  were  at  that  time  only  six 
members  of  the  Cabinet,  Caleb  B.  Smith  having  retired  to  a 
judgeship  in  Indiana,  and  a  new  secretary  of  the  interior  not 
having  been  appointed.  Of  the  six  remaining  members,  Seward, 
Chase  and  Stanton  answered  both  questions  in  the  affirmative, 
and  the  other  three  in  the  negative.  Lincoln  after  mature  con- 
sideration, said : 

We  can  scarcely  dispense  with  the  aid  of  West  Virginia  in 
this  struggle ;  much  less  can  we  afford  to  have  her  against  us  in 


LIBERTY  AND  UNION  329 

Congress  and  in  the  field.  Her  brave  and  good  men  regard  her 
admission  into  the  Union  as  a  matter  of  life  and  death.  They 
have  been  true  to  the  Union  under  very  severe  trials.  We  have 
so  acted  as  to  justify  their  hopes,  and  we  cannot  fully  retain 
their  confidence  and  cooperation  if  we  seem  to  break  faith  with 
them. 


He  signed  the  bill  that  made  West  Virginia  a  state.  It  was 
another  war  measure.  When  the  vote  of  states  came  on  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment,  Lincoln  was  glad  enough  of  West  Vir- 
ginia and  would  have  welcomed  another  state  like  her. 

A  careful  count  of  the  states  showed  that  it  was  still  somewhat 
more  than  doubtful  whether  the  amendment  would  be  confirmed 
by  the  necessary  three-fourths.  One  more  state  was  needed.  In 
October,  1864,  the  territory  of  Nevada  was  admitted  as  a  state. 
Nevada  had  an  exceedingly  small  population,  and  was  not  en- 
titled to  become  a  state,  either  by  the  number  of  its  inhabitants 
or  the  prospects  of  its  growth.  Small  as  its  population  was, 
that  population  diminished  rather  than  increased.  The  admis- 
sion of  Nevada,  however,  was  deemed  a  political  necessity.  If 
the  war  should  end  leaving  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 
hanging  like  Mahomet's  coffin  between  earth  and  heaven,  a 
situation  of  chaos  was  certain  to  ensue.  Lincoln  himself  favored 
all  necessary  elasticity  of  construction  of  constitutional  preroga- 
tives in  order  to  secure  the  admission  of  Nevada.*  Nevada  was 
admitted,  and  dutifully  ratified  the  amendment.  Lincoln  said  it 
was  better  to  admit  Nevada  than  to  have  to  raise  another  million 
men. 

The  states  made  haste  in  their  votes  of  ratification.  On  No- 
vember 18,  1865,  William  H.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State,  certi- 
fied that  the  requisite  three-fourths  vote  of  ratification  had  been 
(iuIv  certified   and   the   Thirteenth    Amendment   had   become   a 


*Charles  A.  Dana's  Reminiscences  tell  in  detail  the  lengths  to  which  Lin- 
coln went  to  secure  the  admission  of  this  state. 


330  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

part  of  the  Constitution,  abolishing  slavery  forever  wherever 
the  flag  of  the  United  States  shall  float.* 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  war,  Lincoln  was  much  con- 
cerned with  the  question  how  to  restore  the  seceded  states  to  the 
Union.  His  attitude  toward  the  secessionists,  both  as  individu- 
als and  states,  was  distinctly  conciliatory.  Had  Lincoln  lived  he 
would  certainly  have  come  into  collision  with  those  leaders  of  his 
own  party  who  favored  retributive  measures. 

But  upon  what  basis  were  the  seceded  states  to  be  restored  to 
their  place  in  the  family  of  the  Union?  The  war  had  been 
fought  upon  the  theory  that  this  nation  was  one,  and  the  Union 
indissoluble.  But  was  a  state  that  had  passed  an  ordinance  of 
secession  to  be  readmitted  merely  by  conquest?  Must  there  not 
be  some  overt  act  on  the  part  of  the  state  itself,  rescinding  its 
ordinance  of  secession,  and  indicating  its  desire  to  be  considered 
a  state  belonging  to  the  Federal  Union  ? 

Lincoln  felt  the  constitutional  difficulties  of  this  problem,  but 
he  was  deeply  interested  in  the  practical  result  of  getting  these 
states  back  into  normal  relations  with  their  sister  states  and  with 
the  Federal  Government.  His  practical  solution  of  the  problem 
is  set  forth  in  the  following  words : 

We  all  agree,  that  the  seceded  States,  so  called,  are  out  of 
their  proper  practical  relation  with  the  Union,  and  that  the  sole 


*A  few  other  states  subsequently  added  their  vote  of  ratification.  On 
August  22,  1866,  Secretary  Seward  furnished  the  following  list  of  the  states 
which  up  to  that  time  had  ratified  the  Amendment,  together  with  the  dates 
of  their  ratifying  vote: 

Illinois,  February  1st,  1865;  Rhode  Island,  February  2nd,  1865;  Michi- 
gan, February  2d,  1865;  Maryland,  February  1st  and  3d,  1865;  New  York, 
February  2d  and  3d,  1865 ;  West  Virginia,  February  3d,  1865 ;  Maine,  Febru- 
ary 7th,  1865 ;  Kansas,  February  7th,  1865 ;  Massachusetts,  February  8th, 
1865 ;  Pennsylvania,  February  8th,  1865 ;  Virginia,  February  9th,  1865 ;  Ohio, 
February  10th,  1865;  Missouri,  February  10th,  1865;  Nevada,  February  16th, 
1865;  Indiana,  February  16th,  1865;  Louisiana,  February  17th,  1865;  Minne- 
sota, February  8th  and  23d,  1865;  Wisconsin,  March  1st,  1865;  Vermont, 
March  9th,  1865  ;  Tennessee,  April  5th  and  7th,  1865  ;  Arkansas,  April  20th, 
1865;  Connecticut,  May  5th,  1865;  New  Hampshire,  July  1st,  1865;  South 
Carolina,  November  13th,  1865 ;  Alabama,  December  2d,  1865 ;  North  Caro- 
lina, December  4th,  186=; ;  Georgia,  December  9th,  1865 :  Oregon,  December 
nth,  1865;  California,  December  20th,  T865  ;  Florida,  December  28th,  1865; 
New  Jersey,  January  23d,  1866;  Iowa,  January  24th,  1866. 


LIBERTY  AND  UNION 


33* 


object  of  the  government,  civil  and  military,  in  regard  to  those 
States  is  to  again  get  them  into  the  proper  practical  relation.  I 
believe  that  it  is  not  only  possible,  but  in  fact  easier,  to  do  this 
without  deciding  or  even  considering  whether  these  States  have 
ever  been  out  of  the  Union,  than  with  it.  Finding  themselves 
safely  at  home,  it  would  be  utterly  immaterial  whether  they  had 
ever  been  abroad.  Let  us  all  join  in  doing  the  acts  necessary  to 
restoring  the  proper  practical  relations  between  these  States  and 
the  Union,  and  each  forever  after  innocently  indulge  his  own 
opinion  whether  in  doing  the  acts  he  brought  the  States  from 
without  into  the  Union,  or  only  gave  them  proper  assistance, 
they  never  having  been  out  of  it. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


APPOMATTOX 


The  last  hope  of  the  Confederates  received  a  severe  shock 
when  Lincoln  was  reelected.  The  party  which  had  declared  the 
war  a  failure,  and  the  candidate  whose  whole  military  career 
had  been  a  disappointment  to  his  friends,  went  down  to  over- 
whelming defeat.  Still  the  struggle  was  not  ended  without  some 
futile  attempt  at  peace  without  victory. 

Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Vice  President  of  the  Confederacy, 
had  been  a  Whig,  and  had  known  Lincoln  during  Lincoln's  one 
term  in  Congress,  1847- 1848.  He  had  long  desired  a  personal 
interview  with  Lincoln.  In  June,  1863,  when  Lee  was  begin- 
ning his  invasion  of  the  XTorth,  Mr.  Stephens  set  forth  from 
Richmond  for  Fortress  Monroe,  and  notified  the  admiral  in 
Hampton  Roads  that  he  was  the  bearer  of  a  communication  in 
writing  from  Jefferson  Davis,  and  asked  leave  to  proceed  to 
Washington  for  a  personal  conference  with  President  Lincoln. 
The  request  wras  received  at  the  very  time  when  Lee  was  meeting 
his  crushing  defeat  at  Gettysburg.  Lincoln  declined  the  request, 
and  Stephens  did  not  proceed  to  Washington. 

These  measures  and  others  fostered  by  Fernando  Wood  or  by 
Horace  Greeley,  Lincoln  had  met  successively  at  intervals  during 
the  war. 

Near  the  end  of  December,  1864,  Lincoln  permitted  Francis 
P.  Blair,  Sr.,  to  go  through  the  lines  into  the  Confederacy. 
Blair  was  permitted  to  see  Jefferson  Davis,  who  expressed  an 
earnest  desire  for  peace  "between  the  two  countries."  The  re- 
sult of  this  negotiation  was  that  President  Davis  appointed  three 

332 


APPOMATTOX  333 

commissioners  with  authority  to  proceed  to  General  Grant's 
headquarters  to  confer  with  Secretary  Seward  in  regard  to  peace. 
Lincoln  gave  to  Seward  these  three  conditions  upon  which  alone 
the  United  States  Government  would  consider  a  cessation  of 
hostilities. 

1.  The  restoration  of  the  national  authority  throughout  all 
the  States. 

2.  No  receding  by  the  executive  of  the  United  States  on  the 
slavery  question  from  the  position  assumed  thereon  in  the  late 
annual  message  to  Congress,  and  in  preceding  documents. 

3.  No  cessation  of  hostilities  short  of  an  end  of  the  war  and 
the  disbanding  of  all  forces  hostile  to  the  government. 

Seward  departed  for  Grant's  headquarters  on  January  21, 
1865,  and  on  the  following  day  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  left  Wash- 
ington to  participate  in  the  conference.  Apparently  he  felt  that 
m  a  matter  of  such  moment  no  one  but  himself  could  speak  for 
the  administration. 

The  meeting  between  Lincoln  and  Seward  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  three  Confederate  envoys  on  the  other,  was  conducted  on 
board  the  LTiited  States  steamer  River  Queen,  lying  off  Hampton 
Roads.  The  following  account  of  the  interview  appeared  in  a 
Georgia  paper,  and  is  said  to  have  emanated  from  the  pen  of 
Alexander  H.  Stephens.  It  preserves  a  characteristic  anecdote 
of  Lincoln  and  one  which  we  can  not  afford  to  lose: 

The  three  Southern  gentlemen  met  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr. 
Seward,  and  after  some  preliminary  remarks,  the  subject  of 
peace  was  opened.  Mr.  Stephens,  well  aware  that  one  who  asks 
much  may  get  more  than  he  who  confesses  to  humble  wishes  at 
the  outset,  urged  the  claims  of  his  section  with  that  skill  and 
address  for  which  the  Northern  papers  have  given  him  credit. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  holding  the  vantage  ground  of  conscious  power,  was, 
however,  perfectly  frank,  and  submitted  his  views  almost  in  the 
form  of  an  argument.  .  .  .  Davis  had,  on  this  occasion,  as  on 
that  of  Mr.  Stephens's  visit  to  Washington,  made  it  a  condition 
that  no  conference  should  be  had,  unless  his  rank  as  Commander 


334  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

or  President  should  first  be  recognized.  Mr.  Lincoln  declared 
that  the  only  ground  on  which  he  could  rest  the  justice  of  war — 
either  with  his  own  people,  or  with  foreign  powers — was  that  it 
was  not  a  war  for  conquest,  for  that  the  states  had  never  been 
separated  from  the  Union.  Consequently,  he  could  not  recognize 
another  government  inside  of  the  one  of  which  he  alone  was 
President;  nor  admit  the  separate  independence  of  states  that 
were  yet  a  part  of  the  Union.  "That,"  said  he,  "would  be  doing 
what  you  have  so  long  asked  Europe  to  do  in  vain,  and  be 
resigning  the  only  thing  the  armies  of  the  Union  have  been  fight- 
ing for." 

Mr.  Hunter  made  a  long  reply  to  this,  insisting  that  the  recogni- 
tion of  Davis's  power  to  make  a  treaty  was  the  first  and  indis- 
pensable step  to  peace,  and  referred  to  the  correspondence 
between  King  Charles  I.  and  his  Parliament,  as  a  trustworthy  pre- 
cedent of  a  constitutional  ruler  treating  with  rebels.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's face  then  wore  that  indescribable  expression  which  generally 
preceded  his  hardest  hits,  and  he  remarked :  "Upon  questions  of 
history  I  must  refer  you  to  Mr.  Seward,  for  he  is  posted  in  such 
things,  and  I  don't  pretend  to  be  right.  My  only  distinct  recollec- 
tion of  the  matter  is  that  Charles  lost  his  head."  That  settled 
Mr.  Hunter  for  a  while. 

Lincoln  also  gave  an  account  of  this  conference,  or  at  least  of 
a  story  which  he  was  reported  to  have  told  on  that  occasion.  This 
is  recorded  by  Henry  J.  Raymond,  who  asked  Mr.  Lincoln  con- 
cerning the  truth  of  the  report.  "Why,  yes,"  replied  Mr.  Lincoln, 
manifesting  some  surprise,  "but  has  it  leaked  out?  I  was  in 
hopes  nothing  would  be  said  about  it,  lest  some  over-sensitive 
people  should  imagine  there  was  a  degree  of  levity  in  the  inter- 
course between  us."  He  then  went  on  to  relate  the  circumstances 
which  called  it  out. 

"You  see,"  said  he,  "we  had  reached  and  were  discussing  the 
slavery  question.  Mr.  Hunter  said,  substantially,  that  the  slaves, 
always  accustomed  to  an  overseer,  and  to  work  upon  compulsion, 
suddenly  freed,  as  they  would  be  if  the  South  should  consent  to 
peace  on  the  basis  of  the  'Emancipation  Proclamation,'  would 
precipitate  not  only  themselves,  but  the  entire  southern  society, 


< 

6 

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■Mil  Mi  Ml 


APPOMATTOX  335 

into  irremediable  ruin.     No  work  would  be  done,  nothing  would 
be  cultivated,  and  both  blacks  and  whites  would  starve!" 

Said  the  president :  "I  waited  for  Seward  to  answer  that  argu- 
ment, but  as  he  was  silent,  I  at  length  said:  'Mr.  Hunter,  you 
ought  to  know  a  great  deal  better  about  this  argument  than  I,  for 
you  have  always  lived  under  the  slave  system.  I  can  only  say,  in 
reply  to  your  statement  of  the  case,  that  it  reminds  me  of  a  man' 
out  in  Illinois,  by  the  name  of  Case,  who  undertook,  a  few  years 
ago,  to  raise  a  very  large  herd  of  hogs.  It  was  a  great  trouble  to 
feed  them,  and  how  to  get  around  this  was  a  puzzle  to  him.  At 
length  he  hit  on  the  plan  of  planting  an  immense  field  of  potatoes, 
and,  when  they  were  sufficiently  grown,  he  turned  the  whole 
herd  into  the  field,  and  let  them  have  full  swing,  thus  saving  not 
only  the  labor  of  feeding  the  hogs,  but  also  that  of  digging  the 
potatoes.  Charmed  with  his  sagacity,  he  stood  one  day  leaning 
against  the  fence,  counting  his  hogs,  when  a  neighbor  came  along. 

"  '  "Well,  well,"  said  he,  "Mr.  Case,  this  is  all  very  fine.  Your 
hogs  are  doing  very  well  just  now,  but  you  know  out  here  in 
Illinois  the  frost  comes  early,  and  the  ground  freezes  for  a  foot 
deep.    Then  what  you  going  to  do  ?" 

;  'This  .vas  a  view  of  the  matter  which  Mr.  Case  had  not  taken 
into  account.  Butchering  time  for  hogs  was  'way  on  in  Decem- 
ber or  January !  He  scratched  his  head,  and  at  length  stammered : 
"Well,  it  may  come  pretty  hard  on  their  snouts,  but  I  don't  see 
but  that  it  will  be  root,  hog,  or  die."  '  " 

It  was  this  story  which  made  the  phrase  "Root,  hog,  or  die"  so 
widely  current  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War. 

The  Hampton  Roads  Conference  failed  entirely  in  its  attempt 
to  establish  peace  by  any  other  means  than  a  complete  surrender 
of  the  Confederate  Army,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  rebellion. 
It  probably  had  its  value  in  convincing  the  Confederate  leaders 
that  no  compromise  at  that  time  was  possible.  Sherman  had 
captured  Savannah,  and  presented  it  to  the  Nation  as  a  Christ- 
mas gift.  Lincoln,  who  had  never  been  quite  sure  of  Sherman's 
wisdom  of  his  march  to  the  sea,  acknowledged  Sherman's  sue- 


336  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

cess  in  a  characteristic  letter,  and  the  armies  settled  down  to  their 
final  struggle.     The  letter  of  Lincoln  is  as  follows : 

Executive  Mansion, 

Washington,  December  26,  1864. 
My  Dear  General  Sherman : 

Many,  many  thanks  for  your  Christmas  gift,  the  capture  of 
Savannah. 

When  you  were  about  leaving  Atlanta  for  the  Atlantic  coast,  I 
was  anxious,  if  not  fearful;  but  feeling  that  you  were  the  better 
judge,  and  remembering  that  "nothing  risked,  nothing  gained,"  I 
did  not  interfere.  Now,  the  undertaking  being  a  success,  the 
honor  is  all  yours ;  for  I  believe  none  of  us  went  further  than  to 
acquiesce. 

And  taking  the  work  of  General  Thomas  into  the  count,  as  it 
should  be  taken,  it  is  indeed  a  great  success.  Not  only  does  it 
afford  the  obvious  and  military  advantages;  but  in  showing  to 
the  world  that  your  army  could  be  divided,  putting  the  stronger 
part  to  an  important  new  service,  and  yet  leaving  enough  to 
vanquish  the  old  opposing  force  of  the  whole, — Hood's  army, — it 
brings  those  who  sat  in  darkness  to  see  a  great  light.  But  what 
next  ? 

I  suppose  it  will  be  safe  if  I  leave  General  Grant  and  yourself 
to  decide. 

Please  make  my  grateful  acknowledgments  to  your  whole  army 
— officers  and  men. 

Yours  very  truly, 

A.  Lincoln. 

As  the  spring  of  1865  opened,  Lincoln  left  the  White  House 
for  a  little  time,  and  for  about  ten  days  he  and  Mrs.  Lincoln 
lived  on  the  steamer  River  Queen  at  City  Point  near  the  head- 
quarters of  General  Grant.  There  General  Sherman  came  from  his 
headquarters  at  Goldsboro,  North  Carolina,  and  Lincoln  conferred 
with  the  two  generals  as  to  the  fighting  that  still  needed  to  be 
done.  Lincoln  desired  that  the  end  might  come  as  speedily  as 
possible,  but  with  as  little  bloodshed  as  could  possibly  be. 

On  March  thirty-first  Grant  began  his  forward  movement. 
Lincoln  remained  at  City  Point  and  eagerly  heard  the  news.     On 


APPOMATTOX  337 

April  first,  Sheridan  won  a  brilliant  victory  at  Five  Forks.  On 
April  second,  Petersburg  and  Richmond  were  evacuated  by  the 
Confederates.  On  April  fourth,  Lincoln  started  up  the  river  and 
visited  Richmond,  where  he  spent  two  days.  There  he  received 
an  ovation  from  the  liberated  slaves,  and  when  he  returned  to 
City  Point  he  was  cheered  by  a  crowd  of  Confederate  prisoners. 
This  gratified  Lincoln  even  more  than  the  rejoicing  of  the  freed- 
men.  It  assured  him  that  those  men  would  never  again  take  up 
arms  against  the  national  government. 

Lincoln  returned  to  Washington  soon  after  his  visit  to  Rich- 
mond. Almost  immediately  after  reaching  the  city  the  good  news 
came  for  which  so  long  he  had  waited.  Lee  sent  a  flag  of  truce 
to  Grant,  asking  for  a  suspension  of  hostilities  pending  a  confer- 
ence with  reference  to  the  surrender  of  Lee's  army.  The  confer- 
ence was  held  at  Appomattox,  Virginia,  on  Palm  Sunday  morn- 
ing, April  9,  1865.  The  generous  terms  offered  by  General 
Grant  were  promptly  accepted;  the  army  of  General  Lee  was 
surrendered ;  his  soldiers  were  permitted  to  retain  their  horses 
for  use  in  the  tilling  of  their  farms,  and  the  Civil  War  was  vir- 
tually at  an  end. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


THE   DEATH    OF   LINCOLN 


The  surrender  of  General  Lee  led  to  immediate  measures 
looking  to  the  end  of  the  war.  The  Confederacy  still  existed  as 
a  government  upon  paper,  but  its  principal  army  had  been  cap- 
tured, its  president  was  a  fugitive,  and  its  capital  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  Union  Army.  There  still  were  scattered  military 
organizations  in  arms  against  the  Federal  Government,  but  they 
were  feeble,  ineffective  and  disheartened.  It  would  require  some 
weeks  officially  to  terminate  the  rebellion,  but  practically  the 
Confederacy  went  down  with  the  evacuation  of  Richmond  and 
the  surrender  of  Lee's  army.  The  draft  was  suspended.  Ed- 
win M.  Stanton,  his  profanity  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding, 
was  a  religious  man,  and  caused  the  new  dome  of  the  capitol  to 
be  surrounded  by  a  transparency  bearing  these  words : 


THIS  IS  THE   LORD'S  DOING, 
AND  IT  IS   MARVELOUS 
IN   OUR   EYES" 


Friday  was  the  regular  day  for  the  Cabinet  meeting.  General 
Grant  had  come  to  Washington  and  was  invited  to  be  present. 
Apparently  not  much  business  was  done.  There  was  general 
rejoicing  over  the  end  of  the  war,  and  a  consideration  of  what 
would  follow  by  way  of  reconstruction. 

Gideon  Welles  recorded  concerning  this  meeting,  that  the 
president  warned  his  Cabinet  that  he  would  not  participate  in 
any  vindictive  measures  against  the  South. 

He  hoped  there  would  be  no  persecution,  no  bloody  work, 
after  the  war  was  over.     None  need  expect  he  would  take  any 

338 


THE  DEATH  OF  LINCOLN  339 

part  in  hanging  or  killing  these  men,  even  the  worst  of  them. 
''Frighten  them  out  of  the  country,  let  down  the  bars,  scare 
them  off,"  said  he,  throwing  up  his  hands  as  if  scaring  sheep. 
"Enough  lives  have  been  sacrificed.  We  must  extinguish  our 
resentment  if  we  expect  harmony  and  union."  There  was  too 
much  desire  on  the  part  of  our  very  good  friends  to  be  masters, 
to  interfere  with  and  dictate  to  those  states,  to  treat  the  people 
not  as  fellow-citizens ;  there  was  too  little  respect  for  their  right. 
He  didn't  sympathize  in  those  feelings. 

Secretary  Stanton  recalling  this  Cabinet  meeting  in  the  light 
of  the  sad  events  of  that  night,  recorded  on  Saturday : 

He  was  more  cheerful  and  happy  than  I  had  ever  seen  him, 
rejoiced  at  the  near  prospect  of  firm  and  durable  peace  at  home 
and  abroad;  manifested  in  a  marked  degree  the  kindness  and 
humanity  of  his  disposition  and  the  tender  forgiving  spirit  that 
so  eminently  distinguished  him. 

President  Lincoln  was  a  close  observer  of  his  own  dreams.  He 
was  subject  to  them,  and  could  not  let  them  go  without  wonder- 
ing what  they  might  portend.  At  this  last  Cabinet  meeting  he 
told  of  a  dream  he  had  the  night  before,  and  one  which  he  was 
confident  portended  some  important  event,  the  nature  of  which 
he  did  not  attempt  to  conjecture.  Secretary  Welles  thus  recalls 
the  president's  recital  of  his  dream : 

He  said  it  was  in  my  department,  it  related  to  the  water,  that 
he  seemed  to  be  in  a  singular  and  indescribable  vessel,  but  always 
the  same,  and  that  he  was  moving  with  great  rapidity  toward  a 
dark  and  indefinite  shore :  that  he  had  had  this  singular  dream 
preceding  the  firing  on  Sumter,  the  battles  of  Bull  Run,  Antie- 
tam,  Gettysburg,  Stone  River,  Vicksburg,  Wilmington,  etc.  .  .  . 
Victory  did  not  always  follow  his  dream,  but  the  event  and  re- 
sults were  important.  He  had  no  doubt  that  a  battle  had  taken 
place,  or  was  about  being  fought,  "and  Johnston  will  be  beaten, 
for  I  had  this  strange  dream  again  last  night.  It  must  relate  to 
Sherman;  my  thoughts  are  in  that  direction,  and  /  know  of  no 
other  very  important  event  which  is  likely  jnst  now  to  occur." 

Through  all  the  years  of  his  life  in  the  White  House  Lincoln 
had  been  in  receipt  of  letters  threatening  his  assassination.     He 


340  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

did  not  pay  much  attention  to  these.  He  was  a  brave  man.  He 
had  abiding  faith  that  he  had  been  called  to  do  a  great  work, 
and  he  believed  that  he  would  live  to  finish  it.  He  had  no  great 
faith  that  any  precaution  of  his  would  avert  whatever  destiny 
was  in  store  for  him.  Moreover,  he  had  in  him  a  strain  of  innate 
superstition.  Herndon  is  unquestionably  right  in  saying  that 
his  tendency  to  fatalism  was  intensified  by  the  Baptist  preaching 
which  he  heard  in  his  boyhood  and  youth.  The  backwoods  Bap- 
tists of  that  day  believed  in  predestination  of  a  most  intense  and 
effective  sort. 

Lincoln  had  moved  steadily  forward  through  abundant  and  re- 
peated warnings  of  assassination  with  as  little  apparent  concern 
as  Admiral  Farragut  had  shown  when  his  flagship,  the  Hartford, 
was  steaming  ahead  through  the  torpedoes  of  Mobile  Bay.  Ap- 
parently it  did  not  occur  to  him  that  the  dream  which  conveyed 
some  premonition  of  an  impending  event  was  a  portent  of  per- 
sonal evil  to  himself. 

On  the  afternoon  of  that  Friday  Lincoln  said  good-by  to 
Schuyler  Colfax  who  was  going  west,  and  spent  a  little  time  with 
a  cheerful  group  of  friends,  among  them  Richard  Oglesby,  of 
Illinois.  He  had  so  merry  a  time  with  them  it  was  difficult  for 
Mrs.  Lincoln  to  get  him  away  from  them  to  dinner. 

After  dinner,  George  Ashmun,  of  Massachusetts,  who  had 
presided  over  the  convention  that  nominated  Lincoln  in  i860, 
called,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  made  an  appointment  to  meet  him  with 
a  friend  on  the  following  morning.  The  last  bit  of  writing 
which  Lincoln  ever  did  was  a  card*  bearing  these  words : 


April 

Allow 

14.  i 
Mr. 

865. 

Ashmun 

&  friend  to  come  in 

at  9— 

-A.    M 

.  tomor- 

row — 

A. 

Lincoln 

*The  friend  of  Mr.  Ashmun  referred  to  on  this  card  was  Judge  C.  P. 
Dalev,  of  New  York. 


THE  DEATH  OF  LINCOLN  341 

Mrs.  Lincoln  had  been  disappointed  in  her  effort  to  lionize 
General  Grant  on  the  occasion  of  his  visit  to  the  White  House 
when  he  became  commander-in-chief  of  the  army.  She  arranged 
a  theater  party  for  that  evening  at  which  the  general  and  his 
wife  were  to  be  her  guests.  Laura  Keene  was  playing  Our 
American  Cousin  at  Ford's  Theater.  The  manager  of  the  theater 
did  not  fail  to  make  it  known  in  the  afternoon  papers  that  "the 
president  and  his  lady"  and  "the  hero  of  Appomattox"  would 
attend  the  theater  that  night.  The  president's  box  was  draped 
with  flags.  General  and  Airs.  Grant  decided  to  leave  for  Burling- 
ton, New  Jersey,  that  night.  Mrs.  Lincoln  invited  Major  H.  R. 
Rathbone  and  his  financee,  the  daughter  of  Senator  Ira  Harris, 
to  take  the  place  of  General  and  Mrs.  Grant. 

The  president  and  his  party  reached  the  theater  about  nine 
o'clock.  The  president  and  his  wife  were  greeted  with  applause 
as  they  entered  their  box  from  the  rear,  and  took  the  places  as- 
signed.    The  interruption  was  brief,  and  the  play  proceeded. 

The  president  sat  down  in  a  rocking  chair  which  had  been 
provided  for  him,  and  watched  with  interest  the  scene  upon  the 
boards.  It  was  broad  comedy,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  enjoyed  it,  all 
unconscious  of  the  tragedy  which  soon  was  to  supersede  it, 

That  tragedy  was  not  long  delayed.  John  Wilkes  Booth,  the  as- 
sassin, who  knew  the  theater  well,  and  had  made  his  plans  care- 
fully, entered  the  box  quietly  and  fired  the  fatal  shot  from  a 
Derringer  pistol.  The  audience  at  first  did  not  realize  that  the 
pistol-shot  was  not  a  part  of  the  performance.  Major  Rathbone 
wras  the  first  to  understand  what  had  occurred.  He  grappled 
with  the  assassin,  who  had  already  drawn  a  dagger,  and  who 
viciously  stabbed  the  young  officer.  The  blow  was  aimed  at 
his  heart  but  was  warded  off  and  received  in  the  arm. 

"Sic  Semper  Tyrannis!"  exclaimed  Booth. 

Booth  then  vaulted  from  the  box  to  the  stage.  An  American 
flag,  draped  below  the  box,  caught  his  spur  and  flung  the  mur- 
derer to  the  stage  with  a  broken  leg.  Thus  did  the  nation's  flag 
become  the  mute  avenger  of  its  country's  chief. 


342  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Booth  rose  to  his  feet  and  moved  quickly  to  the  stage  exit. 
Although  his  leg  was  broken,  he  escaped  to  the  alley  behind  the 
theater,  where  a  horse  awaited  him,  and  he  hurriedly  left  the  city. 

As  soon  as  the  spectators  realized  what1  had  occurred,  there 
was  a  rush  of  people  to  the  box.  Among  them  was  Laura  Keene, 
the  actress,  and  others  crowded  in,  bewildered.  A  surgeon  was 
helped  over  the  balustrade  and  into  the  box.  The  president  was 
borne  from  the  theater  at  first  with  no  plan  where  to  take  him. 
Nearly  opposite  the  theater  was  a  lodging-house,  occupied  by  the 
family  of  William  Peterson.  A  young  man  named  Clark  whi_ 
roomed  there  was  standing  upon  the  steps  when  men  appeared  in 
the  street  bearing  the  president.  Into  this  young  man's  room  on 
the  ground  floor  and  toward  the  rear  of  the  house,  they  bore  the 
unconscious  form  and  laid  it  upon  the  bed.  Eminent  surgeons 
were  summoned,  and  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  called.  A 
night  of  unspeakable  agony  followed.  The  president  never  re- 
gained consciousness. 

For  a  time  Washington  was  in  terror.  It  was  not  known  at 
once  how  many  of  the  officers  of  the  government  might  have 
been  stricken.  It  seemed  as  though  conspiracy  stalked  every- 
where, and  murder  lurked  in  every  doorway.  Those  who  lived 
in  Washington  can  never  forget  the  horror  of  the  night  when 
Lincoln  was  killed. 

The  same  night  of  Lincoln's  assassination  an  attempt  was 
made  to  murder  also  the  secretary  of  state,  William  H.  Seward. 
He  was  almost  fatally  stabbed,  and  his  son  Frederick  was  very 
severely  wounded. 

General  Grant  had  left  the  city  for  Burlington,  New  Jersey,  a 
few  hours  before  the  time  fixed  for  his  assassination.  Those 
who  were  to  have  assassinated  the  remaining  members  of  the 
Cabinet  either  lost  courage,  or  drank  too  heavily,  or  were  pre- 
vented by  other  causes  not  known. 

A  defective  door-bell  on  Stanton's  house  was  probably  the 
reason  for  his  own  escape  from  assassination  on  the  same  night. 


THE  DEATH  OF  LINCOLN  343 

There  is  good  evidence  that  he  was  included  in  the  general  plan. 
At  the  hour  fixed  for  the  attack,  an  attempt  was  made  to  enter 
his  house,  but  his  door-bell  was  out  of  commission,  and  the  sup- 
posed conspirator  was  frightened  away  by  the  approach  of  wit- 
nesses. Stanton  was  in  his  own  home,  in  the  back  room  playing 
with  his  children,  when  the  attempt  was  made  to  enter  his  house. 
"The  bell  wire  was  broken  a  day  or  two  before,"  he  said,  "and 
though  we  had  endeavored  to  have  it  repaired,  the  bell  hanger 
had  put  it  off  because  of  a  pressure  of  orders." 

Very  soon  after,  a  messenger  arrived  at  Stanton's  informing 
him  that  Secretary  Seward  and  his  son,  the  assistant  secretary, 
had  been  stabbed.  Stanton  hastened  thither,  and  saw  the  two 
men,  both  of  whom  seemed  to  be  fatally  wounded.  While  there, 
he  learned  that  the  president  had  been  assassinated.  He  went  at 
once  to  the  headquarters  of  General  C.  C.  Augur,  which  was 
next  door  to  Seward's  house,  and  left  orders  for  him  as  military 
governor  to  hold  his  troops  in  readiness  for  any  emergency. 
Then  he  and  Secretary  Welles  hastened  to  the  house  where  the 
dying  president  lay.  The  entire  vicinity  was  filled  with  people 
who  had  gathered  before  the  secretary  arrived,  but  the  crowd 
parted  and  made  way  for  him. 

All  the  remaining  members  of  the  Cabinet  except  Seward, 
were  summoned,  and  all  came.  Andrew  Johnson,  Vice-Presi- 
dent, was  not  there.* 


*Doctor  J.  Franklin  Jameson  calls  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
Washington  Star  of  Saturday,  April  16,  1865,  mentions  the  vice-president  as 
being  at  the  president's  bedside  at  one  time  during  the  night  after  the  assas- 
sination. Honorable  James  Tanner  ("Corporal  Tanner")  who  served  as 
stenographer  that  night,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  written  on  Sunday,  the  seven- 
teenth, mentions  Johnson  as  present.  It  is  alleged  that  Mr.  Johnson  did,  in- 
deed, come  in  for  a  few  minutes,  but  that  his  condition  and  conduct  were  such 
as  to  increase  Mrs.  Lincoln's  grief,  and  that  he  withdrew,  and  was  found  in 
the  morning  in  the  condition  which  Stewart  describes.  This  would  harmonize 
all  accounts.  But  it  is  not  difficult  to  explain  the  account  in  the  Star  on  the 
hypothesis  that  the  reporter,  himself  on  the  outside  of  the  house,  and  making 
up  his  report  at  second  hand,  heard  or  assumed,  that  Johnson  was  present 
with  the  Cabinet.  Mr.  Tanner  subsequently  came  to  believe,  and  still  be- 
lieves, that  he  was  mistaken  about  Johnson's  having  been  there.  My  own 
impression  is  that  if  he  had  actually  been  there,  and  especially  if  he  had  been 
there  in  a  condition  of  intoxication,  we  should  have  more  evidence  on  the 
subject.     Out  of  twelve  different  contemporary  pictures  of  the  death  of  the 


344  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  that  crisis  it  was  Stanton  who  rose  to  the  emergency.  For 
the  next  few  hours  he  was  virtually  president.  He  called  his 
assistant,  Charles  A.  Dana,  who  was  a  stenographer.  He  dic- 
tated orders  and  a  brief  account  of  the  assassination,  which  is 
still,  in  some  respects,  the  very  best  record  we  have  of  that  event. 
That  record  reads  thus : 

This  evening  at  9:30  o'clock  at  Ford's  Theater,  the  President, 
while  sitting  in  his  private  box  with  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and  Major 
Rathbone,  was  shot  by  an  assassin  who  entered  the  box  and 
approached  behind  the  President.  The  person  then  leaped  upon 
the  stage,  brandishing  a  large  dagger  or  knife,  and  made  his 
escape  in  the  rear  of  the  theater. 

The  pistol  ball  entered  the  back  of  the  President's  head,  and 
penetrated  nearly  through  it.  The  wound  is  mortal.  The  Presi- 
dent has  been  insensible  ever  since  it  was  inflicted,  and  is  now 
dying. 

About  the  same  hour,  an  assassin,  whether  the  same  or  not, 
entered  Mr.  Seward's  apartment,  and,  under  a  pretense  of  having 
a  prescription,  was  shown  to  the  Secretary's  sick  chamber.  The 
assassin  immediately  rushed  to  the  bed  and  inflicted  two  or  three 
stabs  on  the  throat  and  two  on  the  face.  It  is  hoped  that  the 
wounds  may  not  prove  fatal.  My  apprehension  is  that  they  will 
prove  fatal. 

The  nurse  alarmed  Mr.  Frederick  Seward,  who,  from  an  ad- 
joining room,  hastened  to  the  door  of  his  father's  where  he  met 
the  assassin,  who  inflicted  upon  him  one  or  more  dangerous 
wounds.  The  recovery  of  Frederick  Seward  is  doubtful.  It  is 
not  probable  that  the  President  will  live  through  the  night. 

General  Grant  and  his  wife  were  advertised  to  be  at  the  theater 
this  evening,  but  he  started  to  Burlington  at  6  o'clock. 

This  evening  at  a  cabinet  meeting,  at  which  General  Grant 
was  present,  the  subject  of  the  state  of  the  country  and  the  pros- 
pect of  a  speedy  peace  was  discussed.  The  President  was  very 
cheerful  and  hopeful,  and  spoke  very  kindly  of  General  Lee  and 
others  of  the  Confederacy  and  of  the  establishment  of  the  gov- 
ernment in  Virginia.  All  the  members  of  the  cabinet,  except  Mr. 
Seward,  are  waiting  upon  the  President. 

president,    three    show    the    vice-president    present.      Corporal    Tanner    died 
while  this  book  was  in  press. 


THE  DEATH  OF  LINCOLN  345 

I  have  seen  Mr.  Seward,  but  he  and  Frederick  were  both  un- 
conscious. 

Stanton  sent  a  notice  to  the  vice-president  that  the  president 
could  not  live ;  whether  Johnson  was  in  condition  to  read  and 
understand  it,  is  a  disputed  question.  There  were  those  at  the 
time  who  declared  that  he  did  not  need  the  information, — that  he 
was  involved ;  this  charge  appears  utterly  unfounded.  There  were 
others  who  declared,  and  the  charge  is  not  so  easily  disposed  of, 
that  Johnson  was  sleeping  off  the  effects  of  a  carouse.  As  it  was 
said  that  he  was  intoxicated  when  he  took  the  oath  of  office  as 
vice-president,  so  it  is  declared  that  he  was  in  the  same  condition 
when  called  upon  to  assume  the  duties  of  the  presidency.  It  was 
a  night  of  wTild  rumor  and  vague  surmise,  and  perhaps  also,  of 
foul  slander.  Unfortunately,  the  vice-president  did  not  appear 
at  the  Peterson  house  that  night,  and  is  not  known  to  have  been 
seen  by  any  reliable  person  who  can  assure  the  world  that  he  was 
in  condition  to  appreciate  the  solemnity  of  the  hour.  Stanton 
notified  Chief  Justice  Chase  that  the  president  could  not  live,  and 
directed  him  to  be  ready  to  administer  the  oath  of  office  to  the 
vice-president.  From  time  to  time  during  the  night  Stanton  is- 
sued bulletins,  apprising  the  public  of  the  president's  condition. 
At  about  one-thirty  in  the  morning,  Stanton  wrote  a  formal  noti- 
fication of  the  death  of  the  president,  addressed  Andrew  John- 
son, leaving  blank  the  hour  of  the  president's  death.  This  was 
followed  by  a  paper  signed  by  Stanton,  McCulloch,  Dennison, 
Welles,  Speed  and  Usher,  informing  the  vice-president  that  if  he 
would  make  known  his  pleasure,  such  arrangements  as  he  desired 
would  be  made.  These  documents,  prepared  five  or  six  hours 
before  the  president's  death,  were  held  in  reserve  until  morning. 

There  was  no  discussion  as  to  who  should  assume  authority  in 
that  hour.  Stanton  assumed  it  by  divine  right,  and  no  one. chal- 
lenged his  prerogative. 

The  entire  military  and  police  force  of  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia was  called  out.     All  members  of  the  Union  League  were 


346  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

notified  by  their  secret  call — two  short  sharp  raps,  thrice  re- 
peated— and  these  men  held  themselves  ready  for  duty. 

To  the  Cabinet  assembled  in  the  Peterson  house  in  the  room 
adjacent  to  that  in  which  the  president  was  dying,  the  explanation 
of  the  events  of  that  night  appeared  evident.  The  assassination 
was  believed  to  be  the  signal  for  a  new  uprising  of  the  Confeder- 
acy. The  Confederate  Government,  though  represented  by  a 
fugitive  president  and  a  scattered  and  fleeing  Congress,  was  be- 
lieved to  have  struck  a  desperate  blow  for  life  in  a  deliberate  at- 
tempt to  wipe  out  the  entire  leadership  of  the  Lnion  Govern- 
ment. This  attack,  it  was  believed,  was  to  have  been  followed 
by  a  new  uprising  of  the  paroled  Rebel  Armies.  How  many 
murders  the  morning  would  show  to  have  been  committed.,  or  in 
how.  many  and  how  widely  separated  places,  no  one  dared  to 
predict.  All  awaited  in  terror  the  relevations  of  that  fateful 
night. 

Stanton  sent  for  Chief  Justice  David  K.  Carter  of  the  District 
of  Columbia,  who  arrived  at  once  and  began  in  an  adjoining 
room  to  take  testimony  concerning  the  tragedy.  This  required 
•further  stenographic  assistance,  which,  fortunately,  was  secured 
next  door  in  the  person  of  James  Tanner.  At  the  outset  it  was 
not  known  who  had  committed  the  murder,  but  very  soon  evi- 
dence was  secured  from  those  who  had  been  present  at  the 
theater,  including  some  of  the  employees  who  knew  Booth, 
which  disclosed  the  name  of  the  assassin. 

Stanton  issued  orders  for  the  arrest  of  Booth.  He  sent  a  tele- 
gram to  General  Grant  at  Philadelphia,  informing  him  that  the 
president  had  been  shot,  and  directing  him  to  return  to  Washing- 
ton. He  directed  the  Assistant  Adjutant  General,  Thomas  M. 
Vincent,  to  take  charge  of  the  Petersen  house,  guarding  the  door 
and  limiting  the  admittance.  He  telegraped  the  chief  of  police 
in  New  York  to  send  his  best  detectives.  He  gave  directions  to 
the  president  of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad  Company  to 
intercept  General  Grant  at  Philadelphia,  and  bring  him  to  the 
capital  at  once,  preceding  his  special  train  by  a  pilot  locomotive 


THE  DEATH  OF  LINCOLN  347 

Mrs.  Lincoln  had  followed  the  prostrate  form  of  her  husband 
when  it  was  borne  across  the  street  from  the  theater  to  the 
Petersen  house.  She  was  in  a  frenzy  of  grief.  General  Vincent 
wrote  concerning  her : 

I  cannot  recall  a  more  pitiful  picture  than  that  of  poor  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  almost  insane  with  sudden  agony,  moaning  and  sobbing 
out  that  terrible  night.  Mr.  Stanton  attempted  to  soothe  her,  but 
he  was  full  of  business,  and  knew,  moreover,  that  in  a  few  hours 
at  the  most  she  must  be  a  widow.  She  entered  the  room  where 
her  husband  lay  motionless  but  once  before  the  surgeon  announced 
that  death  was  fast  descending,  and  then  fainted  and  was  prac- 
tically helpless. 

When,  about  half  past  one  in  the  morning,  Stanton  came  out 
of  the  death  chamber  bearing  in  his  hand  the  notification  he  had 
written  of  the  death  of  Lincoln,  and  gave  it  to  General  Vincent 
with  directions  to  have  a  fair  copy  made  for  presentation  to  the 
vice-president,  Mrs.  Lincoln,  whose  eyes  that  night  followed 
Stanton's  every  move,  sprang  forward  with  a  terrible  scream,  "Is 
he  dead?  Oh,  is  he  dead?"  Stanton  informed  her  that  the 
president  still  lived,  and  did  his  best  to  speak  some  reassuring 
words,  but  his  manner  told  beyond  any  power  of  deception  what 
he  regarded  as  the  inevitable  end  of  their  vigil.  The  poor  grief- 
stricken  woman  moaned  out  her  sorrow  that  was  beyond  all  hu- 
man comfort. 

Lincoln  had  believed  that  some  tragic  end  awaited  him,  but  he 
appears  to  have  had  no  apprehension  of  this  on  his  last  day.  On 
the  last  Sunday  of  his  life,  as  he  was  returning  from  City  Point 
upon  the  steamer,  he  read  from  Shakespeare.  Senator  Charles 
Sumner  records  that  as  he  read  a  particular  passage  from  Mac- 
beth, his  attention  was  arrested,  and  he  repeated  these  lines : 

Duncan  is  in  his  grave ; 
After  life's  fitful  fever  he  sleeps  well; 
Treason  has  done  his  worst ;  nor  steel,  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing, 
Can  touch  him  further. 


348  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

These  lines  seemed  so  significant  that  after  his  assassination 
those  who  knew  of  Lincoln's  use  of  them  could  not  refrain  from 
adding  as  their  own  expression  of  their  application  to  Lincoln 
and  the  tragedy  of  his  death,  these  additional  lines  from  the 
same  play : 

This  Duncan 
Hath  borne  his  faculties  so  meek,  hath  been 
So  clear  in  his  great  office,  that  his  virtues 
Will  plead  like  angels  trumpet-tongued  against 
The  deep  damnation  of  his  taking-off. 

The  room  where  the  president  lay  was  small*  and  the  ceiling 
was  low.  The  group  about  the  president's  bed  changed  from 
time  to  time  during  the  night.  The  various  pictures  that  were 
made  of  the  death-bed  scene  show  more  people  than  were  present 
at  any  one  moment,  but  most  of  those  whom  the  pictures  portray 
were  in  the  room  at  some  time  during  the  night.  Mrs.  Lincoln 
was  the  only  woman  present.  She  came  at  intervals,  and  was  led 
away  and  sat  in  the  adjoining  room  pouring  out  the  agony  of  her 
grief  in  uncontrollable  sorrow.  Lincoln's  pastor,  Reverend 
Phineas  D.  Gurley,  came  and  offered  prayer,  and  remained  to 
the  end.  There  was  little  change  in  the  president's  condition  dur- 
ing the  night.  As  morning  dawned,  his  heavy  breathing  grew 
more  quiet  and  the  pulse  grew  weaker.  Bulletins  announced  the 
nearer  approach  of  death.  At  twenty-two  minutes  past  seven 
o'clock  on  Saturday  morning,  April  15,  1865,  Abraham  Lincoln 
died.  Those  present  at  the  time  of  his  death  included  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln, Secretaries  Stanton,  Welles  and  Usher,  Senator  Charles 
Sumner,  Robert  T.  Lincoln,  the  Reverend  Doctor  Phineas  D. 
Gurley,  John  Hay,  the  physicians  and  a  few  other  friends.  The 
moment  came  when  the  breathing  ceased,  and  the  surgeons  could 
feel  no  pulse.  The  president  was  dead.  The  silence  that  fol- 
lowed was  broken  by  the  prayer  of  Doctor  Gurley  and  the  mem- 
orable words  of  Stanton :  "now,  he  belongs  to  the  ages." 


*The  room  has  been  enlarged  by  the  removal  of  a  partition. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  GOVERNMENT  STILL  LIVES 

"God  reigns,  and  the  Government  at  Washington  still  lives." 
So  said  James  A.  Garfield,  when  the  tragic  news  of  the  assassina- 
tion of  Lincoln  reached  the  horrified  nation.  The  fact  that  the 
government  could  live  through  a  long  civil  war  and  the  assassina- 
tion of  its  president  as  the  war  was  ending,  may  justly  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  strongest  tests  of  the  stability  of  American 
institutions. 

As  soon  as  it  was  evident  that  the  president  was  dead,  the  com- 
pany that  had  watched  over  him  through  the  long  night  dispersed, 
some  to  rest  and  others  to  continue  their  official  duties  through 
a  day  as  laborious  as  the  night  had  been.  There  was  a  sense  of 
relief  when  the  several  commanding  generals  were  heard  from, 
and  it  was  found  that  none  of  these  had  been  assassinated ;  and 
the  morning  brought  hope  of  recovery  of  the  secretary  and  as- 
sistant secretary  of  state,  which  hope  was  ultimately  fulfilled. 
Warning  telegrams  were  sent  to  leading  officers  in  the  army, 
reminding  them  of  the  danger  that  they  also  might  be  assassi- 
nated, and  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  also  took  precautions. 

Xo  coroner's  inquest  was  held  over  the  body  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  No  official  inquiry  was  ever  made  by  any  civil  court, 
concerning  the  occasion  of  his  death  or  the  person  or  persons 
responsible  for  it. 

Andrew  Johnson,  the  Vice-President,  was  sworn  into  office  on 
Saturday,  April  15,  1865,  immediately  following  the  death  of  the 
president.  There  was  no  ceremony.  The  time  and  circumstances 
admitted  of  nothing  but   stern   and   swift  action.      There   was, 

349 


35o  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

however,  strong  hope  among  those  less  patient  and  kindly  than 
Lincoln  had  been,  that  the  new  president  would  prove  a  Joshua 
succeeding  the  dead  Moses,  at  a  time  when  more  stern  leadership 
was  demanded  than  Lincoln  would  have  brought. 

The  time  has  not  yet  come  for  complete  justice  to  be  done  to 
the  memory  of  Andrew  Johnson.  He  did  not  fulfill  the  expec- 
tations of  his  friends  and  he  narrowly  escaped  removal  from 
his  high  office  on  impeachment.  His  was  a  difficult  position ; 
how  much  he  deserved  of  the  reproach  which  he  received,  some 
future  historian  will  declare. 

Of  Andrew  Johnson's  inaugural  as  vice-president  and  Lin- 
coln's second  inaugural,  on  the  fourth  of  March  preceding,  Gid- 
eon Welles  wrote  in  his  diary  : 


The  inauguration  took  place  to-day.  There  was  great  want  ot 
arrangement  and  completeness  in  the  ceremonies.  All  was  con- 
fusion and  without  order — a  jumble.  The  vice-president  elect 
made  a  rambling  and  strange  harangue,  which  was  listened  to 
with  pain  and  mortification  by  all  his  friends.  My  impressions 
were  that  he  was  under  the  influence  of  stimulants,  yet  I  know 
not  that  he  drinks.  He  has  been  sick  and  is  feeble;  perhaps  may 
have  taken  some  medicine,  or  stimulants,  or  his  brain  from  sick- 
ness may  have  been  over-active  in  these  new  responsibilities. 
Whatever  the  cause,  it  was  all  in  very  bad  taste. 

The  delivery  of  the  inaugural  address,  the  administration  of 
the  oath,  and  the  whole  deportment  of  the  president,  were  well 
done,  and  the  retiring  vice-president  appeared  to  advantage  when 
contrasted  with  his  successor,  who  has  humiliated  his  friends. 
Speed,  who  sat  on  my  left,  whispered  to  me  that  "All  this  is  in 
very  bad  taste,"  and  very  soon  he  said,  "The  man  is  certainly 
deranged."  I  said  to  Stanton,  who  sat  on  my  right,  "Johnson 
is  either  drunk  or  crazy."  Stanton  replied,  "There  is  evidently 
something  wrong."  Seward  says  it  was  his  emotion  on  return- 
ing and  revisiting  the  Senate;  that  he  can  appreciate  Johnson's 
feelings,  who  was  much  overcome.  I  hope  Seward  is  right,  but 
don't  entirely  concur  with  him.  There  is,  as  Stanton  says,  some- 
thing wrong.     I  hope  it  is  sickness.* 

*Diary  of  Gideon  Welles,  vol.  ii,  pp.  241-2. 


THE  GOVERNMENT  STILL  LIVES  351 

Secretary  Welles  was  not  among  those  present  at  Johnson's 
taking  of  the  oath  of  office  as  president,  and  it  is  not  certain 
just  how  much  he  saw  of  Johnson  that  day,  or  whether  he  saw 
him  at  all.  He  tells  of  a  Cabinet  meeting,  held  at  noon,  and  of 
Johnson's  being  invited  to  be  present,  and  of  his  deporting  him- 
self admirably.  But  he  later  changed  this  entry,  and  changed  it 
twice,  and  it  is  not  certain  just  what  his  final  impression  was  of 
Johnson's  deportment  that  day  : 

I  arranged  with  Speed,  with  whom  I  rode  home,  for  a  Cabinet 
meeting  at  twelve,  meridian,  at  the  room  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  in  order  that  the  Government  should  experience  no 
detriment,  and  that  prompt  and  necessary  actipn  might  be  taken 
to  assist  the  new  Chief  Magistrate  in  preserving  and  promoting 
the  public  tranquility.  We  accordingly  met  at  noon.  Mr.  Speed 
reported  that  the  President  had  taken  the  oath,  which  was  admin- 
istered by  the  Chief  Justice,  and  had  expressed  a  desire  that  the 
affairs  of  the  Government  should  proceed  without  interruption. 
Some  discussion  took  place  as  to  the  propriety  of  an  inaugural 
address,  but  the  general  impression  was  that  it  would  be  inexpe- 
dient. I  was  most  decidedly  of  that  opinion.  President  Johnson, 
who  was  invited  to  be  present,  deported  himself  admirably,  and 
on  the  subject  of  an  inaugural  said  that  his  acts  would  best  dis- 
close his  policy.  In  all  essentials  it  would,  he  said,  be  the  same 
as  that  of  the  late  President.* 

Gideon  Welles  remained  in  the  Cabinet,  and  became  a  strong 
partisan  of  Johnson.  After  the  inauguration  of  Grant,  Welles 
wrote  in  his  Diary,  March  17,  1869: 

I  this  evening  parted  with  President  Johnson  and  his  family, 
who  leave  in  the  morning  for  Tennessee.  No  better  persons  have 
ever  occupied  the  Executive  Mansion,  and  I  part  with  them, 
socially  and  personally,  with  sincere  regret.  Of  measures  he  was 
a  good  judge,  but  not  always  of  men. 

Just  what  he  would  have  said  in  1869  about  Johnson's  inaugn- 


*Diary  of  Gideon  Welles,  vol.  ii,  p.  289. 


352  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ration  either  as  vice-president  or  as  president  we  may  not  know, 
but  his  diary  was  still  in  his  own  possession,  and  he  left  his 
record  of  the  vice-presidential  inaugural  as  it  had  previously 
stood,  and  what  he  finally  intended  to  leave  of  record  concerning 
Johnson's  induction  into  the  presidency  must  be  judged  from  his 
hesitation  and  erasures. 

The  account  of  the  inaugural  of  President  Johnson  given  in 
his  Life,  by  John  Savage,  says  that  the  ceremony  took  place  in 
the  private  parlor  of  the  vice-president,  in  the  Kirkwood,  and 
names  those  present  as  Chief  Justice  Chase,  Secretary  McCulloch, 
Attorney  General  Speed,  Francis  P.  Blair,  Sr.,  Montgomery 
Blair,  Senators  Foot,  of  Vermont,  Yates,  of  Illinois,  Ramsey,  of 
Minnesota,  Stewart,  of  Nevada,  Hale,  of  New  Hampshire,  and 
General  Farnsworth,  of  Illinois,  twelve  persons,  including  Presi- 
dent Johnson.  Only  two  members  of  the  Cabinet  appear  to  have 
been  present. 

Apparently,  therefore,  Andrew  Johnson,  who  had  not  been 
present  at  any  time  during  the  period  between  the  assassination 
and  death  of  Lincoln,  was  notified  by  two  members  of  the 
Cabinet  and  the  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  these 
and  eight  other  men,  including  Senator  Stewart  were  by  the 
largest  possible  count  the  only  ones  present  when  the  oath  of 
office  was  administered.  We  have  as  yet  no  adequate  and  im- 
partial Life  of  Andrew  Johnson.  The  present  author  will  not 
trench  upon  the  ground  which  belongs  to  some  future  biographer 
by  attempting  to  decide  whether  Andrew  Johnson  was  drunk  or 
sober  on  the  occasion  of  either  of  his  inaugurals. 

While  rumors  which  the  country  heard  of  Johnson's  condition 
at  the  time  of  his  inauguration  brought  sorrow  and  shame  to 
many,  there  were  others,  and  a  far  larger  number,  who  felt  that, 
with  all  his  faults,  Johnson  was  the  safer  man  to  have  at  the 
helm  to  deal  with  the  rebellious  South.  Honorable  George  W. 
Julian  says : 

I  spent  most  of  the  afternoon  in  a  political  caucus,  held  for  the 
purpose  of  considering  the  necessity  for  a  new  Cabinet  and  a  line 


THE  HOUSE  WHERE  LINCOLN  DIED 


THE  GOVERNMENT  STILL  LIVES  353 

of  policy  less  conciliatory  than  that  of  Mr.  Lincoln;  and  while 
everybody  was  shocked  at  his  murder,  the  feeling  was  nearly 
universal  that  the  accession  of  Johnson  would  prove  a  godsend 
to  the  country.* 

By  the  murder  of  Lincoln,  the  South  Inst  its  best  and  most 
generous   friend. 

John  Wilkes  Booth  was  recognized  by  habitual  theater-goers 
present  at  the  assassination,  and  a  pursuit  was  immediately  insti- 
tuted. He  immediately  fled  from  Washington,  his  broken  leg 
giving  him  great  pain  and  impeding  his  progress.  He  was  com- 
pelled to  stop  and  have  his  leg  set,  and  then  proceeded  upon  his 
hopeless  attempt  at  escape. 

He  was  surrounded  in  a  barn  where  he  had  taken  refuge,  and 
resisting  arrest  was  shot  against  orders  by  Boston  Corbett,  a 
fanatical  member  of  the  military  detachment  that  pursued  him.f 

Xo  doubt  existed  at  the  time  and  no  reasonable  doubt  exists 
now,  that  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  was  the  result  of  a  con- 
spiracy. At  the  time  it  was  believed  that  high  officials  of  the 
Confederate  Government,  including  Jefferson  Davis,  had  guilty 
knowledge  of  the  plot.  This  charge  was  not  sustained  by  the 
evidence.  A  number  of  persons  were  arrested  as  those  who  were 
believed  to  have  participated  in  the  conspiracy.  These  wrere  tried 
before  a  military  commission  composed  of  nine  officers,!  with 
Judge  Joseph  Holt  as  advocate  general,  Judge  John  A.  Bingham, 
as  special  advocate  general,  Henry  L.  Burnett  as  special  as- 
sistant, and  General  John  F.  Hartranft  as  provost  marshal.  The 
trial  began  in  the  old  arsenal  in  Washington  on  May  tenth,  the 
day  of  the  capture  of  Jefferson  Davis,  and  continued  until  June 
thirtieth.     Lewis  Pavne.  D.  C.  Herold,  George  B.   Atzerot  and 


*Political  Recollections,  p.  255. 

fl  am  aware  of  the  various  accounts  of  Booth's  alleged  escape  and  his 
suicide  many  years  after  the  war,  and  have  seen  and  inspected  the  enhalmed 
body  that  is  alleged  to  have  been  his ;  but  these  stories  are  unfounded. 

$The  Commission  was  composed  of  Generals  David  Hunter,  Lew  Wal- 
lace. August  V.  Kautz,  A.  P.  Hour,  R.  S.  Foster.  J.  A.  Elkin,  T.  N.  Harris, 
Colonels  C.  H.  Thompkins  and  D.  R.  Clendenin. 


354  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Mrs.  Mary  E.  Surratt  were  sentenced  to  be  hanged.  Edward 
Spangler,  Michael  O'Laughlin,  Doctor  Samuel  T.  Mudd  and 
Samuel  Arnold  were  imprisoned.  All  the  prisoners  except 
O'Laughlin,  who  died  in  the  military  prison  on  the  Dry  Tortugas, 
an  island  off  the  coast  of  Florida,  were  pardoned  by  Andrew 
Johnson.  The  first  to  whom  a  pardon  was  issued  was  Doctor 
Mudd,  who  was  held  to  be  an  accessory  after  the  fact,  as  he  set 
Booth's  leg,  and  thereby  assisted  in  his  escape.  Sympathy 
for  him  seemed  to  be  justified  by  his  character  and  his  profes- 
sional sense  of  duty.  The  greatest  interest,  however,  was  in 
the  case  of  Mrs.  Surratt.  Her  house  in  Washington  had  been  a 
meeting-place  of  the  conspirators,  and  had  long  been  a  harbor  for 
enemies  of  the  republic.  Evidence  was  introduced  to  show  that 
she  had  actual  knowledge  of  the  plot  to  murder  Lincoln.  Strenu- 
ous effort  was  made  on  her  behalf,  but  she  was  condemned  to 
die,  and  appeals  addressed  both  to  Stanton  and  to  Johnson  did 
not  avail  to  secure  her  release.  She  was  hanged  with  Payne,  Her- 
old    and  Atzerot  on  Friday,  July  seventh. 

Mrs.  Surratt's  son,  John  H.  Surratt,  escaped,  made  his  way  to 
Rome,  and  under  an  assumed  name  joined  the  Papal  Zouaves  in 
the  town  of  Velletri,  in  Italy,  forty  miles  from  Rome.  There 
he  was  identified  by  another  American  serving  in  the  same 
company.  The  American  consul  was  informed,  and  Surratt  was 
arrested,  but  escaped  and  made  his  way  to  Egypt.  Again  he  was 
arrested,  and  brought  back  to  the  United  States.  Unlike  his  ac- 
complices, who  were  tried  by  a  military  commission,  he  was 
indicted  by  the  grand  jury  of  the  County  of  Washington,  District 
of  Columbia,  and  tried  before  a  civil  court,  charged  with  "the 
murder  of  one  Abraham  Lincoln,"  and  under  other  counts  of 
the  indictment,  with  "conspiracy  to  murder  Abraham  Lincoln." 
Surratt  escaped  punishment,  and  lived  for  many  years  in  Balti- 
more. After  he  had  been  set  at  liberty,  he  delivered  a  lecture 
at  Rockville,  Maryland,  in  which  he  stated  that  he  had  been 
engaged  in  the  secret  service  of  the  Confederate  Government 
almost  constantly  from  the  time  he  left  college  in  the  summer  of 


THE  GOVERNMENT  STILL  LIVES  355 

1 86 1,  and  was  very  active  in  it.  He  admitted  his  conspiracy  with 
Booth  to  capture  President  Lincoln  and  carry  him  to  Richmond, 
but  claimed  that  he  had  no  knowledge  of  Booth's  plan  to  assassin- 
ate the  president  nor  any  share  in  the  murder.  Whether  this 
was  true  or  not,  there  was  rather  general  satisfaction  in  the  fact 
that  he  was  not  hanged  as  his  mother  had  been.  In  one  sense,  he 
secured  freedom  by  his  mother's  execution.  That  both  were 
conspirators  against  the  government  there  was  no  doubt. 
"Whether  the  mother  and  son  participated  in  the  plot  for  the 
assassination  is  a  question  on  which  there  is  violent  difference  of 
opinion. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE   FUNERAL   OF   LIXC01  N 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  shot  not  far  from  ten  o'clock  on 
Good  Friday  night,  April  14,  1865.  He  died  next  morning  at 
twenty-two  minutes  after  seven.  The  morning  papers  in  every 
American  city  announced  the  shooting,  but  the  first  editions 
were  all  issued  before  the  president's  death.  By  seven-thirty  the 
editors  in  the  larger  cities  knew  that  the  president  was  dead,  and 
by  eight  o'clock  extra  editions  were  on  the  streets  informing  the 
people  that  the  end  had  come.  In  cities  and  villages  more  remote, 
and  towns  that  had  no  daily  papers  or  no  facilities  for  extra  edi- 
tions, the  news  spread  more  slowly.* 

Lincoln  died  on  the  morning  before  Easter  Sunday.  Easter 
was  not  so  universally  celebrated  then  as  now,  but  that  was  an 
unusual   Easter.      On   Palm   Sunday,   Robert   E.    Lee   had   met 


*In  the  little  town  in  Illinois  where  I  was  born,  my  father  was  on  a 
ladder  before  noon,  nailing  up  black  cotton  cloth  on  the  front  of  his  little 
drug  store,  and  my  aunt  was  mildly  protesting  that  he  was  using  an  ex- 
travagant quantity  of  muslin,  and  telling  how  much  it  cost  a  yard  at  that 
time  of  high  prices,  and  I,  not  yet  four  years  old,  was  handing  him 
the  hammer,  and  taking  in  with  a  child's  understanding  the  significance 
of  the  event.  My  father  was  a  job  printer,  as  well  as  being  physician,  drug- 
gist, postmaster,  notary'  public  and  superintendent  of  the  Sunday-school. 
That  afternoon  he  set  up  and  printed  a  placard  OUR  NATION  MOURNS. 
It  was  printed  in  red  and  blue,  bordered  with  black,  and  was  posted  about 
town  and  displayed  that  night  in  a  public  meeting  convened  in  the  church. 
Father  was  somewhat  disappointed  that  people  who  posted  up  his  placard, 
freely  given  to  the  public,  did  not  note  that  he  had  used  the  national  colors 
and  black,  necessitating  three  impressions.  I  think  he  had  never  attempted 
anything  quite  so  ambitious  in  the  way  of  color  work  before;  but  nothing 
was  too  good  for  that  day.  Indeed,  nothing  that  he  could  do  for  others  was 
ever  too  good.  This  is  my  one  contemporary  recollection  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln ;  I  remember  the  morning  of  his  death,  the  mighty  sorrow,  the  fierce 
indignation  against  a  "copperhead"  who  was  alleged  to  have  said  he  was  glad 
of  it,  the  threats  that  were  freely  made  and  never  executed  against  him,  and 
the  three-color  printing. 

356 


THE  FUNERAL  OF  LINCOLN  357 

Ulysses  S.  Grant  at  Appomattox,  and  Lee  had  surrendered  his 
army.  The  end  of  the  war  had  really  come.  Officially,  it  had 
to  continue  a  little  while  longer,  but  that  was  the  end,  and  the 
nation  knew  it.  All  over  the  country  the  ministers  spent  that 
week  preparing  Easter  sermons  unlike  any  that  they  had  ever 
preached  before.  Most  of  those  sermons  were  finished,  or  prac- 
tically so,  before  Friday  night. 

On  Saturday  morning  those  sermons  were  worthless. 

The  ministers  who  had  prepared  them  never  preached  them. 

About  eight  o'clock  on  Saturday  morning,  the  ministers  who 
lived  in  the  cities  knew  that  they  must  prepare  new  sermons  for 
the  next  morning.  From  that  hour  until  noon,  the  ministers  all 
over  the  country  were  receiving  the  same  information.  At  least 
ten  thousand  new  sermons  must  have  been  prepared  that  Satur- 
day afternoon  and  night. 

What  kind  of  sermons  were  they? 

A  very  considerable  number  of  the  sermons  preached  on  Sun- 
day morning,  April  16,  1865,  were  requested  for  printing  by  the 
congregations  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  and  were  issued  in 
pamphlet  form.  Not  less  than  three  hundred  of  those  sermons 
and  the  sermons  on  the  days  immediately  following  have  been 
discovered  and  duly  listed  in  the  Lincoln  bibliographies. 

Few  people  care  to  read  these  addresses,  but  they  are  of  remark- 
able interest,  and  worthy  of  rather  more  than  a  casual 
examination. 

All  over  the  country,  this,  or  something  like  this,  occurred. 
The  minister  rose  on  Saturday  morning  with  the  comfortable  feel- 
ing that  he  had  only  to  add  a  few  finishing  touches  to  his  Easter 
sermon,  and  it  would  be  complete.  Before  he  had  eaten  his 
breakfast  a  neighbor  hastened  in  to  tell  that  the  president  had 
been  shot.  The  minister  went  forth  to  the  telegraph  office,  or 
wherever  the  news  came,  and  waited  for  the  bulletins  as  they 
came  over  the  wires,  none  of  them  bringing  any  hope.  After  the 
arrival  of  the  news  that  the  president  was  dead,  there  was  a 
period  of  uncertainty,  broken  by  the  suggestion  that  a  mass  meet- 


358  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ing  be  called  for  that  evening.  Usually  it  was  thought  better 
to  omit  the  mass  meeting,  since  the  people  would  be  coming  to- 
gether a  few  hours  later  on  Sunday  morning. 

About  noon  the  minister  came  home,  tired,  sorrowing,  bewil- 
dered and  tried  to  eat  a  little  luncheon.  After  luncheon  he  said 
to  his  wife,  "My  Easter  sermon  will  not  do.  And  what  can  I  say 
to-morrow?  What  theme  can  I  select,  what  text  can  I  choose, 
what  words  of  wisdom  or  comfort  can  I  find,  for  a  time  like 
this?" 

He  felt  helpless,  and  yet  knew  that  the  people  would  come  to 
hear  him  the  next  morning  expecting  from  him  some  strong,  true, 
helpful,  uplifting  word. 

Ordinarily,  the  minister  was  not  a  great  man,  and  did  not 
pretend  to  be  one.  He  was  just  an  ordinary  preacher,  as  wise 
and  as  good  as  the  average,  and  no  wiser  and  no  better.  Can  we 
imagine  what  went  on  in  the  thought  of  several  thousand  such 
men  as  they  entered  their  little  studies  on  Saturday  afternoon, 
and  took  down  the  Bible,  and  found  that  the  letters  blurred  and 
that  wet  spots  appeared  on  the  page  ?  These  were  not  statesmen 
or  theologians,  for  the  most  part,  but  just  ordinary  ministers  of 
Christ,  suddenly  confronted  with  a  task  too  great  for  any  man. 
How  did  they  face  that  duty  ?  Apparently,  they  faced  it  worthily, 
and  in  many  instances  notably  so. 

There  are  sermons  preached  in  hospitals  and  at  least  one  deliv- 
ered in  a  state  prison,  and  there  are  sermons  enough  that  are  com- 
monplace and  mediocre  that  were  preached  in  pulpits  notable  and 
others  obscure.  But  on  the  whole  the  sermons  of  that  day  were 
good,  strong,  helpful  discourses,  and  it  is  much  to  the  credit  of 
the  congregations  that  heard  them  that  so  many  of  them  were 
printed.  It  is  also  much  to  the  credit  of  the  ministers  of  that 
day,  most  of  them  unknown,  who  threw  aside  their  prepared 
Easter  discourses,  and  preached  sermons  that  comforted  and 
helped  their  people  in  time  of  national  calamity.  A  careful  review 
of  these  old  discourses  increases  one's  respect  for  the  American 
pulpit. 


THE  FUNERAL  OF  LINCOLN  359 

Henry  Ward  Reecher  was  not  in  his  own  pulpit  on  the  Sunday 
immediately  following-  Lincoln's  assassination.  He  had  gone 
south  to  deliver  an  oration  at  the  raising  of  a  flag  over  Fort 
Sumter.  A  week  later  he  had  returned.  The  closing  words  of  his 
sermon  on  that  day  constitute  one  of  the  most  eloquent  of  all 
perorations  in  the  history  of  modern  funeral  oratory : 

And  now  the  martyr  is  moving  in  triumphal  march,  mightier 
than  when  alive.  The  nation  rises  up  at  every  stage  of  his  com- 
ing. Cities  and  towns  are  his  pall-bearers,  and  the  cannon  beats 
the  hours  with  solemn  progression.  Dead,  dead,  DEAD,  he  yet 
speaketh!  Is  Washington  dead?  Is  Hampden  dead?  Is  David 
dead?  Is  any  man  that  was  ever  fit  to  live  dead?  Disenthralled 
of  flesh,  and  risen  in  the  unobstructed  sphere  where  passion  never 
comes,  he  begins  his  illimitable  work.  His  life  is  now  grafted 
upon  the  infinite,  and  will  be  fruitful  as  no  earthly  life  can  be. 
Pass  on,  thou  that  hast  overcome !  Your  sorrows,  oh  people,  are 
his  peace!  Your  bells,  and  bands,  and  muffled  drums,  sound 
triumph  in  his  ear.  Wail  and  weep  here;  God  makes  it  echo  joy 
and  triumph  there.     Pass  on! 

Four  years  ago,  oh,  Illinois,  we  took  from  your  midst  an  un- 
tried man,  and  from  among  your  people.  We  return  him  to  you 
a  mighty  conqueror.  Xot  thine  any  more,  but  the  nation's ;  not 
ours,  but  the  world's.  Give  him  place,  oh,  ye  prairies!  In  the 
midst  of  this  great  continent  his  dust  shall  rest,  a  sacred  treasure 
to  myriads  who  shall  pilgrim  to  that  shrine  to  kindle  anew  their 
zeal  and  patriotism.  Ye  winds  that  move  over  the  mighty  places 
of  the  West,  chant  his  requiem !  Ye  people,  behold  a  martyr 
whose  blood,  as  so  many  articulate  words,  pleads  for  fidelity,  for 
law,  for  liberty! 

On  Monday,  April  17,  1865,  a  meeting  of  the  members  of 
Congress  then  present  in  Washington  was  held  to  arrange  a  suit- 
able funeral  for  Abraham  Lincoln.  It  was  recalled  that  when 
the  capitol  was  built,  a  vault  had  been  prepared  under  it  for  the 
body  of  Washington ;  but  the  state  of  Virginia  and  the  Washing- 
ton family  insisted  upon  his  burial  at  Mount  Vernon.  Certain  of 
members  of  Congress  attending  this  meeting  proposed  that  the 
body  of  Lincoln  should  be  interred  in  this  vault.     The  governor 


360  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  senators  of  Illinois,  however,  insisted  that  Lincoln's  body 
should  be  conveyed  back  to  his  own  state. 

It  is  affirmed,  and  generally  believed,  that  it  was  Mrs.  Lincoln 
who  declared  that  the  body  of  her  husband  must  be  returned  to 
Springfield.  This  is  an  error.  Mrs.  Lincoln's  first  decision  was 
emphatic,  and  was  against  a  return  of  the  body  to  Illinois,  and 
especially  to  Springfield.  Browning's  Diary  for  April  fifteenth 
and  seventeenth  is  explicit  on  this  point.  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  come 
to  think  of  Springfield  in  terms  of  exasperating  small-town  gos- 
sip, and  of  the  eagerness  of  its  citizens  to  secure  office.  If  the 
body  went  back  to  Illinois,  it,  she  thought,  should  be  buried  in 
Chicago.  The  tomb  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  there,  in  a 
public  park  named  for  him,  and  with  an  imposing  statue  above  it. 
She  did  not  like  the  proposal  to  hide  her  husband  away  in  so 
inconspicuous  a  place  as  Springfield.  Not  until  the  morning  of 
April  twentieth  did  Mrs.  Lincoln  consent  even  to  consider 
Springfield  as  a  place  of  burial,  and  even  then  she  refused  the 
suggestion  that  she  should  return  and  make  her  home  there. 

In  Springfield,  a  committee  was  organized  to  secure  a  suitable 
site  for  the  tomb,  and  a  contract  was  made  to  purchase  the  admir- 
able site  where  now  the  state  capitol  stands.  This  property  be- 
longed to  a  family  named  Mather.  Work  was  begun  at  once  on 
a  temporary  vault,  and  such  progress  was  made  by  the  working 
of  day-and-night  shifts  that  the  tomb  was  complete,  save  for  the 
ornamental  facing,  in  time  for  the  funeral.  But  on  the  morning 
of  the  fourth  of  May,  the  very  day  of  the  interment,  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln positively  refused  to  permit  her  husband's  body  to  rest  for  a 
single  night  in  land  that  had  been  owned  by  the  Mathers,  and  a 
change,  regarded  in  Springfield  as  temporary,  was  made  to  the 
public  receiving  vault  of  Oak  Ridge  Cemetery,  a  comparatively 
new  and  beautiful  burial-ground  well  out  of  the  city.  Six  weeks 
later  she  wrote  a  letter  to  the  committee  "demanding  that  the 
remains  should  be  buried  on  a  lot  at  Oak  Ridge  Cemetery,  that 
the  monument  should  be  erected  thereon,  and  that  the  title  to  the 
same  should  be  conveyed  by  deed  to  herself  and  her  heirs."  The 
State  Journal  of  June  sixteenth,  states  that: 


THE  FUNERAL  OF  LINCOLN  361 

After  a  full  discussion  of  the  question,  and  in  the  fear  that,  if 
Mrs.  Lincoln's  demands  were  not  complied  with,  her  threats  to 
take  the  body  back  to  Washington  would  be  carried  out,  the 
Association  finally,  by  a  vote  of  eight  to  seven,  resolved  to  accede 
to  her  terms. 

The  editor  said  that  it  was  at  least  a  satisfaction  that  the 
question  which  had  caused  so  much  discussion  was  now  settled, 
and  added  consolingly,  "We  assure  them  [the  people  of  Spring- 
field] that  Oak  Ridge  is  a  most  beautiful  spot." 

One  may  read  the  records  of  these  events  with  severe  censure 
for  a  wilful  woman  who  acted  most  disagreeably,  or  with  pro- 
found compassion  for  a  grief-stricken  widow,  mentally  unbal- 
anced, and  facing  the  necessity  of  tragic  decisions. 

An  official  committee  was  appointed  in  Washington  to  conduct 
the  remains  of  the  president  to  Springfield.  It  consisted  of  one 
member  of  Congress  from  each  state  and  territory  of  the  Union, 
and  the  entire  congressional  delegation  from  Illinois. 

By  request  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  a  second  and  smaller  coffin  accom- 
panied that  of  the  president.  This  contained  the  body  of  little 
Willie,  who  had  died  in  the  White  House  in  the  first  few  months 
of  the  family's  occupancy  of  that  home.  His  little  body  traveled 
with  the  body  of  his  father,  and  the  two  were  buried  together. 
Subsequently,  the  body  of  little  Eddie  was  deposited  in  the  same 
vault  with  that  of  Willie.  On  the  death  of  Tad,  some  years 
later,  he  also,  was  buried  in  the  vault  with  his  father.  Last  of  all, 
after  her  death,  July  16,  1882,  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  laid  to  rest 
beside  her  husband. 

The  funeral  of  Lincoln  took  place  on  Wednesday,  April  nine- 
teenth. The  services  were  held  in  the  East  Room  of  the  White 
House.  The  Reverend  Doctor  Hall  of  the  Church  of  the 
Epiphany  read  the  burial  service.  Bishop  Simpson  of  the  Metho- 
dist Church  offered  prayer.  Reverend  Doctor  P.  D.  Gurley,  of 
whose  church,  the  Xew  York  Avenue  Presbyterian,  Lincoln  and 
his  family  had  been  regular  attendants,  delivered  an  impressive 
funeral  address,  characterized  by  dignitv,  courage,  self-restraint 

31 


36: 


THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


and  comfort.      A   single   paragraph   may   be   quoted    from   this 
address : 

I  speak  what  I  know,  and  testify  what  I  have  often  heard  him 
say,  when  I  affirm  that  the  Divine  goodness  and  mercy  were  th< 
props  on  which  he  leaned.  Never  shall  I  forget  the  emphatic  and 
deep  emotion  with  .which  he  said,  in  this  very  room,  to  a  com- 
pany of  clergymen  and  others,  who  called  to  pay  him  their  re- 
spects, in  the  darkest  hours  of  our  civil  conflict:  "Gentlemen,  my 
hope  of  success  in  this  struggle  rests  on  that  immutable  founda- 
tion, the  justness  and  goodness  of  God;  and  when  events  are  ven 
threatening,  I  still  hope,  that  in  some  way,  all  will  be  well  in  the 
end,  because  our  cause  is  just,  and  God  will  be  on  our  side."  Such 
was  his  sublime  and  holy  faith,  and  it  was  an  anchor  to  his  soul. 
It  made  him  firm  and  strong ;  it  emboldened  him  in  the  pathway 
of  duty,  however  rugged  and  perilous  it  might  be ;  it  made  him 
valiant  for  the  right,  for  the  cause  of  God  and  humanity,  and  it 
held  him  in  steady  patience  to  a  policy  of  administration  which 
he  thought  both  God  and  humanity  required  him  to  adopt. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  amid  the  tolling  of  bells  and 
booming  of  cannon,  the  body  of  Lincoln  was  borne  from  the 
White  House  to  the  rotunda  of  the  capitol.  There  it  remained 
until  the  evening  of  the  next  day.  People  passed  by  thousands 
to  look  upon  his  face. 

As  soon  as  it  was  announced  that  Lincoln  was  to  be  buried  in 
Illinois,  every  city  and  town  along  the  route  pleaded  that  the 
train  might  halt  there  and  give  to  the  people  an  opportunity  of 
manifesting  their  affection  and  reverence  for  Lincoln.  It  wi 
finally  arranged  that  his  body  should  return  by  a  route  essentially 
the  same  as  that  over  which  Lincoln  had  journeyed  to  Washing- 
ton in  1 86 1. 

At  eight  o'clock  on  Friday  morning,  April  twenty-first,  th< 
funeral  train  left  Washington.  At  Baltimore,  where  four  yean 
previously,  as  was  then  believed,  a  plot  existed  for  his  assassina- 
tion, the  train  made  a  halt,  the  body  was  removed  to  the  dome  of 
the  exchange  where  it  lay  for  several  hours,  viewed  by  large 
numbers  of  people. 


THE  FUNERAL  OF  LINCOLN  363 

That  night,  amid  wind  and  rain,  the  train  reached  Harrisburg, 
and  the  body  was  borne  through  the  muddy  streets  to  the  state 
capitol.  On  the  following  day,  Saturday,  the  body  lay  in  state 
until  noon,  whence  it  was  carried  again  to  the  train,  reaching 
Philadelphia  that  evening.  All  day  Sunday  the  body  of  the  presi- 
dent lay  in  state  in  Independence  Hall.  Here,  on  Washington's 
birthday  in  1861,  he  had  raised  a  flag  above  the  belfry  that  first 
rang  out  the  glad  news  of  freedom,  and  said  he  would  rather  be 
assassinated  on  the  spot  than  swerve  from  the  principles  embodied 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  At  four  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing of  Monday,  April  twenty-fourth,  the  train  left  Philadelphia, 
arriving  about  ten  o'clock  in  Xew  York  City.  There  it  remained 
until  late  in  the  afternoon  of  Tuesday.  Among  those  who  came 
to  visit  it  in  the  city  hall,  was  General  Scott,  pale  and  feeble, 
who  sorrowfully  saluted  his  dead  commander. 

That  night  the  train  moved  along  the  bank  of  the  Hudson  and 
about  midnight  arrived  in  Albany,  where  the  body  lay  in  the  state 
capitol  until  the  afternoon  of  the  following  day. 

At  Syracuse  thirty  thousand  people  came  out  at  midnight  in  a 
storm,  and  at  Rochester  the  same  solemnities  greeted  the  body  of 
Lincoln  as  it  passed  through  that  city. 

Buffalo  was  reached  on  the  morning  of  Thursday  the  twenty- 
seventh,  and  Cleveland  on  Friday  the  twenty-eighth ;  and  the  train 
arrived  in  Columbus  on  the  morning  of  Saturday  the  twenty- 
ninth.  In  Cleveland  the  exercises  were  held  in  the  public  square 
in  an  imposing  tabernacle  erected  for  the  occasion. 

The  second  Sunday  was  spent  in  Indianapolis,  which  city  was 
left  at  midnight,  and  the  body  arrived  in  Chicago  on  Monday 
morning,  May  first. 

The  demonstrations  in  Xew  York  City  had  been  most  elaborate, 
but  those  in  Chicago  took  on  a  far  more  personal  character.  In 
no  city  had  there  been  lack  of  sincere  sorrow  and  reverent  affec- 
tion. But  in  Chicago  hundreds  of  people  looked  upon  his  face 
who  had  known  him  well  in  life.  There  the  mourning  lost  its 
official  character  in  the  deep  personal  affection  of  those  who  had 
known  and  continued  to  love  him. 


364  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

At  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  Tuesday,  May  second,  the 
train  left  Chicago,  and  on  the  following  morning  reached  Spring- 
field. All  the  preceding  day  the  roads  leading  to  that  city  had 
been  bringing  in  loads  of  visitors.  By  the  time  the  funeral  train 
arrived  it  seemed  as  if  there  was  hardly  standing  room  for  the 
population  and  those  who  had  come  to  be  present  on  that  sad 
occasion.  Among  those  who  returned  with  his  remains  were 
three  of  the  men  who  had  gone  out  with  him  on  his  journey  to 
Washington,  Colonel  Ward  H.  Lamon,  Judge  David  Davis  and 
Major-General  David  Hunter.  Among  his  pall-bearers  were 
old-time  neighbors,  including  his  sometime  partner,  Honorable 
Stephen  T.  Logan,  and  Honorable  S.  H.  Treat,  the  judge  in 
whose  court  he  had  so  often  appeared. 

All  that  day  and  on  the  following  morning  the  body  of  Lin- 
coln lay  in  state  in  the  old  state-house.  At  ten  o'clock,  on  Thurs- 
day, May  fourth,  the  coffin  was  closed  and  conveyed  to  the 
hearse,  and  the  funeral  procession  formed  at  the  north  gate  of 
the  court-house  square,  and  moved  to  Oak  Ridge  Cemetery  one 
and  a  half  miles  distant. 

Prayer  was  offered  by  the  Reverend  Albert  Hale,  and  the  scrip- 
ture was  read  by  the  Reverend  N.  W.  Minor,  local  pastors.  Then 
was  read  the  greatest  of  all  Lincoln's  state  papers,  his  second 
inaugural. 

The  funeral  oration  was  delivered  by  Bishop  Simpson  of  the 
Methodist  Church,  a  worthy  tribute  to  a  great  man. 

The  closing  prayer  was  offered  by  the  Reverend  Doctor  Gur- 
ley,  Lincoln's  pastor,  and  so  closed  that  memorable  day.  Never 
in  the  history  of  America  has  there  been  another  funeral  like  that. 

As  the  body  of  Lincoln  returned  to  the  soil  of  his  own  state, 
Edna  Dean  Proctor,  then  a  young  woman,  wrote  a  noble  poem, 
a  copy  of  which  in  her  own  handwriting  hangs  in  the  tomb  of 
Lincoln,  and  from  which  a  few  lines  may  be  quoted : 

Now  must  the  storied  Potomac 

Honors  forever  divide ; 
Now  to  the  Sangamon  fameless 

Give  of  its  century's  pride ; 


;* 


u 

< 
w 

52; 

O 

u 


THE  FUNERAL  OF  LINCOLN  365 

Sangamon,  stream  of  the  prairies, 

Placidly  westward  that   flows, 
Far  in  whose  city  of  silence 

Calm  he  has  sought  his  repose. 

Not  for  thy  sheaves  nor  savannas 

Crown  we  thee,  proud  Illinois ! 
Here  in  his  grave  is  thy  grandeur, 

Born  of  his  sorrow  thy  joy. 
Only  the  tomb  by  Mount  Zion 

Hewn  for  the  Lord  do  we  hold 
Dearer  than  his  in  thy  prairies, 

Girdled  with  harvests  of  gold. 

Xo  description  can  adequately  convey  the  impression  which 
Lincoln's  homeward  journey  made  upon  the  nation  and  the 
world.  There  was  so  much  to  remind  one  of  his  tour  away 
from  Springfield  toward  Washington.  The  two  were  so  like, 
yet  so  sadly  different.  All  attempts  at  description  fail.  Perhaps 
no  writer  has  more  truthfully  caught  the  spirit  of  that  journey 
than  Walt  Whitman.  The  lilacs  were  in  bloom  as  the  funeral 
train  moved  westward,  and  Whitman  has  forever  associated 
their  annual  efflorescence  with  memories  of  the  last  journey  of 
Abraham  Lincoln : 

When  lilacs  last  in  the  door-yard  bloom'd. 

And  the  great  star  early  drooped  in  the  western  sky  in  the  night, 

I  mourned,  and  yet  shall  mourn  with  ever  returning  spring. 

O  ever-returning  spring!  trinity  sure  to  me  you  bring; 

Lilac  blooming  perennial,  and  drooping  star  in  the  west, 

And  thought  of  him  I  love. 

Over  the  breast  of  the  spring,  the  land  amid  cities, 

Amid  lanes,   and  through   old  woods    (where  lately  the   violets 

peeped  from  the  ground,  spotting  the  gray  debris : ) 
Amid  the  grass  in  the  fields  each  side  of  the  lines — passing  the 

endless  grass; 
Passing  the  yellow-speared  wheat,  every  grain  from  its  shroud  in 

the  dark-brown  fields  uprising; 


366  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Passing  the  apple-tree  blows  of  white  and  pink  in  the  orchards; 
Carrying  a  corpse  to  where  it  shall  rest  in  the  grave, 
Night  and  day  journeys  a  coffin. 

Coffin  that  passes  through  lanes  and  streets, 

Through  day  and  night,  with  the  great  cloud  darkening  the  land, 

With  the  pomp  of  the  inlooped  flags,  with  the  cities  draped  in 

black, 
With   the   show   of   the    States   themselves,   as   of   crape-veiled 

women,  standing, 
With  processions  long  and  winding,  and  the  flambeaus  of  the 

night, 
With  the  countless  torches  lit — with  the  silent  sea  of  faces,  and 

the  unbared  heads, 
With  the  waiting  depot,  the  arriving  coffin,  and  the  somber  faces, 
With  dirges  through  the  night,  with  the  thousand  voices  rising 

strong  and  solemn; 
With  all  the  mournful  voices  of  the  dirges,  poured  around  the 

coffin, 
The  dim-lit  churches  and  the   shuddering  organ — Where  amid 

these  you  journey, 
With  the  tolling,  tolling  bells'  perpetual  clang; 
Here!  coffin  that  slowly  passes, 
I  give  you  my  sprig  of  lilac ! 


CHAPTER  XXVII 


LINCOLN    AND   LABOR 


Lincoln's  sympathy  with  the  common  soldier  grew  out  of 
his  sympathy  for  the  common  people.  He  was  sure  that  God 
loved  the  common  people,  because  He  made  so  many  of  them. 

It  is  pertinent  to  ask,  and  the  more  so  because  so  many  have 
already  attempted  to  answer  the  question,  What  was  the  attitude 
of  Lincoln  toward  labor? 

We  may  be  sure  it  was  an  attitude  of  profound  sympathy, 
held  by  a  man  who  had  been  born  to  poverty ;  and  who  knew  the 
story  of  labor  as  only  those  can  know  it  who  have  eaten  their 
bread  in  the  sweat  of  their  face. 

A  consideration  of  the  attitude  of  Abraham  Lincoln  toward 
labor  requires  us  to  remember,  first  of  all,  that  he  lived  and  died 
before  the  present-day  industrial  system  had  come  into  existence. 
Several  people  who  have  wanted  to  quote  him  on  labor  have 
forgotten  this,  and  have  attributed  to  Lincoln  statements  which 
can  not  be  found  in  his  published  works  and  which  are  the  out- 
growth of  conditions  which  came  into  being  after  he  was  dead. 
For  instance,  a  widely  quoted  statement  concerning  the  threat- 
ened rise  of  great  corporations  is  known  to  have  originated  with 
another  man  in  1873;  but  it  is  quoted  as  from  the  pen  of  Lin- 
coln. 

Another  popular  quotation  is  this : 

I  am  glad  that  a  system  of  labor  prevails  under  which  laborers 
can  strike  when  they  want  to.  where  they  are  not  obliged  to  work 
under  all  circumstances,  and  are  not  tied  down  to  work  whether 
you  pay  them  for  it  or  not.     I  like  a  system  that  lets  a  man  quit 

367 


368  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

when  he  wants  to,  and  wish  it  might  prevail  everywhere.  I  am 
not  ashamed  to  confess  that  twenty-five  years  ago  I  was  a  hired 
laborer. 

This  quotation  can  not  be  called  strictly  accurate.  It  is  a 
garbled  combination  of  two  widely  separated  statements,  each 
of  which  is  worthy  of  some  study. 

The  last  sentence  is  the  more  readily  located.  The  statement 
"Twenty-five  years  ago  I  was  a  hired  laborer,"  was  written,  ap- 
parently, about  a  quarter-century  after  he  ceased  to  work  with 
his  hands  for  other  men. 

With  this  clue,  we  have  not  far  to  go.  We  find  the  document 
on  which  this  appears  to  be  based.  It  is  a  fragment  which  he 
prepared  on  July  I,  1854.  Whether  he  delivered  it  as  an  ad- 
dress Ave  do  not  know ;  but  he  probably  did.  It  certainly  served 
as  the  basis  of  subsequent  addresses.  The  fragment  in  full  can 
be  found  in  any  of  the  editions  of  his  works : 

Equality  in  society  alike  beats  inequality,  whether  the  latter 
be  of  the  British  aristocratic  sort,  or  of  the  domestic  slavery 
sort.  We  know  Southern  men  declare  that  their  slaves  are  better 
off  than  hired  laborers  amongst  us.  How  little  they  know 
whereof  they  speak !  There  is  no  permanent  class  of  hired  labor- 
ers amongst  us.  Twenty-five  years  ago  I  was  a  hired  laborer. 
The  hired  laborer  of  yesterday  labors  on  his  own  account  to-day, 
and  will  hire  the  labor  of  others  to-morrow.  Advancement — im- 
provement in  condition — is  the  order  of  things  in  a  society  of 
equals.  As  labor  is  the  common  burden  of  our  race,  so  the 
effort  of  some  to  shift  their  share  of  the  burden  onto  the  shoul- 
ders of  others  is  the  great  durable  curse  of  the  race.  Originally 
a  curse  for  the  transgression  upon  the  whole  race,  when,  as  by 
slavery,  it  is  concentrated  on  a  part  only,  it  becomes  the  double- 
refined  curse  of  God  upon  hrs  creatures. 

Free  labor  has  the  inspiration  of  hope :  pure  slavery  has  no 
hope.  The  power  of  hope  upon  human  exertion  and  happiness  is 
wonderful.  The  slave-master  himself  has  a  conception  of  it,  and 
hence  the  system  of  tasks  among  slaves.  The  slave  whom  you 
cannot  drive  with  the  lash  to  break  seventy-five  pounds  of  hemp 
in  a  day,  if  you  will  task  him  with  a  hundred,  and  promise  him 


LINCOLN  AND  LABOR  369 

pay  for  all  he  does  over,  he  will  break  you  a  hundred  and  fifty. 
You  have  substituted  hope  for  the  rod.  And  yet  perhaps  it  does 
not  occur  to  you  that  to  the  extent  of  your  gain  in  the  case,  you 
have  given  up  the  slave  system  and  adopted  the  free  system  of 
labor. 

A  study  of  this  statement  in  the  light  of  its  context  shows : 

1.  Lincoln  was  not  contrasting  capital  and  labor;  and  did  not 
recognize  the  distinction  between  the  capitalist  and  the  laborer; 
he  denied  that  America  has,  or  then  had,  a  permanent  class  of 
hired  laborers.  The  hired  laborer  and  the  capitalist  were  to  Lin- 
coln the  same  man,  in  different  steps  of  his  career. 

2.  Lincoln  was  discussing,  not  the  system  of  modern  indus- 
try, but  the  system  of  negro  slavery  in  its  economic  aspects  and 
contrasting  it  with  free  labor. 

3.  He  was  not  defending  the  right  of  the  laborer  to  quit  any 
more  than  he  was  defending  or  denying  the  right  of  the  em- 
ployer to  quit  hiring  him ;  that  right  of  either  side  was  not  chal- 
lenged in  Lincoln's  day.  The  question  of  collective  bargaining 
was  not  under  discussion  by  Lincoln. 

4.  When  Lincoln  talked  of  the  right  of  the  working  man  to 
better  his  condition,  as  he  did,  he  did  not  have  in  mind  the  strike 
as  the  working  man's  instrument,  but  was  commending  work 
and  economy  such  that  the  working  man  might  hope  to  rise  out 
of  the  condition  of  a  hired  laborer  into  that  of  a  man  laboring- 
tor  himself,  and  possibly  employing  others. 

The  other  statement  is  less  easy  to  locate.  Lincoln  lived  so 
remote  from  a  sphere  of  strikes,  and  his  approach  to  the  labor 
question  was  from  so  different  an  angle  than  that  of  the  modern 
student  of  industrial  conditions,  it  is  not  easy  to  think,  at  first, 
where  he  would  have  been  likely  to  say  such  words  as  those  at- 
tributed to  him.  He  said  them,  or  words  much  like  them,  in 
Xew  Haven,  Connecticut,  on  March  6,  1860.  two  months  before 
his  nomination  for  the  presidency.  He  disclaimed  much  knowl- 
edge of  strikes  and  of  the  industrial  conditions  out  of  which 
they  grew,  but  replied  to  the  argument  that  the  strike  which  he 


370  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

found  to  be  on  in  New  England  among  the  employees  in  the  shoe 
factories  of  Lynn,  Massachusetts,  was  the  result  of  business  con- 
ditions attributable  to  fear  of  a  Republican  victory.  This  charge 
Douglas  and  other  Democrats  had  made,  and  Lincoln  replied: 

Another  specimen  of  this  bushwhacking — that  "shoe-strike." 
Now  be  it  understood  that  I  do  not  pretend  to  know  all  about  the 
matter.  I  am  merely  going  to  speculate  a  little  about  some  of  its 
phases,  and  at  the  outset  I  am  glad  to  see  that  a  system  prevails 
in  New  England  under  which  laborers  can  strike  if  they  want  to, 
where  they  are  not  obliged  to  work  under  all  circumstances,  and 
are  not  tied  down  and  obliged  to  labor  whether  you  pay  them 
for  it  or  not.  I  like  the  system  that  lets  a  man  quit  when  he 
wants  to,  and  wish  it  might  prevail  everywhere.  One  of  the 
reasons  I  am  opposed  to  slavery  is  just  here.  What  is  the  true 
condition  of  the  laborer?  I  take  it  that  it  is  best  for  all  to  leave 
each  man  free  to  acquire  property  as  fast  as  he  can.  Some  will 
get  wealthy.  I  don't  believe  in  a  law  to  prevent  a  man  from 
getting  rich ;  it  would  do  more  harm  than  good.  So  while  we  do 
not  propose  any  war  upon  capital,  we  do  wish  to  allow  the 
humblest  man  an  equal  chance  to  get  rich  with  everybody  else. 
When  one  starts  poor,  as  most  do  in  the  race  of  life,  free  society 
is  such  that  he  knows  he  can  better  his  condition ;  he  knows  there 
is  no  fixed  condition  of  labor  for  his  whole  life.  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  confess  that  twenty-five  years  ago  I  was  a  hired 
laborer,  mauling  rails,  at  work  on  a  flat-boat — just  what  might 
happen  to  any  poor  man's  son.  I  want  every  man  to  have  the 
chance — and  I  believe  a  black  man  is  entitled  to  it — in  which 
he  can  better  his  condition — when  he  may  look  forward  and  hope 
to  be  a  hired  laborer  this  year,  and  the  next  work  for  himself, 
and  finally  hire  men  to  work  for  him.     That  is  the  true  system. 

When  Lincoln  expressed  sympathy  with  the  strike,  confessing 
that  he  did  not  know  about  it,  the  first  fact  of  notice  is  that  his 
sympathies  were  immediately  with  the  workmen.  He  suggested 
that  they  stop  working  in  factories,  and  go  out  to  the  farms,  and 
become  independent.  He  believed  that  factory  life  was  a  life  less 
free  than  life  in  the  open,  and  he  hoped  that  the  workmen  who 
found  the  conditions  of  labor  hard  in  factories  would  move  from 


LIXCOLX  AND  LABOR  371 

New  England  to  Illinois.  He  said  so  in  that  same  address.  But 
his  main  point  still  was  his  contrast  of  free  labor  and  slave  labor, 
and  he  made  the  point,  that  the  white  free  laborer  could  stop 
working  for  the  man  who  did  not  pay  him  what  his  work  was 
worth,  and  the  black  slave  could  not  do  so;  and  Lincoln  wished 
that  the  condition  in  which  a  man  might  stop  working  if  he  was 
not  paid  might  prevail  everywhere,  meaning  specifically,  in  the 
states  where  there  was  slave  labor. 

There  is  one  other  reference  in  all  of  Lincoln's  writings  or 
speeches  to  a  strike.  It  is  in  a  note  marked  "Private"  and  sent 
to  Secretary  Stanton  on  December  21,  1863.     He  said: 

Sending  a  note  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  as  I  promised, 
he  called  over  and  said  that  the  strikes  in  the  shipyards  had 
thrown  the  completion  of  vessels  back  so  much  that  he  thought 
General  Gilmore's.  proposition  entirely  proper. 

What  General  Gilmore's  proposition  was,  the  War  Depart- 
ment does  not  know ;  but  evidently  some  cherished  plan  of  the 
Navy  Department  had  to  be  abandoned  or  modified  because  at 
that  critical  period,  when  the  effort  to  keep  England  and  France 
from  recognizing  the  Confederacy  depended  upon  ships,  sup- 
posedly loyal  men  working  in  the  shipyards  went  on  strike.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  know  whether  Lincoln  would  have  said 
that  under  those  conditions  he  still  wished  men  everywhere 
might  feel  free  to  strike.  Perhaps  he  would  have  said  it  was 
their  economic  right  to  strike  and  their  patriotic  duty  not  to  do 
so :  but  I  will  not  attempt  to  put  words  into  his  mouth. 

That  the  government  had  trouble  with  workmen  in  the  navy 
yards,  who  insisted  on  higher  rates  of  pay  than  those  current 
in  private  establishments,  and  who  threatened  to  strike,  is 
known  to  be  true,  although  a  careful  search  of  the  records,  re- 
ports, and  histories  of  the  various  navy  yards  made  by  the 
Navy  Department  for  this  work  fails  to  produce  any  mention 
of  a  strike  which  retarded  the  progress  of  construction  of  ships 
for  the  navy. 


372  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Referring  to  the  laws  of  December  21,  1861,  and  of  July  16,  I 
1862,  directing  that  "the  hours  of  labor  and  the  rate  of  wages  of 
the  employees  in  the  navy  yards  shall  conform,  as  nearly  as  is  j 
consistent  with  the  public  interest,  with  those  of  private  estab- 
lishments in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  respective  yards,  to  be 
determined  by  the  commandants  of  the  navy  yards,  subject  to  1 
the  approval  and  revision  of  the  secretary  of  the  navy,"  the  sec- 
retary in  his  report  for  the  year  1865  says: 

The  operation  of  the  rule  thus  sought  to  be  established  has 
been  satisfactory  neither  to  the  men  employed  nor  to  the  gov- 
ernment, but,  on  the  contrary,  an  unceasing  source  of  disturbance 
and  discontent.  Committees  have  been  appointed  bi-monthly  at 
each  of  the  yards  to  ascertain  the  rates  of  wages  paid  to  similar 
classes  of  workmen  in  private  establishments,  but  it  has  been 
found  difficult  to  obtain  reliable  data  on  this  subject.  Some 
parties  decline  to  furnish  the  information  sought,  while  others 
give  imperfect  statements.  When,  after  inquiry  and  investiga- 
tion, a  scale  is  adopted,  having  in  view  the  interests  and  rights 
of  both  the  government  and  the  laborers,  there  is  dissatisfac- 
tion, especially  if  in  the  fluctuation  of  the  currency,  or  of  supply 
and  demand,  there  has  been  a  reduction,  and  the  workmen,  by 
visiting  the  different  private  establishments,  are  enabled  to  pro- 
cure from  some  of  them  certificates  that  higher  wages  are  paid 
in  some  instances  than  the  rates  adopted  at  the  yard.  These 
certificates  do  not  state  the  number  or  proportion  of  men  em- 
ployed at  these  high  rates,  or  whether  these  prices  are  paid  to 
all  of  that  class  in  such  establishment.  If,  on  inquiry,  it  is  ascer- 
tained that  only  one  or  two  men  of  unusual  capability  receive 
these  high  prices,  and  that  those  authorized  by  the  government 
are  fair  average  rates,  the  explanation  fails  to  give  satisfaction, 
for  the  evidence  is  produced  that  higher  wages  than  those  on  the 
government  scale  are  paid  in  private  establishments  in  the  vicin- 
ity. The  impression  that  there  is  some  unfairness  is  engendered, 
complaints  and  strikes  follow  or  are  threatened,  vigilant  officers 
who  are  faithful  to  the  government  become  obnoxious,  and  dis- 
content prevails.  I  would,  therefore,  recommend  that  the  acts 
referred  to  be  repealed. 

Lincoln  carefully  wrought  out  one  deliverance  on  labor,  and 
one  which   satisfied  him  permanently:   and   it   is  good  reading 


LINCOLN  AND  LABOR  375 

both  for  the  laborer  and  for  the  capitalist.  In  it  he  starts  with 
the  same  assumption,  that  the  laborer  is  a  potential  capitalist,  and 
that  labor  is  itself  the  creator  of  capital ;  but  he  does  not 
there.  He  believed  that  in  a  country  whose  resources  were  as 
large  as  they  were  and  are  in  America,  the  laborer,  if  wise,  could 
keep  himself  independent  of  capital  more  easily  than  the  capital- 
ist could  make  himself  independent  of  labor.  He  noted  the  be- 
ginnings of  a  cleavage  between  labor  and  capital,  and  he  found 
his  svmpathies  on  the  side  of  labor.  What  he  said  on  that  sub- 
ject he  said  to  the  nation  and  to  the  world.  The  paragraphs  in 
which  he  enunciated  most  completely  his  views  on  labor  are  in 
one  of  his  most  carefully  prepared  papers,  and  one  which  be- 
fore delivery  he  submitted  to  the  reading  of  men  in  whose  opin- 
ions he  had  most  confidence  :  for  he  did  not  feel  that  on  that 
occasion  he  could  afford  to  say  anything  that  would  not  bear  the 
most  careful  scrutiny  of  the  whole  nation.  North  and  South,  and 
if  other  nations  as  well.     Lincoln  said : 

Labor  is  prior  to,  and  independent  of,  capital.  Capital  is  only 
the  fruit  of  labor,  and  could  never  have  existed  if  labor  had  not 
first  existed.  Labor  is  the  superior  of  capital,  and  deserves  much 
the  higher  consideration.  Capital  has  its  rights,  which  are  as 
worthy  of  protection  as  any  uther  rights.  Nor  is  it  denied  that 
there  is.  and  probably  always  will  be.  a  relation  between  labor 
and  capital  producing  mutual  benefits.  The  error  is  in  assuming 
that  the  whole  labor  of  the  community  exists  within  that  rela- 
tion. A  few  men  own  capital,  and  that  few  avoid  labor  them- 
selves, and  with  their  capital,  hire  or  buy  another  few  to  labor 
for  them.  A  large  majority  belong  to  neither  class — neither 
work  for  others  nor  have  others  work  for  them.  In  most  of  the 
Southern  states,  a  large  majority  of  the  whole  people,  of  all 
colors,  are  neither  slaves  nor  masters :  while  in  the  Northern,  a 
large  majority  are  neither  hirers  nor  hired. 

This  is  from  Lincoln's  First  Annual  Address  to  Congre-s. 
December  3.  1861.  It  is  his  most  careful  utterance  on  the  sub- 
ject.    His  sympathy  as  between  labor  and  capital  was  with  la- 


374  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

bor;  but  he  did  not  admit  a  natural  antagonism,  for  he  felt  and 
had  his  experience  to  prove,  that  a  young  man  with  character 
and  ambition  and  skill  should  not  look  forward  to  being,  in 
America,  permanently  in  the  class  of  those  who  are  hired. 

We  find  this  same  point  of  view  in  all  of  Lincoln's  discussions 
of  labor.  He  began  with  a  consideration  of  the  difference  be- 
tween slave  and  free  labor,  and  went  on  to  a  denial  that  to  free 
labor  in  America  there  was  any  necessary  permanent  relation  of 
subjection  to  capital.  This  he  set  forth-  in  his  speech  in  Cin- 
cinnati, September  17,  1859,  where  his  treatment  of  the  theme 
appears  to  have  grown  directly  out  of  his  discussions  with 
Douglas,  in  his  debates  with  whom  the  matter  had  risen  only 
incidentally : 

Some  people  assume  that  there  is  a  necessary  connection  be- 
tween capital  and  labor,  and  that  connection  has  within  it  the 
whole  of  the  labor  of  the  community.  They  assume  that  nobody 
works  unless  capital  excites  them  to  work.  ...  I  say  the  whole 
thing  is  a  mistake.  .  .  .  That  relation  does  not  embrace  more  than 
one-eighth  of  the  labor  of  the  country. 

In  another  address  he  considered  unnecessary  transportation 
as  a  waste  of  labor,  and  used  his  illustrations  to  encourage  home 
industries.  In  another  he  considered  a  depreciated  currency  as  a 
wrong  to  labor.  In  his  Second  Annual  Message  to  Congress, 
December  1,  1862,  he  considered  the  effect  upon  free  white  labor 
of  free  negro  labor,  and  declared  that  he  believed  that  instead  of 
depreciating  the  value  of  free,  white  labor,  the  freedom  of  the 
slave  would  tend  to  increase  it. 

In  his  Third  Annual  Message,  dated  December  8,  1863,  he 
considered  the  labor  shortage  produced  by  the  war,  and  advised 
Congress  to  encourage  immigration,  for: 

It  is  easy  to  see  that,  under  the  sharp  discipline  of  civil  war, 
the  nation  is  beginning  a  new  life. 

In  that  same  message  he  considered  the  possibility  that  the 


LINCOLN  AND  LABOR  375 

new  freedom  of  the  slaves  might  involve  some  complications,  on 
account  of  the  resentment  and  fear  of  white  labor  in  the  states 
where  there  was  a  sudden  competition  of  free  black  labor,  but 
this  he  counted  temporary,  and  to  be  charged  to  the  evil  of  slav- 
ery, and  not  to  any  inherent  hostility  between  labor  and  capital : 

The  proposed  acquiescence  of  the  national  executive  in  any 
reasonable  temporary  State  arrangement  for  the  freed  people  is 
made  with  the  view  of  possibly  modifying  the  confusion  and 
destitution  which  must  at  best  attend  all  classes  by  a  total  revolu- 
tion of  labor  throughout  whole  States. 

On  March  21,  1864,  he  received  a  committee  from  the  YYork- 
ingmen's  Association  of  New  York,  and  in  reply  to  their  address 
he  quoted  in  full  what  he  had  said  to  Congress  in  1861,  and 
added : 

The  views  then  expressed  remain  unchanged,  nor  have  I  much 
to  add.  None  are  so  deeply  interested  to  resist  the  present  rebel- 
lion as  the  working  people.  Let  them  beware  of  prejudice,  work- 
ing division  and  hostility  among  themselves.  The  most  notable 
feature  of  a  disturbance  in  your  city  last  summer  was  the  hang- 
ing of  some  working  people  by  other  working  people.  It  should 
never  be  so.  The  strongest  bond  of  human  sympathy,  outside 
the  family  relation,  should  be  one  uniting  all  working  people,  of 
all  nations,  and  tongues  and  kindreds.  Nor  should  this  lead  to 
a  war  upon  property,  or  the  owners  of  property.  Property  is  the 
fruit  of  labor;  property  is  desirable;  is  a  positive  good  in  the 
world.  That  some  should  be  rich  shows  that  others  may  become 
rich,  and  hence  is  just  encouragement  to  industry  and  enter- 
prise. Let  not  him  who  is  houseless  pull  down  the  house  of  an- 
other, but  let  him  work  diligently  and  build  one  for  himself,  thus 
by  example  assuring  that  his  own  shall  be  safe  from  violence 
when  built. 

These  were  the  most  direct  of  all  words  ever  uttered  by  Lin- 
coln on  the  issue,  then  rising,  of  hostility  between  labor  and 
capital,  and  they  were  his  final  words  on  this  theme. 

In  his  Fourth  Annual  Message  to  Congress,  dated  December 


376  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

6,  1864,  he  spoke  of  the  very  high  cost  of  labor,  particularly  as 
it  affected  the  building  of  the  transcontinental  railways;  but  he 
did  not  go  into  the  matter  at  length,  merely  congratulating  the 
country  that  notwithstanding  this  added  element  of  difficulty, 
the  work  was  making  progress. 

One  of  the  most  striking  of  Lincoln's  statements  on  labor  was 
probably  never  published  during  his  lifetime,  but  appears  to  have 
been  used  by  him  more  than  once  in  more  or  less  formal  ad- 
dresses. It  exists,  like  the  1854  document,  in  the  form  of  notes. 
The  notes  on  this  topic  were  in  a  discussion  of  the  tariff.  They 
appear  to  have  been  made  in  1847.  The  notes  cover  several 
pages,  and  seem  to  have  been  his  own  attempt  to  define  to  him- 
self the  underlying  principles  of  tariff  legislation.  In  the  midst 
of  the  notes,  I  find  this  paragraph : 

In  the  early  days  of  our  race  the  Almighty  said  to  the  first  of 
our  race,  "In  the  sweat  of  the  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread" ;  and 
since  then,  if  we  except  the  light  and  air  from  heaven,  no  good 
thing  has  been  or  can  be  enjoyed  by  us  without  having  first  cost 
labor.  And  inasmuch  as  most  good  things  are  produced  by 
labor,  it  follows  that  all  such  things  of  right  belong  to  those 
whose  labor  has  produced  them.  But  it  has  so  happened,  in  all 
ages  of  the  world,  that  some  have  labored,  and  others  without 
labor  enjoyed  a  large  proportion  of  the  fruits.  This  is  wrong, 
and  should  not  continue.  To  secure  to  each  laborer  the  whole 
product  of  his  labor,  or  as  nearly  as  possible,  is  a  worthy  object 
of  any  good  government. 

He  went  on  to  a  discussion  of  the  means  of  eliminating  un- 
necessary labor  and  idleness,  and  dwelt,  as  he  did  at  other  times, 
on  the  waste  of  useless  transportation;  and  then  returned  to  a 
consideration  of  the  tariff.  The  foregoing  paragraph  is  to  be  in- 
terpreted in  the  light  of  its  context.  It  was  the  tariff  question 
which  Lincoln  was  just  then  considering,  and  the  labor  question 
came  into  it  incidentally.  Nevertheless,  this  is  a  striking  para- 
graph, and  shows  how  deep  was  his  sympathy  with  the  men  who 
labor,    and    how    clear    his   conviction    that    as   labor   produced 


LINCOLN  AND  LABOR  377 

-wealth,  the  wealth  produced  belongs  to  the  men  who  produce  it. 
One  thing  ought  to  be  noted,  which  is  that  the  laboring  men 
of  England  recognized  in  Lincoln  a  friend  of  labor.  The  Civil 
War  brought  great  hardships  in  the  cotton  mills  of  England,  and 
England's  temptation  to  recognize  the  Confederacy  was  strong. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  went  to  England  and  pleaded  with  the 
working  men,  who  were  at  first  very  unwilling  to  hear  him.  His 
message  was  in  effect  what  Lowell  had  said  in  his  Biglozv 
Papers : 

Laborin'  man  and  laborin'  woman 

Has  one  glory  and  one  shame; 
Everything  that's  done  inhuman 

Injures  all  on  'em  the  same. 

The  fight  of  the  North  for  a  free  nation  was  stated  strongly 
as  a  reason  why  England  should  suffer  economic  loss,  if  neces- 
sary, rather  than  support  a  moral  wrong.  It  brought  great  joy 
to  Lincoln  when  the  cotton  operatives  of  Lancashire,  to  the 
number  of  six  thousand,  at  a  meeting  in  Manchester,  on  New 
Year's  Eve,  in  1862,  urged  Lincoln  to  abolish  slavery,  and  re- 
fused to  petition  Her  Majesty's  Government  to  recognize  the 
cause  of  the  South.  On  January  19,  1863,  Lincoln  replied  to 
the  Manchester  working*  men  in  a  letter  which  displayed  sincere 
gratification. 

In  March,  1864,  the  Workingmen's  Association  of  New  York 
City  made  him  an  honorary  member,  following  the  lead  of  a 
convention  of  trade  unionists  who,  assembled  in  Philadelphia  as 
early  as  1861,  pledged  Lincoln  their  support  and  urged  the  abo- 
lition of  slavery.  These  evidences  of  the  appreciation  of  working 
men,  Lincoln,  himself  a  working  man,  received  with  genuine  in- 
terest and  appreciation. 

The  main  lines  of  Lincoln's  views  on  labor  appear  to  have  been 
laid  down  in  his  notes  in  1854,  developed  in  his  Cincinnati  speech 
of  September  17,  1859,  and  enlarged  upon  in  an  address  not 
ciuite  two  weeks  later  before  the  Wisconsin   State  Agricultural 


378  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Society  in  Milwaukee.  They  are  the  same  that  he  wrought  into 
his  First  Annual  Message  to  Congress,  and  to  which  he  referred 
near  the  end  of  his  life,  in  his  letter  to  the  New  York  working 
men  as  the  views  which  he  still  held  and  to  which  he  could  add 
little. 

These  are  the  important  authentic  utterances  of  Lincoln  on 
labor  and  are  consistent  throughout.  As  he  defined  his  views 
they  are  virtually  these : 

Free  labor  is  better,  more  righteous  and  more  remunerative 
than  slave  labor.  Labor  is  prior  to  capital  and  superior  to  it; 
but  there  is  no  inevitable  antagonism  between  them,  nor  any 
unalterable  division  of  men  in  America  into  permanent  classes 
as  capitalists  or  laborers.  The  laborer  has  a  right  to  aspire  to  be 
a  capitalist,  and  should  act  toward  capital  as  he  will  wish  laborers 
to  act  toward  him  when  he  becomes  a  capitalist.  But  man  is  not 
a  commodity;  the  rights  of  labor,  while  giving  it  no  privilege  to 
destroy  capital,  are  more  sacred  than  the  rights  which  inhere  in 
capital :  for  capital  is  the  fruit  of  labor. 

As  a  laboring  man,  Lincoln  was  a  friend  of  labor.  As  a  man 
who  had  risen  out  of  a  condition  of  hard  labor,  he  believed  in 
ambition  and  aspiration  for  the  laboring  man.  He  believed  in 
freedom  because  freedom  is  the  mother  of  hope,  and  he  wanted 
the  privilege  of  hope  preserved  to  all  who  perform  honest  labor. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 


LINCOLN    THE    ORATOR 


Had  Abraham  Lincoln  been  everything-  else  that  he  was  and 
lacked  his  oratorical  powers,  he  would  never  have  been  president 
of  the  United  States. 

Oratory  is  now  in  disrepute.  It  has  practically  disappeared 
from  political  campaigns.  It  is  a  lost  art  in  the  court  room.  It 
is  little  better  than  a  stranger  in  both  Houses  of  Congress.  As 
for  the  Supreme  Court,  an  orator  might  as  well  transport  him- 
self to  the  Gizeh  Museum  and  attempt  to  be  eloquent  in  address- 
ing the  mummified  Pharaohs  as  the  judges  of  that  high  tribunal. 
The  pulpit  is  still  the  throne  of  eloquence,  though  there  are  influ- 
ences at  work  that  would  drive  it  from  this  last  place  of  vantage. 
Eloquence  is  the  finest  of  the  fine  arts.  The  organs  of  speecli 
are  wholly  other  than  the  organs  by  which  speech  is  received  and 
interpreted ;  the  lips  and  the  ear  are  so  constructed  as  not  to  sug- 
gest any  possible  relationship  between  them.  Yet  by  a  miracle  in 
the  presence  of  which  all  men  must  stand  in  wonder,  sounds  pro- 
duced by  one  set  of  organs  are  capable  of  registering  their  ef- 
fects upon  the  other  in  such  manner  that  one  man  may  speak  and 
another  may  listen  and  the  souls  of  the  two  be  stirred  by  the 
same  emotion.  One  man  standing  where  a  thousand  others  can 
hear  him  may  see  in  their  faces  the  effect  of  his  words,  and 
know  that  they  are  thinking  his  thoughts  and  are  swayed  by  his 
passion  and  joining  in  his  high  resolves.  He  has  no  brush  and 
palette ;  no  mallet  and  chisel ;  no  instrument  of  music,  but  he  is 
privileged  to  do  what  the  painter,  the  sculptor,  the  musician  can 
never  do,  or  do  in  part  only. 

379 


380  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

It  is  said  that  when  Lincoln  was  a  boy  he  returned  home  from 
religious  services  and  mimicked  the  preachers.  The  mirthful  as- 
pects of  his  performance  appear  to  have  impressed  his  cousin 
Dennis  Hanks  more  deeply  than  any  serious  element  which  the 
preaching  may  have  contained.  It  need  not  be  inferred,  how- 
ever, that  the  boy's  love  of  fun  was  the  sole  reason  for  these  imi- 
tations. The  mannerisms  of  the  backwoods  preacher  could 
hardly  have  failed  to  excite  his  mirth ;  but  beside  his  ridicule 
there  was  some  real  appreciation  of  the  value  of  public  discourse 
and  aspiration  to  influence  men  through  public  speech. 

His  corn-field  oratory  was  a  ready  invitation  to  the  other 
boys  to  drop  their  hoes  and  listen,  and  was  more  appreciated  by 
them  than  it  was  by  Thomas  Lincoln,  whose  corn  needed  hoeing. 

During  his  boyhood  Abraham  now  and  then  made  his  way  to 
Rockport,  the  county-seat  of  Spencer  County,  Indiana,  and  there 
as  also  at  Boonville,  in  the  adjacent  county  of  Warrick,  he 
heard  lawyers  addressing  juries.  His  court-room  experience  in 
this  period,  however,  was  limited,  while  regularly  once  a  month 
there  was  preaching  at  the  Little  Pigeon  church,  and  often  more 
than  one  preacher  spoke  at  the  service. 

By  the  time  Abraham  was  of  age,  he  had  some  local  reputa- 
tion as  a  public  speaker;  for,  in  the  summer  of  1830,  John  Hanks 
made  the  confident  boast  that  Abraham  could  make  a  better 
political  address  than  one  which  had  just  been  delivered  at  De- 
catur; and  Abraham,  nothing  loath,  mounted  a  stump  and  made 
a  speech.  His  experience  in  the  debating  society  at  New  Salem 
gave  him  opportunity  for  the  preparation  of  argumentative  ad- 
dresses, and  his  experience  in  the  store  brought  him  almost  daily 
opportunity  for  discussion. 

We  do  not  know  of  any  significant  address  delivered  by  Lin- 
coln as  a  member  of  the  Legislature ;  but  we  do  know  of  his  can- 
didacy for  reelection  once  in  two  years  and  of  the  growing  ap- 
preciation which  people  showed  of  his  power  of  speech.  His 
campaign  addresses  of  these  years  are  not  preserved,  and  we  are 
quite  sure  that  their  destruction  involves  no  serious  loss.     We 


LIXCOLX  THE  ORATOR  381 

have  samples  enough  of  Lincoln's  early  rhetoric  and  descriptions 
of  his  early  stump-speaking  to  assure  us  that  their  value  was 
chiefly  in  the  preparation  afforded  for  something  better.  He 
followed  in  those  days  the  style  which  he  supposed  to  be  most 
cogent  and  effective.  It  was  a  stilted,  artificial  type  of  oratory, 
and  Lincoln  in  time  outgrew  it. 

We  have  many  anecdotes  concerning  his  court-rdom  elo- 
quence. His  power  with  juries  lay  first  in  his  power  of  fair 
and  clear  statements,  his  ability  to  strip  a  subject  of  its  inciden- 
tals and  to  display  it  in  its  fundamental  attributes.  His  homely 
good  sense  and  man-to-man  attitude  commended  him  not  only  to 
the  intelligence  but  the  favorable  judgment  of  juries.  Of  his 
fund  of  humor  we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  in  a  chapter  by 
itself.  It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  Lincoln  seldom  told 
stories  or  cracked  jokes  in  his  more  serious  addresses.  The 
proof  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  all  the  published  editions  of  his 
speeches.  A  tradition  is  current  in  the  county-seats  where  Lin- 
coln was  most  frequently  heard,  to  the  effect  that  juries  learned 
not  to  look  for  stories  when  Lincoln  was  entirely  certain  that  the 
law  and  evidence  were  on  his  side.  When  Lincoln  had  a  good 
clear  case  and  could  cite  the  evidence  and  the  statutes,  he  found 
little  occasion  to  tell  stories. 

Lincoln's  temperance  address  delivered  in  Springfield  on 
Washington's  birthday  in  1842.  and  his  address  on  the  Perpetua- 
tion of  our  Political  Institutions,  delivered  before  the  Young 
Men's  Lyceum  on  January  2/,  1837,  are  sufficient  indication  of 
the  character  of  his  prepared  discourses  while  he  was  yet  a 
young  lawyer  in  Springfield. 

In  these  days  a  new  member  of  Congress  is  not  expected  to 
obtain  the  floor  during  his  first  term,  unless  it  be  in  a  night  ses- 
sion just  before  the  adjournment  of  Congress  when  he  may  be 
permitted  to  rise  and  address  the  chairman  pro  tern  and  ask 
leave  to  extend  his  remarks  in  print  in  order  that  he  may  have 
some  campaign  literature  to  send  to  his  constituents  and  assist 
toward  his  reelection.     It   was  not  so  in  Lincoln's  day.     Very 


382  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

soon  after  he  got  to  Washington  he  was  on  the  floor  in  an  ex- 
tended speech,  arraigning  President  Polk  for  the  war  against 
Mexico.  Before  very  long  he  was  delivering  a  speech  on  inter- 
nal improvements,  and  before  summer  he  delivered  a  kind  of 
stump  speech  in  which  he  ridiculed  General  Cass,  the  Democratic 
candidate  for  president.  Judged  by  our  present-day  standards, 
these  speeches  can  not  be  considered  great.  But  that  is  not  the 
proper  way  to  judge  them.  They  were  received  at  the  time  as 
adequate  to  the  several  occasions  on  which  they  were  delivered 
and  they  told  increasingly  Abraham  Lincoln's  power  as  an 
orator. 

It  can  do  us  no  harm,  and  may  be  profitable,  to  read  a  portion 
of  Lincoln's  campaign  speech  in  the  presidential  contest  of  1840: 

The  speech  concludes  with  these  swelling  words : 

Mr.  Lamborn  refers  to  the  late  elections  in  the  States,  and 
from  their  results  confidently  predicts  every  State  in  the  Union 
will  vote  for  Mr.  Van  Buren  at  the  next  Presidential  election. 
Address  that  argument  to  cowards  and  knaves :  with  the  free 
and  the  brave  it  will  affect  nothing.  It  may  be  true;  if  it  must, 
let  it.  Many  free  countries  have  lost  their  liberty,  and  ours  may 
lose  hers;  but  if  she  shall,  be  it  my  proudest  plume,  not  that  I 
was  the  last  to  desert,  but  that  I  never  deserted  her.  I  know 
that  the  great  volcano  at  Washington,  aroused  and  directed  by 
the  evil  spirit  that  reigns  there,  is  belching  forth  the  lava  of  po- 
litical corruption  in  a  current  broad  and  deep,  which  is  sweeping 
with  frightful  velocity  over  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land,  bidding  fair  to  leave  unscathed  no  green  spot  or  living 
thing;  while  on  its  bosom  are  riding,  like  demons  on  the  wave 
of  Hell,  the  imps  of  the  Evil  Spirit,  and  fiendishly  taunting  all 
those  who  dare  to  resist  its  destroying  course  with  the  hopeless- 
ness of  their  efforts;  and  knowing  this,  I  cannot  deny  that  all 
may  be  swept  away.  Broken  by  it,  I,  too,  may  be;  bow  to  it,  I 
never  will.  The  probability  that  we  may  fall  in  the  struggle 
ought  not  to  deter  us  from  the  support  of  a  cause  we  believe  to 
be  just.  It  shall  not  deter  me.  If  ever  I  feel  the  soul  within  me 
elevate  and  expand  to  those  dimensions  not  wholly  unworthy  of 
its  Almighty  Architect,  it  is  when  I  contemplate  the  cause  of  my 


LINCOLN  THE  ORATOR  383 

country,  deserted  by  all  the  world  beside,  and  I  standing  up  bold- 
ly alone,  hurling  defiance  at  her  victorious  oppressors.  Here, 
without  contemplating  consequences,  before  Heaven,  and  in  face 
of  the  world,  I  swear  eternal  fealty  to  the  just  cause,  as  I  deem 
it,  of  the  land  of  my  life,  my  liberty,  and  my  love.  And  who 
that  thinks  with  me  will  not  fearlessly  adopt  that  oath  that  I 
take?  Let  none  falter  who  thinks  he  is  right,  and  we  may  suc- 
ceed. But  if  after  all  we  should  fail,  be  it  so.  We  still  shall  have 
the  proud  consolation  of  saying  to  our  consciences,  and  to  the 
departed  shade  of  our  country's  freedom,  that  the  cause  approved 
of  our  judgment,  and  adored  of  our  hearts,  in  disaster,  in  chains, 
in  torture,  in  death,  we  never  faltered  in  defending. 

This  lofty  and  artificial  eloquence,  in  which  the  orator  appears 
as  a  kind  of  political  Horatius  guarding  alone  the  bridge  of  his 
country's  honor,  a  sort  of  modern  reincarnation  of  the  lesser 
Ajax  defying  the  lightning,  deserves  the  tribute  of  a  passing- 
smile.  But  it  deserves  something  more  than  that.  It  was  a 
carefully  prepared  address  in  the  style  then  popular,  and  it  was 
part  of  the  preparation  of  Lincoln  for  his  life-work  as  an  orator. 
But  it  is  a  far  cry  from  this  sort  of  eloquence  to  the  Gettysburg 
Address  and  the  second  inaugural. 

In  Lincoln's  earlier  stump  speeches  he  is  described  as  indulg- 
ing in  the  familiar  oratorical  tricks  of  the  time  and  region.  He 
gesticulated  with  wide-reaching  gestures.  He  stooped  low,  and 
rose  to  his  full  height,  raising  his  voice  as  he  ascended,  and 
sometimes  accentuating  his  stature  by  standing  on  tiptoe.  All 
this  is  to  be  charged  up  to  experience  in  the  career  of  Lincoln  as 
an  orator.  He  outgrew  all  these  tricks.  He  stood  calmly  in  his 
place,  and  if  he  moved,  he  moved  with  his  thoughts,  and  the 
movement  was  natural  and  not  ungraceful.  He  gesticulated  little, 
and,  that  little  being  unstudied,  was  effective.  His  whole 
progress  was  toward  simplicity  and  effectiveness.  His  was  a 
very  honest  type  of  oratory,  and  it  had  weight  with  his  hearers. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  record  one  or  two  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
oddities  of  pronunciation.  Reared  as  he  had  been  in  the  back- 
woods, his  forms  of  speech  partook  of  the  peculiarities  of  the 


384  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

region  in  which  he  lived.  In  Lincoln's  day,  the  sound  of  Italian 
a  final,  was  rarely  heard  in  America ;  even  now,  it  is  seldom 
heard  correctly.  An  Italian  speaks  of  his  capital  city  as  "Roma," 
giving  full  value  to  both  vowels.  But  an  American  whose  home 
town  ends  with  that  sound,  is  likely  either  to  follow  the  final 
vowel  with  the  sound  of  r,  or  corrupt  it  into  a  sound  more 
nearly  represented  by  the  letters  uh.  In  Lincoln's  day,  hardly 
any  one  said  Americah ;  now  and  then  some  one  said  Americur; 
but  Lincoln  and  most  of  his  fellow-countrymen  said  Arnerikay. 
Some  philologist  might  find  material  for  a  treatise  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  pronunciation  of  the  Italian  a  in  England  and  the 
United  States. 

Lincoln  pronounced  the  numeral  one  as  if  it  were  spelled  own; 
but  the  word  only,  he  pronounced  unly.  The  word  idea  he  pro- 
nounced in  two  syllables  with  accent  on  the  first.  Lincoln  al- 
most never  made  a  pun,  but  one  of  his  very  few  remembered 
puns*  depends  upon  these  pronunciations.  At  one  time  the 
three  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois  were  Walter  B. 
Scales,  John  B.  Carton  and  Sidney  Breese,  all  of  whom  came  to 
Illinois  from  Oneida  County,  New  York.  Lincoln  had  carried  a 
case  to  the  Supreme  Court  and  had  been  beaten.  Stephen  T. 
Logan,  who  had  once  been  Lincoln's  partner,  met  him  after  the 
decision  and  in  his  habitual  whining  tone  he  inquired,  "Well,  Mr. 
Lincoln,  how  did  you  like  the  decision?"  Lincoln  answered. 
"It's  all  that  can  be  expected  from  a  Oneida  (one-idea)  court.'1 

The  mention  of  these  solecisms  must  not,  however,  be  under- 
stood as  indicating  that  Lincoln's  speech  was  slovenly,  on  the 
contrary  it  was  surprisingly  correct. 

I  call  to  mind  the  pronunciation  of  my  own  father,  who  went 
to  Illinois  in  his  boyhood  and  quickly  exhausted  the  possibilities 
of  the  local  schools.  Except  for  the  study  of  medicine  in  the 
office  of  an  older  physician,  he  was  self-taught.  He  never 
studied  grammar  in  school,  and  there  were  a  very  few  words  and 


*The  two  puns  here  recorded,  and  one  that  appears  in  an  earlier  chapter, 
are  among  the  few  of  record  from  Lincoln- 


LIXCOLX  THE  ORATOR  385 

grammatical  constructions  where  he  made  occasional  mistakes. 
In  the  main,  however,  his  pronunciation  had  a  precision  that 
would  have  shamed  many  a  college  graduate.  His  use  of  the 
unabridged  dictionary  was  constant.  He  wrote  a  rapid  and 
legible  hand.  He  had  a  good  literary  style.  He  was  able  to  con- 
verse with  men  who  had  had  university  training,  and  to  hold  his 
bwn  in  argument  with  them.  It  would  easily  be  possible  to  recall 
a  few  little  oddities  of  expression  which  he  never  outgrew.  But 
these  were  not  the  tests  of  his  education  or  his  culture. 

Judge  Blodgett,  of  Chicago,  remembered  an  occasion  when 
Lincoln  appeared  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois  in  a  suit 
concerning  a  piece  of  property  owned  by  Lincoln's  client,  on 
which  there  was  a  lien.  Lincoln  pronounced  the  word  lien  in 
one  syllable,  as  if  it  were  spelled  lean.  The  judge  was  somewhat 
pedantic,  and  stopped  Mr.  Lincoln  with  the  suggestion  that  the 
Avord  should  be  pronounced  li-en.  "Very  well,  your  Honor," 
said  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  corrected  the  pronunciation  to  fit  that  of 
the  judge.  Presently,  however,  he  had  occasion  to  use  the  word 
again  and  forgetting  his  recent  instruction,  he  called  it  lean.  "As 
you  please,  your  Honor,''  said  Lincoln,  a  little  annoyed.  "Not  as 
I  please,"  said  the  judge,  "that  is  the  pronunciation  favored  by 
Webster  and  by  Worcester.  It  so  obtains  at  Westminster  Hall, 
and  also  at  our  own  Supreme  Court  in  Washington."  Then 
again,  Lincoln  indulged  in  his  rare  use  of  a  pun.  "Certainly, 
your  Honor,  certainly,"  he  said,  "I  only  desire  to  say  that  if  my 
client  had  known  there  was  a  lion  on  his  farm  I  am-  sure  he 
would  not  have  stayed  there  long  enough  to  bring  this  suit  and 
I  should  have  not  had  the  pleasure  of  appearing  before  this  hon- 
orable court." 

Lincoln  was  not  an  easy  speaker  to  report.  At  Gettysburg, 
he  spoke  with  great  deliberation,  and  with  evident  desire  that  his 
words  should  be  accurately  recorded.  But  when  he  spoke  in 
extended  discourse,  his  delivery  was  irregular,  and  resulted  in 
widely  varying  reports  of  his  addresses.  A  bitter  controversy 
followed  the  Lincoln-Douglas  debates  on  tfiis  point.      The   re- 


386  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ports  in  the  Chicago  Times  were  rambling  and  illogical.  Those 
in  the  Press  and  Tribune  were  clear  and  well  expressed.  The 
Republicans  charged  the  Times  with  misrepresenting  Lincoln; 
the  Democrats  charged  the  Press  and  Tribune  with  editing  the 
speeches.  Walter  B.  Stevens  in  his  Reporter's  Lincoln  thus  sum- 
marizes the  results  of  his  investigations : 

His  voice  was  clear,  almost  shrill.  Every  syllable  was  dis- 
tinct. But  his  delivery  was  puzzling  to  stenographers.  He 
would  speak  several  words  with  great  rapidity,  come  to  the  word 
or  phrase  he  wished  to  emphasize,  and  let  his  voice  linger  and 
bear  hard  on  that,  and  then  he  would  rush  to  the  end  of  his 
sentence  like  lightning.  To  impress  the  idea  on  the  mind  of  his 
hearers  was  his  aim;  not  to  charm  the  ear  with  smooth,  flow- 
ing words.  It  was  very  easy  to  understand  Lincoln.  He  spoke 
with  great  clearness.  But  his  delivery  was  very  irregular.  He 
would  devote  as  much  time  to  the  word  or  two  which  he  wished 
to  emphasize  as  he  did  to  half  a  dozen  less  important  words 
following  it.* 

It  is  not  necessary  to  refer  again  in  detail  to  his  eloquence  in 
the  court-room,  further  than  to  remind  ourselves  that  in  the 
years  between  his  election  to  Congress  and  his  election  to  the 
presidency,  he  became  a  much  abler  and  more  eloquent  lawyer 
than  before.  He  had  ability  not  simply  to  sway  the  feelings  of  a 
jury,  but  to  influence  a  bench  of  judges. 

That  which  woke  in  Abraham  Lincoln  this  full  power  of  elo- 
quence was  the  moral  compulsion  under  which  he  returned  to 
politics  on  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  All  of  his 
clear  and  powerful  analysis,  his  discriminating  definitions,  his 
cogent  method  of  stating  his  own  and  his  opponent's  point  of 
view,  his  facility  in  anecdote,  his  wit,  his  irony,  his  moral  indig- 
nation, and  his  companionable  sympathy,  had  been  in  training 
for  this  emergency.  Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  man  of  eloquence 
had  come  to  the  kingdom  for  such  a  time  as  that.  We  can  not 
wonder  at  the  effect  of  his   "lost  speech"   when  we  read  the 


*A  Reporter's  Lincoln,  Missouri  Historical  Society,  St.  Louis,  1916,  p.  53- 


LIXCOLX  THE  ORATOR  387 


Peoria   speech,   and   know   that   the  two   must   have  been   com- 
pounded out  of  essentially  the  same  ingredients. 

Lincoln's  speeches  in  his  debates  with  Douglas  can  hardly  be 
called  eloquent.  Their  appeal  is  first  to  the  intelligence  rather 
than  to  the  emotions.  But  they  are  not  lacking  in  any  quality 
which  made  them  essential  to  their  purpose.  In  them  Lincoln 
emerged  as  a  man  capable  of  meeting  on  a  common  level  one  of 
the  foremost  leaders  in  the  United  States  Senate,  the  most  prom- 
inent of  presidential  candidates,  and  of  holding  his  own  in  close- ' 
ly  contested  and  sustained  argument.  These  speeches  met  and 
sustained  two  different  tests.  They  were  effective  in  their  ap- 
peal to  the  great  crowds  that  heard  them,  and  when  printed  and 
circulated  throughout  the  country  they  won  the  approval  of  vast 
numbers  of  readers. 

In  a  certain  sense  the  Cooper  Union  address  is  the  high-water 
mark  of  Lincoln's  oratory.  When  delivered  it  astonished  the 
people  of  New  York,  and  when  printed  it  found  for  itself  a  per- 
manent place  in  political  literature.  It  justified  Abraham  Lin- 
coln's right  to  a  foremost  place  among  American  orators. 

As  the  Cooper  Union  speech  was  in  some  respects  the  greatest 
of  Lincoln's  orations,  so  was  it  the  last  of  his  supremely  great 
oratorical  achievements.  The  responsibilities  of  the  position  to 
which  he  was  soon  elected  afforded  him  little  opportunity  for 
eloquence.  From  the  time  of  his  election  as  president  his  speeches 
must  be  judged  chiefly  as  literature. 

Lincoln  had  been  one  of  the  readiest  of  stump  speakers.  Al- 
though his  ordinary  intellectual  processes  were  slow,  there  was 
that  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  court-room  or  the  political  arena 
that  remarkably  quickened  his  perception  and  made  him  a  master 
of  repartee.  After  his  election  to  the  presidency,  however,  his 
habitual  caution  became  accentuated.  He  learned  that  he  must 
give  account  for  every  idle  word.  He  would  not  respond  even 
to  a  serenade  unless  he  had  warning  in  advance  and  opportunity 
to  prepare  his  address  in  writing. 

Although  a  ready  debater,  and  rather  quick  with  a  repartee 


388  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

or  a  pat  illustration  suggested  by  an  opposing  argument  or  a 
passing  incident,  Lincoln  was  not  a  ready  man  in  extempore  ad- 
dress. His  incidental  speeches,,  delivered  when  he  felt  that  he 
had  nothing  to  say,  were  often  disappointing.  Thus  R.  E.  Fen- 
ton  wrote  of  him  :* 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  a  successful  impromptu  speaker.  He  re- 
quired a  little  time  for  thought  and  arrangement  of  the  thing  to 
be  said.  I  give  an  instance  in  point.  After  the  election  to  which 
I  have  referred,  just  before  I  resigned  my  seat  in  Congress  to ! 
enter  upon  my  official  duties  as  Governor  at  Albany,  Xew 
Yorkers  and  others  in  Washington  thought  to  honor  me  with  a 
serenade.  I  was  the  guest  of  ex-Mayor  Bowen.  After  the 
music  and  speaking  usual  upon  such  occasions,  it  was  proposed  to 
call  on  the  President.  I  accompanied  the  committee  in  charge 
of  the  proceedings,  followed  by  bands  and  a  thousand  people.  It 
was  full  nine  o'clock  when  we  reached  the  Mansion.  The  Presi- 
dent was  taken  by  surprise,  and  said  he  "didn't  know  just  what 
he  could  sav  to  satisfy  the  crowd  and  himself."  Going:  from 
the  library  room  down  the  stairs  to  the  portico  front,  he  asked 
me  to  say  a  few  words  first,  and  give  him  if  I  could  "a  peg  to 
hang  on."  It  wTas  just  when  General  Sherman  was  en  route 
from  Atlanta  to  the  sea,  and  we  had  no  definite  news  as  to  his 
safety  or  whereabouts.  After  one  or  two  sentences,  rather  com- 
monplace, the  President  farther  said  he  had  no  war  news  other 
than  was  known  to  all,  and  he  supposed  his  ignorance  in  regard 
to  General  Sherman  was  the  ignorance  of  all ;  that  "we  all  knew 
where  Sherman  went  in,  but  none  of  us  knew  where  he  would 
come  out."  This  last  remark  was  in  the  peculiarly  quaint,  happy 
manner  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  created  great  applause.  He  imme- 
diately withdrew,  saying  he  "had  raised  a  good  laugh  and  it  was 
a  good  time  for  him  to  quit."  In  all  he  did  not  speak  more  than 
two  minutes,  and,  as  he  afterward  told  me,  because  he  had  no 
time  to  think  of  much  to  say. 

In  reading  Lincoln's  formal  addresses  one  sometimes  misses 
the  power  of  a  stately  peroration.  In  the  Lincoln-Douglas  de- 
bates his  addresses  would  have  gained  in  power  if  each  one  had 

^Reminiscences  of  Abraliam  Lincoln  by  Disiinguislicd  Men  of  His  Time, 
pp.  70-71. 


LINCOLN  THE  ORATOR  389 

risen  to  a  final  climax.  We  owe  to  the  suggestion  of  Seward 
the  fact  that  the  first  inaugural  has  a  climax  with  a  ring  of  real 
eloquence,  and  the  appeal  of  strong  emotion.  Lincoln  was  ad- 
dressing his  closing  words  to  the  people  of  the  South.  He 
said : 

In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not  in 
mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  government  will 
not  assail  you.  You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being  your- 
selves the  aggressors.  You  have  no  oath  registered  in  heaven 
to  destroy  the  government,  while  I  have  a  most  solemn  one  to 
preserve,  protect  and  defend  it. 

As  Lincoln  originally  wrote  the  address  this  was  the  conclu- 
sion except  for  two  additional  sentences : 

You  can  forbear  the  assault  upon  it ;  I  cannot  shrink  from  the 
defense  of  it.  With  you  and  not  with  me  is  the  solemn  question 
of  "Shall  it  be  peace  or  a  sword?" 

This  seemed  to  Seward  too  blunt  and  abrupt  and  provocative 
I  close,  and  he  suggested  two  alternatives,  one  of  which  Lincoln 
selected  and  with  some  modification,  employed: 

I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies  but  friends.  We 
must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it 
must  not  break  our  bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  chords  of 
memory,  stretching  from  every  battlefield  and  patriot's  grave  to 
every  living  heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will 
swell  the  chorus  of  the  LTiion  when  again  touched,  as  surely 
they  will  be.  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature. 

This  peroration  possessed  the  qualities  of  real  eloquence. 
Whether  it  should  be  credited  to  Lincoln  or  Seward,  or  shared 
between  them,  we  need  not  now  discuss.  Nor  need  we  cite  in 
this  place  what  has  already  been  considered  in  its  historic  order. 
Lincoln's  second  inaugural.  That  address  belongs  wholly  to 
Lincoln  and  it  is  eloquence  of  very  high  character. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE   HUMOR   OF  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Bishop  Fowler  in  his  noted  lecture  on  Abraham  Lincoln, 
told  his  millions  of  interested  hearers  that  Lincoln,  before  pre- 
senting to  his  Cabinet  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  read 
to  them  a  chapter  from  the  Bible.  That  is  precisely  what  Lin- 
coln would  have  done  if  he  had  been  Bishop  Fowler.  What  he 
actually  did  read  was  a  chapter  from  Artemus  Ward,  concern- 
ing the  virtue  of  the  people  of  Utica,  who  would  not  permit  that 
honest  showman  to  exhibit  his  wax  figures  of  the  twelve  apostles 
in  that  city  because  Judas  was  among  them. 

John  Drinkwater  in  his  noted  play  represents  Abraham  Lin- 
coln as,  reading  this  chapter,  but  he  prefaces  the  reading  with  a 
little  lecture  explaining  that  this  is  to  relieve  the  tension  under 
which  they  have  been  living.  That  is  what  Lincoln  would  have 
done  if  he  had  been  John  Drinkwater.  But  Lincoln  made  no  ex- 
planation and  felt  no  occasion  for  any. 

Lord  Charnwood  in  his  excellent  biography  of  Lincoln  tells  us 
that  "It  was  precisely  that  sort  of  relief  to  which  Lincoln's  mind 
when  overwrought  could  always  turn" ;  and  that  "having  thus 
composed  himself  for  business"  he  produced  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation.  That  is  the  way  Lincoln  would  have  done  it  had 
he  been  Lord  Charnwood.  But  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  Lincoln  at  that  moment  felt  any  special  need  of  composing 
himself  for  the  business  of  the  occasion.  Lincoln  read  to  his 
Cabinet  this  chapter  because  he  thought  it  funny.  He  had  just 
received  the  book,  and  this  story  had  occasioned  a  good  laugh  on 
his  part.     He  wanted  his  Cabinet  to  laugh  with  him  and  most 

390 


THE  HUMOR  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  391 

of  them  did  laugh.  All  laughed,  apparently,  except  Stanton 
and  Chase.  To  Lincoln  there  was  nothing  inharmonious  in  this 
odd  juxtaposition.  To  him  the  love  of  fun  was  so  natural  and 
the  love  of  humanity  so  natural  also,  that  he  found  nothing  in- 
congruous in  the  combination. 

Lincoln's  humor  was  an  enormous  relief  to  him  from  the 
over-strain  of  his  presidential  responsibility.  But  he  did  not 
turn  from  serious  things  to  humor  upon  any  schedule,  or  in  ac- 
cordance with  any  logical  theory,  as  if  the  time  had  come  to  take 
a  dose  of  medicine,  and  Artemus  Ward  or  Petroleum  V.  Nasby 
had  been  the  prescribed  bottle.  When  anything  funny  came  Lin- 
coln's way,  he  stopped  and  enjoyed  the  fun  and  then  went  to 
work  again.  He  could  interrupt  a  solemn  Cabinet  meeting  to 
answer  the  knock  of  Elijah  Kellogg,  of  Illinois,  and  invite  him 
to  come  in  and  tell  the  story  of  the  stuttering  justice.  It  was 
not  because  the  Cabinet  at  that  particular  moment  had  reached 
the  point  where  relief  was  a  psychological  necessity.  It  was 
simply  because  Elijah  Kellogg  was  at  the  door,  and  Lincoln 
knew,  for  he  had  often  heard,  his  story  of  the  stuttering  justice. 
Some  good  people  have  seemed  to  feel  that  they  must  show  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  took  his  humor  on  a  physician's  prescription. 
He  did  nothing  of  the  kind.  When  he  lay  awake  at  night  read- 
ing Nasby  and  found  something  funny,  he  laughed  because  he 
enjoyed  it;  and  if  the  enjoyment  was  more  than  usually  great, 
he  got  out  of  bed  and  paraded  around  the  White  House  in  his 
shirt  to  discover  if  any  one  else  was  awake  who  could  share  the 
fun  with  him.  He  did  not  take  up  his  humor  as  some  men  take 
up  golf,  for  his  health.  It  was  good  for  his  health,  but  he  did 
it  because  he  enjoyed  it. 

Many  anecdotes  are  related  in  Illinois  county-seats  about  the 

practical  jokes  which  Lincoln  is  alleged  to  have  played.     For 

the   most   part,   however,   his   humor   survived   in   the   form   of 

stories.      Several  compilations   of   stories  alleged   to  have   been 

told  by  Lincoln  are  now   in  existence.     Colonel  Alexander  K. 

McClure,  of  the  Philadelphia  Times,  who  knew  Lincoln  during 
32 


392  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  war,  compiled  one  of  the  fullest  of  these  collections  and  one 
that  is  perhaps  as  reliable  as  any.  I  own  a  copy  of  this  book 
which  once  was  the  property  of  Isaac  N.  Arnold.  Upon  its  fly- 
leaf Mr.  Arnold  wrote  that  in  his  judgment  about  half  of  these 
stories  were  probably  stories  that  Lincoln  had  actually  told.  It 
is  quite  certain  that  very  many  of  the  anecdotes  attributed  to 
him  are  in  no  proper  sense  his. 

The  question  has  been  hotly  debated  whether  Lincoln  ever 
told  immodest  stories.  The  answer  is  that  in  the  days  when  he 
was  riding-  the  circuit,  his  taste  in  the  matter  of  stories  was  on 
a  level  with  that  of  the  other  lawyers  of  the  period.  His  growth 
into  an  appreciation  of  higher  and  finer  things  was  gradual ; 
and  was  the  more  marked  in  that  period  of  his  spiritual  evolu- 
tion which  came  with  the  war  and  Lincoln's  heavy  responsi- 
bilities. 

It  is  almost  hopeless  to  attempt  to  convey  the  essence  of  a 
joke  through  the  printed  page  alone.  The  aptness  of  Lincoln's 
humor  depended  upon  the  circumstances,  and  also  upon  Lincoln's 
own  tone  and  manner.  These  we  can  not  adequately  reproduce. 
A  few  of  the  better  attested  of  Lincoln's  stories  are  necessary  to 
a  book  like  this,  but  only  distantly  can  they  suggest  the  meaning 
which  Lincoln  and  his  associates  found  in  them. 

Early  in  January,  1861,  Colonel  Alexander  K.  McClure  re- 
ceived a  telegram  from  President-elect  Lincoln,  asking  McClure 
to  visit  him  at  Springfield.  Colonel  McClure  described  his  dis- 
appointment at  first  sight  of  Lincoln  in  these  words : 

"I  went  directly  from  the  depot  to  Lincoln's  house  and  rang 
the  bell,  which  was  answered  by  Lincoln  himself  opening  the 
door.  I  doubt  whether  I  wholly  concealed  my  disappointment  at 
meeting  him. 

"Tail,  gaunt,  ungainly,  ill  clad,  with  a  homeliness  of  manner 
that  was  unique  in  itself,  I  confess  that  my  heart  sank  within 
me  as  I  remembered  that  this  was  the  man  chosen  by  a  great  na- 
tion to  become  its  ruler  in  the  gravest  period  of  its  history. 

"I  remember  his  dress  as  if  it  were  but  yesterday — snuff-col- 


Courtesy,  George  Grey  B 

Statue  by  George  Grey  Barnard 


THE  HL'MOR  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  393 

ored  and  slouchy  pantaloons,  open  black  vest,  held  by  a  few- 
brass  buttons;  straight  or  evening  dress-coat,  with  tightly  fitting 
sleeves  to  exaggerate  his  long,  bony  arms,  and  all  supplemented 
by  an  awkwardness  that  was  uncommon  among  men  of  intelli- 
gence. 

''Such  was  the  picture  I  met  in  the  person  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. We  sat  down  in  his  plainly  furnished  parlor,  and  were 
uninterrupted  during  the  nearly  four  hours  that  I  remained  with 
him,  and  little  by  little,  as  his  earnestness,  sincerity  and  candor 
were  developed  in  conversation.  I  forgot  all  the  grotesque  quali- 
ties which  so  confounded  me  when  I  first  greeted  him." 

In  Lincoln  as  in  other  strong  men,  there  was  marked  individu- 
ality. Lincoln  recognized  this  quality  in  other  men,  and  he  knew 
better  than  to  expect  great  strength  in  any  man  without  some 
counterbalancing  weakness.  As  Lincoln  was  on  his  way  to 
Washington  to  make  his  last  desperate  effort  to  secure  appoint- 
ment as  land  commissioner,  he  rode  through  Indiana  on  a  stage. 
As  they  were  approaching  Indianapolis,  Lincoln  had  as  traveling 
companion  an  old  Kentuckian  who  was  returning  from  Missouri. 
Lincoln  excited  the  old  gentleman's  surprise  by  refusing  to  ac- 
cept either  of  tobacco  or  French  brandy. 

When  they  separated  that  afternoon,  the  Kentuckian  to  take 
another  stage  bound  for  Louisville,  he  shook  hands  warmly  with 
Lincoln,  and  said,  good-humoredly : 

"See  here,  stranger,  you're  a  clever  but  strange  companion.  I 
may  never  see  you  again,  and  I  don't  want  to  offend  you,  but  I 
want  to  say  this :  My  experience  has  taught  me  that  a  man  who 
has  no  vices  has  very  few  virtues.     Good  day." 

Few  enough  were  the  men  who,  having  any  little  whim  to 
gratify,  considered  the  President  too  busy  a  man  to  serve  their 
interests.  To  a  curiosity-seeker  who  desired  a  permit  to  pass 
the  lines  to  visit  the  field  of  Bull  Run.  after  the  first  battle,  Lin- 
coln made  the  following  reply :   "A  man   in   Cortlandt   County 


394  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

raised  a  porker  of  such  unusual  size  that  strangers  went  out  of 
their  way  to  see  it. 

"One  of  them  the  other  day  met  the  old  gentleman  and  in- 
quired about  the  animal. 

"  'Wall,  yes,'  the  old  fellow  said,  'I've  got  such  a  critter,  mi'ty 
big  un;  but  I  guess  I'll  have  to  charge  you  about  a  shillin'  for 
lookin'  at  him.' 

"The  stranger  looked  at  the  old  man  for  a  minute  or  so,  pulled 
out  the  desired  coin,  handed  it  to  him  and  started  to  go  off. 
'Hold  on,'  said  the  other,  'don't  you  want  to  see  the  hog?' 

"  'No,'  said  the  stranger ;  'I  have  seen  as  big  a  hog  as  I  want 
to  see!'  " 

An  astonishing  number  of  people  wanted  passes  to  the  South. 
Some  of  these  were  mere  curiosity-seekers.  Some  were  people 
who  professed  to  be  able  to  exert  influence  that  would  assist  in 
progress  toward  peace.  Many  were  Confederate  spies,  who,  on 
pretext  of  sickness  in  the  family  or  other  dire  necessity,  wanted 
liberty  to  pass  through  the  Union  into  the  Confederate  lines. 
These  requests  were  of  course  an  embarrassment,  but  many 
such  were  made. 

A  man  called  upon  the  president  one  day  and  solicited  a  pass 
for  Richmond. 

"Well,"  said  the  president,  "I  would  be  very  happy  to  oblige, 
if  my  passes  were  respected;  but  the  fact  is,  sir,  I  have,  within 
the  past  two  years,  given  passes  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand men  to  go  to  Richmond,  and  not  one  has  got  there  yet." 

The  applicant  quietly  and  respectfully  withdrew. 

Lincoln  often  surprised  applicants  for  office  by  an  apparently 
irrelevant  story,  and  he  sometimes  cut  the  knot  of  a  compli- 
cated tangle  in  a  thoroughly  characteristic  and  unexpected  way. 

A  commissioner  to  the  Hawaiian  Islands  was  to  be  appointed, 
and  eight  applicants  had  filed  their  papers,  when  a  delegation 
appeared  at  the  White  House  on  behalf  of  a  ninth.     Not  only 


THE  HUMOR  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  395 

was  their  man  qualified,  so  the  delegation  urged,  but  was  also 
in  bad  health,  and  a  residence  in  that  balmy  climate  would  be  of 
great  benefit  to  him. 

The  president  was  rather  impatient  that  day,  and  before  the 
members  of  the  delegation  had  fairly  started  in,  he  suddenly 
closed  the  interview  with  this  remark : 

"Gentlemen,  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  there  are  eight  other  ap- 
plicants for  that  place,  and  they  are  all  sicker'n  your  man." 

Lincoln  was  constantly  bothered  by  members  of  delegations  of 
people  who  thought  they  knew  all  about  running  the  war,  but 
had  no  real  knowledge  of  what  was  going  on. 

"How  many  men  have  the  Confederates  now  in  the  field?" 
asked  one  of  these  bores  one  day. 

"About  one  million  two  hundred  thousand,"  replied  the  presi- 
dent 

"Oh,  my!  Not  so  many  as  that,  surely,  Mr.  Lincoln." 
"They  have  fully  twelve  hundred  thousand,  no  doubt  of  it. 
You  see,  all  of  our  generals  when  they  get  whipped  say  the 
enemy  outnumbers  them  from  three  or  five  to  one,  and  I  must 
believe  them.  We  have  four  hundred  thousand  men  in  the  field, 
and  three  times  four  makes  twelve, — don't  you  see  it?  It  is  as 
plain  to  be  seen  as  the  nose  on  a  man's  face;  and  at  the  rate 
things  are  now  going,  with  the  great  amount  of  speculation  and 
the  small  crop  of  fighting,  it  will  take  a  long  time  to  overcome 
twelve  hundred  thousand  rebels  in  arms." 

Lincoln  heartily  disliked  those  boisterous  people  who  were 
constantly  deluging  him  with  advice,  and  shouting  at  the  tops  of 
their  voices  whenever  they  appeared  at  the  White  House.  "These 
noisy  people  create  a  great  clamor,"  said  he  one  day,  in  conver- 
sation with  some  personal  friends,  "and  remind  me,  by  the  way, 
of  a  good  story  I  heard  out  in  Illinois  while  I  was  practising,  or 
trying  to  practise,  some  law  there.  I  will  say,  though,  that  I 
practised  more  law  than  I  ever  got  paid  for. 


396  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

"A  fellow  who  lived  just  out  of  town,  on  the  bank  of  a  large 
marsh,  conceived  a  big  idea  in  the  money-making  line.  He  took 
it  to  a  prominent  merchant,  and  began  to  develop  his  plans  and 
specifications.  'There  are  at  least  ten  million  frogs  in  that  marsh 
near  me,  an'  I'll  just  arrest  a  couple  of  carloads  of  them  and 
hand  them  over  to  you.  You  can  send  them  to  the  big  cities 
and  make  lots  of  money  for  both  of  us.  Frogs'  legs  are  great 
delicacies  in  the  big  towns,  an'  not  very  plentiful.  It  won't  take 
me  more'n  two  or  three  days  to  pick  'em.  They  make  so  much 
noise  my  family  can't  sleep,  and  by  this  deal  I'll  get  rid  of  a 
nuisance  and  gather  in  some  cash.' 

"The  merchant  agreed  to  the  proposition,  promised  the  fellow 
he  would  pay  him  well  for  the  two  carloads.  Two  days  passed, 
then  three,  and  finally  two  weeks  were  gone  before  the  fellow 
showed  up  again,  carrying  a  small  basket.  He  looked  weary 
and  'done  up,'  and  he  wasn't  talkative  a  bit.  He  threw  the 
basket  on  the  counter  with  the  remark,  'There's  your  frogs.' 

"  'You  haven't  two  carloads  in  that  basket,  have  you  ?'  in- 
quired the  merchant. 

"  'No,'  was  the  reply,  'and  there  ain't  no  two  carloads  in  all 
this  blasted  world.' 

"  T  thought  you  said  there  were  at  least  ten  million  of  'em  in 
that  marsh  near  you,  according  to  the  noise  they  made.'  observed 
the  merchant.     'Your  people  couldn't  sleep  because  of  'em.' 

;  'Well,'  said  the  fellow,  'accordin'  to  the  noise  they  made, 
there  was,  I  thought,  a  hundred  million  of  'em,  but  when  I  had 
waded  and  swum  that  there  marsh  day  and  night  fer  two  blessed 
weeks,  I  couldn't  harvest  but  six.  There's  two  or  three  left  yet, 
an'  the  marsh  is  as  noisy  as  it  uster  be.  We  haven't  catched  up 
on  any  of  our  lost  sleep  yet.  Now,  you  can  have  these  here  six. 
an'  I  won't  charge  you  a  cent  fer  'em.' 

"You  can  see  by  this  little  yarn,''  remarked  the  president, 
"that  these  boisterous  people  make  too  much  noise  in  proportion 
to  their  numbers." 

Letters  of  advice  to  the  president  overloaded  the  patient  mes- 


THE  HUMOR  OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  397 

jsenger  who  regularly  brought  in  the  heavy  bag  containing  White 
House  mail.  Most  of  these  letters  the  president  never  saw. 
Once  in  a  long  time  a  letter  came  whose  author  knew  that  the 
thing  which  he  proposed  was  absurd.  One  man  from  Tolona, 
Illinois,  gave  to  the  president  a  hearty  laugh  by  his  proposal  to 
raise  a  regiment  of  cross-eyed  men : 

"I  know  enough  cross-eyed  men  to  fill  up  the  regiment,  and. 
by  thunder.  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  am  cross-eyed  enough  10  be  the 
colonel  of  it." 

He  proposed  to  arm  his  regiment  with  double-barreled  gun-. 
the  barrels  arranged  to  fire  at  different  angles.  He  then  would 
inarch  his  regiment  along  the  river  and  clean  up  both  banks  at 
once. 

Lincoln  made  no  pretense  of  being  a  soldier,  but  he  showed  a 
good  degree  of  military  sagacity.  When  Hood's  army  had  been 
.scattered  into  fragments,  after  the  battles  of  Franklin  and 
Nashville,  President  Lincoln,  elated  by  the  defeat  of  what  had 
so  long  been  a  menacing  force  on  the  borders  of  Tennessee,  was 
reminded  by  its  collapse  of  the  fate  of  a  savage  dog  belonging  to 
one  of  his  neighbors  in  the  frontier  settlements  in  which  he  lived 
in  his  youth.  "The  dog."  he  said,  "was  the  terror  of  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  its  owner,  a  churlish  and  quarrelsome  fellow  took 
pleasure  in  the  brute's  forcible  attitude. 

"Finally,  all  other  means  having  failed  to  subdue  the  creature, 
a  man  loaded  a  lump  of  meat  with  a  charge  of  powder,  to  which 
was  attached  a  slow  fuse :  this  was  dropped  where  the  dreaded 
dog  would  find  it.  and  the  animal  gulped  down  the  tempting 
bait. 

"There  was  a  dull  rumbling,  a  muffled  explosion,  and  frag- 
ments of  the  dog  were  seen  flying  in  every  direction.  The 
grieved  owner,  picking  up  the  shattered  remains  of  his  cruel 
favorite,  said:  'He  was  a  good  dog.  but  as  a  dog,  his  days  of 
usefulness  are  over.'  Hood's  army  was  a  good  army,"  said  Lin- 
coln, by  way  of  comment,  "and  we  were  all  afraid  of  it.  but  as  an 
arm  v.  its  usefulness  is  gone." 


398  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

An  officer,  having  had  some  trouble  with  General  Sherman, 
and  being  very  angry,  presented  himself  before  Mr.  Lincoln, 
who  was  visiting  the  camp  at  City  Point,  and  said,  "Mr.  Presi- 
dent, I  have  a  cause  of  grievance.  This  morning  I  went  to  Gen- 
eral Sherman  and  he  threatened  to  shoot  me." 

"Threatened  to  shoot  you?"  asked  Mr.  Lincoln.  "Well,  [in  a 
stage  whisper]  if  I  were  you  I  would  keep  away  from  him;  if  he 
threatens  to  shoot,  I  would  not  trust  him,  for  I  believe  he  would 
do  it." 

Lincoln  showed  great  ingenuity  in  locating  the  incidents 
which  he  related.  While  he  was  on  the  circuit,  he  told  stories  of 
"a  man  I  knew  in  Indiana,"  or  "a  woman  who  lived  down  in 
Egypt," — that  is,  in  southern  Illinois.  He  was  careful  to  place 
them  far  enough  away  to  save  the  feelings  of  people  near  at 
hand,  yet  not  too  far  to  make  them  a  part  of  his  own  experience. 
In  this  manner  he  worked  over  many  old  stories,  and  made  them 
as  good  as  new.  In  Washington,  his  stories  were  more  fre- 
quently located  in  Illinois. 

President  Lincoln,  in  company  with  General  Grant,  was  in- 
specting the  Dutch  Gap  Canal  at  City  Point. 

"Grant,  do  you  know  what  this  reminds  me  of?  Out  in 
Springfield  there  was  a  blacksmith,  who,  not  having  much  to  do, 
took  a  piece  of  soft  iron  and  attempted  to  weld  it  into  an  agri- 
cultural implement,  but  discovered  that  the  iron  would  not  hold 
out.  Then  he  concluded  it  would  make  an  ax,  but  having  too 
little  iron,  attempted  to  make  a  claw-hammer.  He  decided  after 
working  a  while  that  there  was  not  enough  iron  left.  Finally, 
becoming  disgusted,  he  filled  the  forge  full  of  coal  and  brought 
the  iron  to  a  white  heat;  then  with  his  tongs  he  lifted  it  from 
the  bed  of  coals,  and  thrusting  it  into  a  tub  of  water  near  by,  ex- 
claimed :  'Well,  if  I  can't  make  anything  else  of  you,  I  will  make 
a  fizzle,  anyhow.'  " 

"I  "was  afraid  that  was  about  what  we  had  done  with  the 
Dutch  Gap  Canal,"  said  General  Grant. 

When   Governor  Andrew   Curtin  of   Pennsylvania,   described 


THE  HUMOR  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  399 

the.  terrible  butchery  at  the  battle  of  Fredericksburg,  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  greatly  distressed. 

The  governor  regretted  that  his  description  had  so  sadly  af- 
fected the  president.  He  remarked :  "I  would  give  all  I  pos- 
sess to  know  how  to  rescue  you  from  this  terrible  war." 

Lincoln's  whole  aspect  suddenly  changed,  and  he  relieved  his 
mind  by  telling  a  story. 

'This  reminds  me,  Governor,"  he  said,  "of  an  old  farmer  that 
I  used  to  know,  out  in  Illinois. 

"He  took  it  into  his  head  to  go  into  hog-raising.  He  sent  out 
to  Europe  and  imported  the  finest  breed  of  hogs  he  could  buy. 

"The  prize  hog  was  put  in  a  pen,  and  the  farmer's  two  mis- 
chievous boys,  James  and  John,  were  told  to  be  sure  not  to  let 
it  out.  But  James,  the  worst  of  the  two,  let  the  brute  out  the 
next  day.  The  hog  went  straight  for  the  boys,  and  drove  John 
up  a  tree,  then  the  hog  went  for  the  seat  of  James'  trousers,  and 
the  only  way  the  boy  could  save  himself  was  by  holding  on  to 
the  hog's  tail. 

"The  hog  would  not  give  up  his  hunt,  nor  the  boy  his  hold! 
After  they  had  made  a  good  many  circles  around  the  tree,  the 
boy's  courage  began  to  give  out,  and  he  shouted  to  his  brother, 
T  say,  John,  come  down,  quick,  and  help  me  let  go  this  hog!' 

"Now,  Governor,  that  is  exactly  my  case.  I  wish  some  one 
would  come  and  help  me  to  let  the  hog  go." 

General  Creswell  called  at  the  White  House  to  see  the  presi- 
dent shortly  before  the  latter's  assassination.  An  old  friend, 
serving  in  the  Confederate  ranks,  had  been  captured  by  the 
Union  troops  and  sent  to  prison.  General  Creswell  had  drawn 
an  affidavit  setting  forth  what  he  knew  about  the  man,  par- 
ticularly mentioning  extenuating  circumstances. 

Creswell  found  the  president  very  happy.  He  was  greeted 
with  :  "Creswell,  old  fellow,  everything  is  bright  this  morning. 
The  war  is  over.  It  has  been  a  tough  time,  but  we  have  lived 
it  out, — or  some  of  us  have,"  and  he  dropped  his  voice  a  little 


400  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

on  the  last  clause  of  the  sentence.  "But  it  is  over;  we  are  going 
to  have  good  times  now,  and  a  united  country." 

General  Creswell  told  his  story,  read  his  affidavit,  and  said,  "I 
know  the  man  has  acted  like  a  fool,  but  he  is  my  friend,  and  a 
good  fellow;  let  him  out;  give  him  to  me,  and  I  will  be  respon- 
sible that  he  won't  have  anything  more  to  do  with  the  rebs." 

"Creswell,"  replied  Air.  Lincoln,  "you  make  me  think  of  a  lot 
of  young  folks  who  once  started  out  Maying.  To  reach  their 
destination,  they  had  to  cross  a  shallow  stream,  and  did  so  by 
means  of  an  old  flat-boat.  When  the  time  came  to  return,  they 
found  to  their  dismay  that  the  old  scow  had  disappeared.  They 
were  in  sore  trouble,  and  thought  over  all  manner  of  devices  for 
getting  over  the  water,  but  without  avail. 

"After  a  time,  one  of  the  boys  proposed  that  each  fellow 
should  pick  up  the  girl  he  liked  best  and  wade  over  with  her. 
The  masterly  proposition  was  carried  out,  until  all  that  were 
left  upon  the  island  was  a  little  short  chap  and  a  great,  long, 
gothic-built,  elderly  lady. 

"Now,  Creswell,  you  are  trying  to  leave  me  in  the  same  pre- 
dicament. You  fellows  are  all  getting  your  own  friends  out  of 
this  scrape;  and  you  will  succeed  in  carrying  off  one  after  an- 
other, until  nobody  but  Jeff  Davis  and  myself  will  be  left  on  the 
island,  and  then  I  won't  know  what  to  do.  How  should  I  feel? 
How  should  I  look,  lugging  him  over? 

"I  guess  the  way  to  avoid  such  an  embarrasing  situation  is  to 
let  them  all  out  at  once." 

Lincoln  greatly  enjoyed  the  effect  of  a  little  joke  which  he 
played  now  and  then  on  people  who  thought  he  was  about  to 
confide  to  them  some  secret  about  military  or  naval  movements. 
There  was  a  certain  naval  expedition  concerning  which  there  was 
much  anxiety,  and  more  than  one  person  called  on  Lincoln  to 
learn  its  destination.  "Can  you  keep  a  secret?"  asked  the  presi- 
dent.    "I'll  tell  you  where  it's  gone;  it's  gone  to  sea!" 

Colonel  McClure  had  been  in  consultation  with  the  president 
one  day,  about  two  weeks  after  Sherman's  disappearance,  and 
in  this  connection  related  this  incident : 


THE  HUMOR  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  401 

"I  was  leaving  the  room,  and  just  as  I  reached  the  door  the 
president  turned  around,  and,  with  a  merry  twinkling  of  the 
eye,  inquired,  'McClure,  wouldn't  you  like  to  hear  something 
from  Sherman  ?' 

"The  inquiry  electrified  me  at  the  instant,  as  it  seemed  to  im- 
ply that  Lincoln  had  some  information  on  the  subject.  I  im- 
mediately answered.  'Yes.  most  of  all.  I  should  like  to  hear  from 
Sherman.' 

"To  this  President  Lincoln  answered,  with  a  hearty  laugh: 
'Well,  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  wouldn't,  myself.'  ' 

While  humorous  songs  delighted  the  president,  he  also  loved 
to  listen  to  patriotic  airs  and  ballads  containing  sentiment.  He 
was  fond  of  hearing  The  Sword  of  Bunker  Hill.  Ben  Bolt,  and 
The  Lament  of  the  Irish  Emigrant.  His  preference  of  the  verses 
in  the  latter  was  this : 

I'm  lonely  now,  Mary. 

For  the  poor  make  no  new  friends; 
But,  oh,  they  love  the  better  still 

The  few  our  Father  sends ! 
And  you  were  all  I  had,  Mary, 

My  blessing  and  my  pride : 
There's  nothing  left  to  care  for  now, 

Since  my  poor  Mary  died. 

Lincoln  was  fond  of  the  theater,  and  never,  except  in  Wash- 
ington, was  he  in  a  city-  where  there  was  a  theatrical  performance 
every  night.  His  official  duties  did  not  permit  him  to  attend 
very  often,  and  when  he  was  able  to  go  he  enjoyed  the  play, 
whether  comedy  or  tragedy.  He  had  not  sufficient  experience 
to  be  a  discriminating  critic,  and  his  tastes  were  elemental.  He 
liked  the  jokes  to  be  broad  enough  to  be  discoverable. 

In  Illinois,  he  was  pleased  when  he  could  attend  an  entertain- 
ment of  negro  minstrels.  The  old-time  minstrel  show  was  a 
clean  and  whole-ome   frolic.      Christv's   Minstrels   were   nothing 


402  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

less  than  an   institution,  and  other  shows  took  their  key  from 
Christy.     For  this  troupe  Stephen  C.  Foster  wrote  most  of  his  I 
one  hundred  seventy-five  songs,  some  of  them  exquisitely  tender, 
others  jolly  and  gay. 

The  old-time  minstrel  show  had  a  group  of  performers  seated  ! 
in  a  curve  so  that  the  interlocutor,  who  occupied  the  center  chair, 
could  talk  with  any  performer,  with  the  players  of  fiddles  and 
banjos  and  guitars  on  his  right  and  left,  and  especially  with  the 
two  end-men,  "Bones"  and  "Tambo,"  who  were  the  chief  con-  j 
versationalists.  There  were  sentimental  songs  and  noisy  choruses 
and  merry  dialogue  and  local  jokes.  There  was  the  song  about 
Jim-along-J  osey : 

T'ree  or  fo'  possum,  five  or  six  coon, 
Settin'  on  a  pine-log  singin'  dis  tune, 
'Twas — 
Hey,  come-along,  Jim-along  Josey, 
Hey  come-along,  Jim-along  Joe. 

There  was  one  with  a  whirl  and  a  jump : 

Twist  around,  turn  around,  jump  just  so! 
Every  time  you  turn  around  you  jump  Jim  Crow ! 

The  phrase  became  so  popular  that  when  a  person  was  startled, 
he  was  said  to  "jump  Jim  Crow"  and  the  name  has  attached  it- 
self to  the  railway  car  for  colored  people.  But  in  the  beginning, 
it  was  just  a  catchy  melody  with  a  whirl  and  a  jump. 

1  here  was  nothing  subtle  or  delicate  about  this  kind  of  humor, 
but  it  was  mirth  without  malice,  fun  without  filth.  In  the  hearty 
and  boisterous  laughter  evoked  by  the  dialogue  and  song  and  the 
buck-and-wing  dancing  there  was  relief  from  care,  and  nothing* 
that  left  a  bad  taste  in  the  mouth. 

There  has  been  some  effort  to  learn  whether  Lincoln  was  in 
St.  Louis  on  a  night  when  Thackeray  gave  a  reading  there  and 
if  so,  whether  Lincoln  attended.  Mr.  Weik  probably  secured  the 
correct  information  from  a  man  who  knew  Lincoln,  and  who 
said,  that  if  Lincoln  was  in  town,  and  knew  that  Thackeray  was 


THE  HUMOR  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  403 

to  lecture  in  one  hall,  and  Ramsey's  minstrels  were  to  give  a 
burnt-cork  show  in  another,  it  would  have  been  useless  to  look 
for  Abraham  Lincoln  at  the  lecture. 

Probably  Lincoln  never  heard  the  genuine  Christy  singers. 
While  he  was  in  Chicago  in  the  spring  of  i860,  trying  the  "Sand- 
bar case"  he  attended  Rumsey  and  Newcomb's  minstrels,  and 
greatly  enjoyed  the  evening.  There,  for  the  first  time,  he  heard 
that  "Ethiopian  Walk-around,"  by  D.  D.  Emmett,  Dixie.  Whit- 
ney says : 

"It  was  then  entirely  new ;  and  was  the  most  extravagant  min- 
strel performance  I  ever  saw.  Lincoln  was  perfectly  'taken'  with 
it,  and  clapped  his  great  hands,  demanding  an  encore,  louder 
than  anyone.     I  never  saw  him  so  enthusiastic* 

Lincoln  never  ceased  to  enjoy  Dixie.  It  was  played  at  a  White 
House  serenade  just  after  the  surrender  of  Lee's  army,  and  Lin- 
coln made  reference  to  it  as  having  been  captured  from  the  Con- 
federates, and  being  legitimately  ours. 

Lincoln  enjoyed  a  story  told  concerning  a  son  of  President 
John  Tyler,  who  went  to  the  president  of  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  railway  and  asked  for  a  special  train  for  the  president,  who 
had  been  invited  to  deliver  an  address  in  another  city.  The 
president  of  the  railway  was  a  Whig,  and  had  no  love  for  Tyler. 
"Our  regular  train  is  good  enough,"  he  answered  curtly 

"But,"  said  young  Tyler,  "you  furnished  a  special  train  for  the 
funeral  of  the  late  President  Harrison." 

To  which  the  railway  chief  replied,  "Tell  President  Tyler  that 
under  like  conditions  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  furnish  a  special 
train  for  him." 

One  of  the  humorists  whom  Lincoln  greatly  enjoyed  was  "Or- 
pheus C.  Kerr,"f  or  "Office  Seeker"  who  wrote  from  intimate 
knowledge  of  Washington  his  then  much  enjoyed  papers.  To 
General  Meigs  Lincoln  spoke  of  an  incident  which,  he  said,  Or- 


*\Yhitney's  Life  on  the  Circuit  with  Lincoln,  p.  88. 

tThe  real  name  of  "Orpheus  C.  Kerr"  was  Robert  H.  Newell.  He  pub- 
lished one  volume  of  sketches  in  1862,  and  another  in  1863.  Both  of  those 
Lincoln  read  and  enjoyed.     A  third  volume  was  published  later. 


404  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

pheus  C.  Kerr  would  use  to  advantage,  and  he  was  surprised  to 
know  that  Meigs  had  never  heard  of  him.     Lincoln  said: 

"Why,  have  you  never  read  his  papers?  They  are  in  two  vol- 
umes. Any  one  who  has  not  read  them  is  a  heathen."  He 
added  that  he  enjoyed  those  that  made  fun  of  members  of  his 
Cabinet,  but  he  thought  that  those  members  liked  better  the  ones 
that  made  fun  of  him.  Lincoln  said  that  he  did  not  think  those  | 
that  made  fun  of  him  were  really  as  funny  as  those  that  joked 
about  his  Cabinet.  Some  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  present 
when  Lincoln,  himself  joking,  made  these  remarks.  Lincoln 
said  he  especially  enjoyed  an  allegorical  poem  by  this  author 
which  represented  McClellan  as  a  monkey  preparing  to  fight  a 
serpent,  but  afraid  to  fight  until  he  had  more  tail.  So  he  re- 
peatedly called  on  Jove  for  more  tail,  which  Jupiter  gave  to  him, 
until  the  monkey  was  too  much  encumbered  by  his  tail  to  move 
at  all. 

Henry  J.  Raymond,  the  editor  of  the  New  York  Times,  thus 
tells  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  fondness  for  the  Nasby  letters : 

"It  has  been  well  said  by  a  profound  critic  of  Shakespeare,  and 
it  occurs  to  me  as  very  appropriate  in  this  connection,  that  'the 
spirit  which  held  the  woe  of  Lear  and  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet 
would  have  broken  had  it  not  also  had  the  humor  of  the  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor  and  the  merriment  of  the  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream/ 

"This  is  as  true  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  it  was  of  Shakespeare.  The 
capacity  to  tell  and  enjoy  a  good  anecdote  no  doubt  prolonged 
his  life. 

"The  Saturday  evening  before  he  left  \Yashington  to  go  to 
the  front,  just  previous  to  the  capture  of  Richmond,  I  was  with 
him  from  seven  o'clock  till  nearly  twelve.  It  had  been  one  of  his 
most  trying  days.  The  pressure  of  office-seekers  was  greater  at 
this  juncture  than  1  ever  knew  it  to  be,  and  he  was  almost  worn 
out. 

"Among  the  callers  that  evening  was  a  party  composed  of 
two  senators,   a   representative,   an   ex-lieutenant-governor  of  a 


THE  HUMOR  OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN         405 

western  state,  and  several  private  citizens.  They  had  husiness  of 
great  importance,  involving  the  necessity  of  the  president's  ex- 
amination of  voluminous  documents.  Pushing  everything  aside, 
he  said  to  one  of  the  party : 

"  'Have  you  seen  the  Nasby  papers?' 
"'No,  I  have  not.'  was  the  reply;  'who  is  Nasby?' 
"  'There  is  a  chap  out  in  Ohio,'  returned  the  president,  'who 
has  been  writing  a  series  of  letters  in  the  newspapers  over  the 
signature  of  Petroleum  V.  Nasby.     Some  one  sent  me  a  pam- 
phlet collection  of  them  the  other  day.     I  am  going  to  write  to 
*' Petroleum"  to  come  down  here,  and  I  intend  to  tell  him  if  he 
will  communicate  his  talent  to  me,  I  will  swap  places  with  him!' 
"Thereupon  he  arose,  went  to  a  drawer  in  his  desk,  and.  tak- 
ing out  the  'Letters,'  sat  down  and  read  one  to  the  company, 
finding  in  their  enjoyment  of  it  the  temporary  excitement  and 
relief  which  another  man  would  have  found  in  a  glass  of  wine. 
The  instant  he  had  ceased,  the  book  was  thrown  aside,  his  coun- 
tenance  relapsed   into   its   habitual    serious   expression,    and    the 
business  was  entered  upon  with  the  utmost  earnestness." 

Concerning  Lincoln's  love  for  the  Nasby  letters  written  by 
David  R.  Locke  of  the  Toledo  Blade,  there  is  abundant  testi- 
mony. These  letters  with  their  atrocious  spelling  were  mostly 
dated  at  "Confederit  N  Roads  which  is  in  the  State  of  Ken- 
tucky." Their  author,  the  Reverend  Petroleum  Vesuvius  Nasby, 
was  alleged  to  be  pastor  of  a  congregation  in  that  place.  His 
pastoral  duties  however,  occupied  small  place  in  his  correspon- 
dence. He  was  a  seeker  after  political  honors  from  the  local 
postmastership  to  the  presidency.  Lincoln  read  these  letters  as 
they  appeared  from  week  to  week.  When  the  first  group  of 
them  was  issued  in  pamphlet  form  he  read  and  reread  the  letters 
both  for  his  own  edification  and  the  instruction  of  his  friends. 
It  is  interesting  to  find  him  reading  them  to  the  dignified  Sen- 
ator Charles  Sumner.  So  impressed  was  the  Massachusetts 
Senator  with  Lincoln's  love  of  this  literature  that  the   Senator 


406  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

himself  consented  to  write  the  introduction  to  a  collected  edi- 
tion of  the  Nasby  letters  issued  in  1872.  Senator  Sumner's  story 
of  Lincoln's  love  for  this  literature  constitutes  the  closing  por- 
tion of  this  introduction : 

I  had  occasion  to  see  President  Lincoln  very  late  in  the  even- 
ing of  March  17,  1865.  The  interview  was  in  the  familiar  room 
known  as  his  office,  and  was  also  used  for  cabinet  meetings.  I 
did  not  take  leave  of  him  until  sometime  after  midnight,  and 
then  the  business  was  not  entirely  finished.  As  I  rose,  he  said, 
"Come  to  me  when  I  open  shop  in  the  morning;  I  will  have  the 
order  written,  and  you  shall  see  it."  "When  do  you  open  shop?" 
said  I.  "At  nine  o'clock,"  he  replied.  At  the  hour  named  I  was 
in  the  same  room  I  had  so  recently  left.  Very  soon  the  Presi- 
dent entered,  stepping  quickly  with  the  promised  order  in  his 
hands  which  he  at  once  read  to  me.  It  was  to  disapprove  and 
annul  the  judgment  and  sentence  of  a  court-martial  in  a  case  that 
had  excited  much  feeling.  While  I  was  making  an  abstract  for 
telegraph  to  the  anxious  parties,  he  broke  into  a  quotation  from 
Nasby.  Finding  me  less  at  home  than  himself  with  his  favorite 
humorist,  he  said  pleasantly,  "I  must  initiate  you."  And  then 
lie  repeated  with  enthusiasm  the  message  he  had  sent  to  the 
author : 

"For  the  genius  to  write  these  things,  I  would  gladly  give  up 
my  office." 

Rising  from  his  seat,  he  opened  a  desk  behind,  and,  taking 
from  it  a  pamphlet  collection  of  the  letters  already  published 
read  with  infinite  zest,  in  which  his  melancholy  features  grew 
bright.  It  was  a  delight  to  see  him  surrender  so  completely  to 
the  fascination.  Finding  that  I  listened,  he  read  for  more  than 
twenty  minutes,  and  was  still  proceeding,  when  it  occurred  to 
him  that  there  must  be  many  at  the  door  -waiting  to  see  him  on 
graver  matters.  Taking  advantage  of  a  pause,  I  rose,  and, 
thanking  him  for  the  lesson  of  the  morning,  went  away.  Some 
thirty  persons,  including  senators  and  representatives  were  in 
the  ante-room  as  I  passed  out.  Though  with  the  president  much 
during  the  intervening  time  before  his  death,  this  was  the  last 
business  I  transacted  with  him.  A  few  days  later  he  left  Wash- 
ington for  City  Point,  in  the  James  River,  where  he  was  at  the 
surrender  of  Richmond.     April  6,  I  joined  him  there.     April  9, 


THE  HUMOR  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  407 

the  party  returned  to  Washington.  On  the  evening  of  April  14, 
the  bullet  of  an  assassin  took  his  life.  In  this  simple  story.  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  introduces  Nasby. 

Lincoln's  love  for  the  writings  of  Artemus  Ward  was  very 
great.  He  loved  the  autobiographical  sketches  by  the  proprietor 
of  the  "highly  moral  show"  with  which  Artemus  professed  to  be 
touring  the  country,  and  of  his  various  adventures  when  en  route. 
His  "wax  figgers"  afforded  him  opportunity  to  discuss  various 
historic  characters.  When  the  crowd  pulled  the  hay  out  of  the 
fat  man.  the  palpable  fraud  which  Artemus  had  been  perpetrat- 
ing caused  the  president  to  roar  with  appreciation.  The  kanga- 
roo, ''that  amusin'  little  cuss."  could  be  counted  on  now  and  then 
for  a  flying  adventure,  and  Artemus  had  a  "boy-constrictor'' 
that  was  useful  on  occasion.  But  Artemus  did  not  confine  his 
discussions  to  the  show  business.  He  professed  to  have  visited 
Washington  and  the  White  House,  where  he  roundly  lectured 
the  office  seekers  for  bothering  Old  Abe  when  they  ought  to 
have  been  in  better  business.  He  drove  them  out  by  threatening 
to  turn  his  "boy-constrictor"  in  among  them.  When,  according 
to  this  facetious  narrative.  Lincoln  in  gratitude  asked  the  advice 
of  Artemus  about  the  composition  of  his  Cabinet,  Artemus  ad- 
vised him  to  select  its  members  wholly  from  showmen — "Show- 
men are  all  honest :  for  particulars  see  small  bills." 

Artemus  also  journeyed  to  Richmond,  according  to  these  nar- 
ratives, and  interviewed  Jefferson  Davis,  whom  he  scolded  sound- 
ly for  attempting  to  break  up  the  Union.  He  opined  "that  it 
would  have  been  ten  dollars  in  Jeff's  pocket  if  he  had  never  been 
born."  Meat  was  so  scarce  in  the  hotels  in  Richmond  that  Arte- 
mus forbore  to  order  steak  or  roast;  horses,  cats  and  dogs,  he 
averred,  were  substituting  for  those  luxuries  in  the  Richmond 
hotels.  So  Artemus  ordered  hash:  then  he  knew  just  what  he 
was  getting. 

Artemus  was  a  patriot :  he  was  determined  to  put  down  the  re- 
bellion if  in  the  effort  he  sacrificed  all  his  wife's  relations.  He 
was  troubled   for  a  time  in  Washington,  to  discover  \vh?t  the 


408  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

initials  M.  C.  stood  for,  at  length  he  learned.  They  stood  for  the 
title  ''Miserable  Cuss." 

When  Charles  Farrar  Browne  began  writing  these  letters 
for  the  Cleveland  Plain  Dealer,  he  probably  had  little  intention 
of  going  into  military  or  political  matters.  He  may  or  may  not 
have  known  that  the  name  he  chose  for  himself,  Artemus  Ward, 
was,  except  for  a  slight  variation  in  spelling,  the  name  of  a 
Revolutionary  general. 

Much  of  the  quality  which  caused  his  humor  to  be  most  ap- 
preciated in  its  day  was  clue  to  current  interest  in  matters  con- 
cerning which  taste  has  changed  and  memory  of  events  grown 
dim.  But  a  student  of  the  period  of  the  Civil  War  would  have 
no  difficulty  in  understanding  Lincoln's  appreciation  of  this 
war-time  humor.  Artemus  Ward  may  not  have  gone  the  full 
length  of  his  generous  offer  in  sacrificing  all  of  his  wife's  rela- 
tions to  the  putting  down  of  the  rebellion.  But  his  broad  whole- 
some humor  together  with  his  understanding  of  military  and 
political  conditions  and  his  intelligent  sympathy  with  Lincoln  in 
the  burdens  he  was  bearing  certainly  contributed  effectively  to 
that  result.     He  did  help  put  down  the  rebellion. 


CHAPTER  XXX 


MRS.    LINCOLN 


The  tomb  at  Oak  Ridge  received  the  mortal  remains  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  and  left  his  widow  in  her  almost  solitary  grief. 
How  alone  she  was,  and  how  worse  than  useless  was  some  of  the 
advice  she  had,  is  pitifully  evidenced  in  a  book  that  betrayed  her 
confidence  and  proclaimed  to  the  public  her  aberrations  and 
follies.*  Xot  yet  has  the  world  been  just  to  her.  I  should  like, 
if  I  can,  to  give  a  fair  and  truthful  picture  of  that  much  abused 
woman. 

If  the  light  that  beats  upon  a  throne  is  such  as  to  reveal  every 
sad  frailty  of  him  who  occupies  it,  the  light  that  glances  upon 
and  within  the  White  House  is  still  more  cruelly  searching.  Not 
without  reason  has  the  presidency  been  declared  a  man-killing 
job.  The  bullet  has  killed  three  of  our  presidents;  but  these  are 
not  our  only  presidential  murders.  It  is  no  part  of  the  preroga- 
tive of  this  book  to  compile  a  list  of  them. 

But  if  we  are  unintentionally  cruel  to  our  presidents,  what 
shall  be  said  of  the  manner  in  which  we  treat  their  wives?  Who 
among  them  has  escaped  idle  curiosity  and  even  spiteful  slander, 
from  staid  Martha  Washington  and  gay  Dolly  Madison  down  to 
the  second  Mrs.  Woodrow  Wilson  and  Mrs.  Warren  G.  Har- 
ding ? 

Xo  woman  who  has  occupied  the  White  House  has  been  more 
vulnerable  to  attack  than  Mary  Todd  Lincoln ;  and  no  one  of 
them,  unless  possibly  the  wife  of  President  Andrew  Jackson, 
suffered    such   merciless   slander.    The   time   has   come   when    it 


*Behind  the  Scenes,  by  Elizabeth  Keckly. 

409 


4io  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

should  be  possible  to  tell  the  truth  and  the  whole  truth  concern- 
ing Mary  Todd  Lincoln. 

Both  by  birth  and  breeding,  Mary  Todd  Lincoln  was  a  proud 
and  ambitious  woman.  In  her  girlhood  she  was  admired  rather 
than  loved ;  for  though  she  had  a  generous  nature,  and  on  occa- 
sion could  go  to  great  lengths  of  devotion  for  those  she  liked, 
she  had  a  quick  wit  and  a  sharp  tongue. 

She  was  affectionate,  ardent,  passionate,  and  to  a  hot  temper 
she  joined  a  stubborn  will.  She  married  Abraham  Lincoln  as 
deliberately  as  such  a  woman  ever  could  do  anything.  She  was 
a  creature  of  impulse,  but  she  had  her  choice.  She  selected  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  from  among  her  many  suitors  for  two  reasons ; 
he  was  likely  to  gratify  her  ambition,  and  she  sincerely  cared  for 
him. 

Their  courtship  was  tempestuous.  We  ignore  all  disputable 
details;  they  quarreled;  they  were  foredoomed  to  quarrel.  After 
their  marriage,  they  still  quarreled.  He  annoyed  her  often,  in- 
furiated her  sometimes,  by  his  disregard  of  convention  and  his 
lack  of  appreciation  of  her  feelings.  He  was  thick-skinned  and 
oblivious  of  minor  discomforts ;  she  was  sensitive  to  a  degree. 

Usually  he  bore  her  outbursts  of  temper  with  good-natured 
imperturbability;  it  did  Mary  good  to  scold,  and  did  not  hurt 
him.  If  she  continued  to  scold,  he  put  on  his  hat  and  walked  to 
the  office  or  to  a  seat  in  the  corner  store,  and  returned  serenely 
after  the  storm  had  blown  over.  But  there  were  times  (and 
this  is  a  part  of  the  story  as  yet  untold),  when  even  his  thick 
skin  wore  through.  Once  in  a  long  while  his  sluggish  but  ve- 
hement temper  got  the  better  of  him;  and  when  it  did,  he  said 
and  did  things  which  afterward  caused  him  bitter  self-reproach. 

Those  do  greatly  err  who  say  that  Mary  Todd  married  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  out  of  spite  or  revenge,  or  that  he  married  her 
solely  out  of  ambition.  The  fact  is,  that,  spite  of  all  their  quar- 
rels, they  cared  for  each  other. 

Lincoln  was  a  man  of  great  ambition.     He  wanted  office,  al- 


MRS.  LINCOLN  411 

ways  wanted  it;  and  when  in  office  always  wanted  a  higher  of- 
fice. Ambition  was  the  main  spring  of  his  career.  Mary  Todd 
was  quite  as  ambitious  as  her  husband,  and  had  quite  as  sound 
judgment  as  he  with  regard  to  the  best  way  to  realize  their  am- 
bition. She  knew  practical  ways  of  assisting  him,  and  she  em- 
ployed those  ways. 

Those  who  represent  the  married  life  of  the  Lincolns  as  un- 
broken by  disagreement  and  quarrel  hold  their  opinions  in  the 
face,  or  in  ignorance,  of  a  large  body  of  incontrovertible  evi- 
dence. On  the  other  hand,  those  who  assume  that  Lincoln  and 
his  wife  did  nothing  but  quarrel,  are  even  more  in  error.  Con- 
genial they  certainly  were  not,  and  they  made  each  other  un- 
comfortable. She  nagged  him  unmercifully,  and  made  home  a 
place  where  he  could  not  be  assured  of  comfort.  That  was  well 
for  him.  He  was  a  man  too  fond  of  ease  to  have  been  success- 
ful in  political  life  if  wedded  to  a  woman  who  made  an  ideal 
home. 

That  Lincoln  felt  the  lack  of  a  quiet  and  happy  home  life  is 
undeniable,  but  he  felt  it  less  than  a  more  finely  sensitive  man 
would  have  done.  To  spend  his  week-ends  in  distant  taverns, 
while  other  members  of  the  bar  packed  their  saddle-bags  and 
went  home,  was  less  of  a  trial  to  Lincoln  than  it  would  have 
been  to  most  of  them.  But  in  his  own  big,  undemonstrative, 
imperturbable  way,  Lincoln  loved  his  wife,  and  was  enormously 
proud  of  her.  No  letters  are  preserved  which  he  sent  home 
while  away  in  those  early  days,  but  his  telegrams  and  despatches 
addressed  to  her  in  the  absences  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  from  Washing- 
ton showed  real  solicitude  and  careful  consideration.  He  was 
proud  of  her  beauty,  her  wit.  Like  other  big  men  who  have 
little  wives,  he  enjoyed  "the  long  and  short"  of  their  matri- 
monial combination.  Usually  he  spoke  of  her  as  "Mrs.  Lincoln," 
but  in  his  letters  to  Speed  he  called  her  by  his  pet  name  for  her, 
"Mollie." 

It  has  been  charged  that  Mrs.  Lincoln's  political  faith  was  very 
different  from  that  of  her  husband.     It  is  true  that  after  the 


412  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

death  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  she  wrote  letters  of  complaint  in  which  she 
spoke  of  "the  Republicans"  as  though  she  were  not  of  them;  but 
this  had  reference  to  personal  grievances  and  apparent  neglect. 
So  far  as  I  am  aware  no  such  letters  exist  for  the  period  in  which 
Lincoln  was  living.  Her  letters  to  her  family  in  the  years  before 
the  war,  when  the  Republican  Party  was  forming,  and  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  casting  in  his  lot  with  them,  show  no  lack  of  interest 
in  his  movements,  but  on  the  contrary  display  an  active  and  intel- 
ligent support  of  him  in  all  his  plans.  Thus  she  wrote  to  her  sis- 
ter in  Kentucky  on  November  23,  1856: 

Your  husband,  like  some  of  the  rest  of  ours,  has  a  great  taste 
for  politics  and  has  taken  much  interest  in  the  late  contest,  which 
has  resulted  much  as  I  expected,  not  as  I  hoped.  Although  Mr. 
Lincoln  is  or  was  a  Fremont  man,  you  must  not  include  him  with 
so  many  of  those  who  belong  to  that  party,  an  abolitionist.  In 
principle  he  is  far  from  it.  All  he  desires  is  that  slavery  shall 
not  be  extended,  let  it  remain  where  it  is.  My  weak  woman's 
heart  was  too  southern  in  feeling  to  sympathize  with  any  one 
but  Fillmore.  I  have  always  been  a  great  admirer  of  his — he 
made  so  good  a  President,  and  is  so  good  a  man,  and  feels  the 
necessity  of  keeping  the  foreigners  within  bounds.  If  some  of 
you  Kentuckians  had  to  deal  with  the  Wild  Irish  as  we  house- 
keepers are  sometimes  called  upon  to  do,  the  South  would  cer- 
tainly elect  Fillmore  next  time.  The  Democrats  have  been  de- 
feated in  our  state  in  their  governor;  so  there  is  a  crumb  of 
comfort  for  each  and  all.  What  day  is  so  dark  that  there  is  no 
ray  of  sunshine  to  penetrate  the  gloom?  Now  sit  down,  and 
write  one  of  your  agreeable  missives,  and  do  not  wait  for  a 
return  of  each  from  a  staid  matron,  and,  moreover,  the  mother 
of  three  noisy  boys. 

Thus  did  Airs.  Lincoln  write  to  her  sister,  Mrs.  Ben  Hardin 
Llelm,  jnst  after  the  defeat  of  Fremont,  wishing  that  the  next 
president,  to  be  elected  presumably  by  the  South,  might  be  Fill- 
more. The  South  did  not  elect  the  next  president,  and  the  next 
president  was  not  Fillmore.  But  the  notable  thing  about  this 
letter,  and  it  is  not  the  only  such  letter,  is  that  Airs.  Lincoln  wrote 


MRS.  LINCOLN  413 

to  her  sister,  wife  of  a  Democratic  politician  who  later  became  a 
Confederate  general,  expressing  her  regret  that  the  Democrats 
had  won  the  national  election,  and,  knowing  that  her  sister  would 
not  share  her  feeling  in  this  matter,  taking  to  herself  a  compen- 
sating "crumb  of  comfort"  in  the  defeat  of  the  Democrats  in 
Illinois.  There  was  nothing  spiteful  or  tantalizing  or  untactful 
in  this  letter :  it  was  written  in  the  best  spirit  of  sisterly  frank- 
ness :  its  candor  is  unmistakable,  as  is  her  loyalty  to  her  hus- 
band's political  principles. 

At  length  the  incredible  thing  occurred  which  Mary  Todd  Lin- 
coln had  always  believed  would  happen,  and  she  became  the  first 
lady  of  the  land.  It  was  a  position  for  which  she  was  not  well 
fitted  either  by  nature  or  by  training,  and  the  conditions  of  those 
times  were  such  as  to  show  her  in  her  least  favorable  light.  The 
truth  was  bad  enough  concerning  her  infirmities  of  temper  and 
the  strain  which  the  new  position  put  upon  her,  but  not  every  one 
stopped  at  the  truth. 

More  than  once,  as  just  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  the  family 
of  the  president  was  advised  to  leave  Washington.  Mrs.  Lincoln 
was  by  nature  a  woman  of  great  timidity;  her  courage  was  the 
courage  of  sheer  will-power  and  moral  conviction ;  but  she  re- 
fused to  go ;  and  her  presence  was  an  encouragement  to  her 
husband. 

Lincoln  did  not  know  how  to  bear  lightly  his  terrible  load  of 
responsibility.  His  wife  contrived  to  invite  old  friends  to  meals 
at  the  White  House,  especially  to  breakfast.  She  laughed  and 
joked  with  them  as  they  talked  of  old  days  in  Illinois.  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln assumed  a  benevolent  despotism  over  her  husband,  and 
compelled  him  to  drive  with  her  every  afternoon.  This  afforded 
him  a  blessed  relief,  and  one  he  would  not  have  taken  had  her 
sway  over  him  been  less  absolute. 

Her  attempts  to  lift  the  cloud  of  gloom  that  hung  over  the 
White  House  were  not  wholly  successful.  If  she  gave  a  recep- 
tion, she  was  criticized  for  displaying  joy  at  a  time  when  the 
nation  was  suffering  defeat  upon  the  battle-field  and  sorrow  in 


414  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

its  homes;  if  she  did  not  give  a  reception,  she  was  criticized  for 
not  doing  so.  Her  social  errors  were  noted,  exaggerated,  and 
made  the  subject  of  unbecoming  mirth. 

In  the  White  House  she  displayed  much  want  of  tact.  Her 
blundering  outspokenness  and  disregard  of  diplomatic  considera- 
tion were  known  and  proclaimed  throughout  Washington  and  the 
nation.  Her  dress,  which  was  extravagant  rather  than  beautiful, 
her  foibles  and  follies  and  inexperiences,  all  were  whispered  in 
ridicule  or  shouted  from  the  housetop  in  contempt. 

Nor  did  the  gossip  stop  with  ridicule  of  her  social  errors.  It 
was  charged  that  she  did  not  love  her  husband  and  was  planning 
to  elope  with  a  Russian  count.  The  hyenas  of  Washington,  some 
of  them  in  the  pay  of  the  Confederate  Government,  said  things 
about  her  as  false  as  they  were  foul.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was 
very  generally  charged  that  she  was  a  Confederate  spy;  and  the 
soldiers  around  the  camp-fire  joined  her  name  in  ribald  song 
with  that  of  Jefferson  Davis. 

Peace  came  at  last,  and  there  was  mercifully  granted  to  Abra- 
ham and  Mary  Lincoln  a  brief  interval  in  which  they  were 
permitted  to  build  castles  in  the  air.  Up  to  the  time  of  the 
second  election,  they  had  always  assumed  that  when  they  left 
the  Wrhite  House  they  would  return  to  Springfield  to  live.  Now 
there  were  opened  before  them  longer  vistas.  They  would  see 
the  second  term  of  office  through,  and  the  wounds  of  the  country 
healed;  there  would  be  a  policy  of  forbearance  and  forgiveness 
and  good  will.  The  period  of  office  which  had  begun  under  the 
cloud  of  war  would  end  in  the  sunlight  of  peace.  Then  they 
would  travel.  They  would  go  to  California  and  see  men  digging 
out  the  gold  that  was  to  pay  the  national  debt.  They  would  take 
the  boys  and  go  to  Europe.  They  would  visit  the  Holy  Land. 
They  were  no  longer  sure  that  they  would  return  to  Springfield; 
if  their  hearts  pulled  them  back  to  their  old  home,  well  and  good; 
but  if  otherwise,  they  would  find  a  home  where  it  might  seem 
best.  In  the  meantime  there  was  Peace,  and  immediately  before 
them  was  the  work  of  rebuilding  the  desolate  places  and  healing 


MRS.  LINCOLN  415 

the  wounds  which  strife  had  caused.     And  under  the  stars  and 
stripes  there  was  not  a  single  slave. 

Mrs.  Lincoln's  mind  in  the  months  that  followed  went  over 
and  over  the  events  of  their  last  drive  together  on  the  afternoon 
preceding  his  assassination.  In  no  one  conversation  did  she  tell 
all  that  she  remembered,  but  she  related  it  many  times  and  to  all 
her  friends.  Mr.  Arnold  thus  records  the  story  of  that  drive  as 
Mrs.  Lincoln  related  it  to  him. 

After  the  Cabinet  meeting  he  went  to  drive  with  Mrs  Lin- 
coln, expressing  a  wish  that  no  one  should  accompany  them,  and 
evidently  desiring  to  converse  alone  with  her.  "Mary,"  said  he, 
"we  have  had  a  hard  time  of  it  since  we  came  to  Washington, 
but  the  war  is  over,  and  with  God's  blessing  we  may  hope  for 
four  years  of  peace  and  happiness,  and  then  we  will  go  back  to 
Illinois  and  pass  the  rest  of  our  lives  in  quiet."  He  spoke  of 
his  old  Springfield  home,  and  recollections  of  his  early  days,  his 
little  brown  cottage,  the  law  office,  the  court  room,  the  green 
bag  for  his  briefs  and  law  papers,  his  adventures  when  riding  the 
circuit,  came  thronging  back  to  him.  The  tension  under  which 
he  had  for  so  long  been  kept  was  removed,  and  he  was  like  a 
boy  out  of  school.  "We  have  laid  by,"  said  he  to  his  wife,  "some 
money,  and  during  this  term  we  will  try  and  save  up  more,  but 
shall  not  have  enough  to  support  us.  We  will  go  back  to  Illinois, 
and  I  will  open  a  law-office  at  Springfield  or  Chicago,  and  prac- 
tice law,  and  at  least  do  enough  to  help  give  us  a  livelihood." 
Such  were  the  dreams,  the  day-dreams  of  Lincoln,  the  last  day  of 
his  life.  In  imagination  he  was  again  in  his  prairie  home,  among 
his  law  books,  and  in  the  courts  with  his  old  friends.  A  picture 
of  a  prairie  farm  on  the  banks  of  the  Sangamon  or  the  Rock 
River  rose  before  him,  and  once  more  the  plough  and  the  axe 
were  to  become  as  familiar  to  his  hands  as  in  the  days  of  his 
youth.* 

These  were  the  castles  which  together  they  built  in  the  air.  So 
far  as  we  know  the  story  of  these  last  days,  no  cloud  came  be- 
tween Abraham  and  Mary  Lincoln  and  their  vision  of  hope.  At 
evening  time  there  was  light. 


*Arnold  :   Life  of  Lincoln,  pp.  429-430. 


416  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Then  came  the  assassin's  bullet,  and  the  dark. 

The  widow  of  Abraham  Lincoln  never  recovered  from  the 
night  of  the  tragedy  at  Ford's  Theater.  Her  mind,  none  too  well 
balanced  at  the  best,  became  less  and  less  stable.  It  is  unfortu- 
nately true  that  her  unreasonableness  did  not  begin  with  her  hus- 
band's assassination.  Long  before  this  she  had  manifested 
erratic  tendencies.  Readers  of  General  Badeau's  Grant  in  Peace 
will  find  abundant  evidence  of  mental  traits  which  must  have 
been  a  severe  trial  to  her  husband.  After  every  allowance  has 
been  made  for  prejudice  and  possible  exaggeration,  the  picture 
which  Badeau  draws  is  a  painfull)-  convincing  and  unattractive 
one.  One  may  hear  from  people  who  knew  her,  incidents  show- 
ing that  even  in  her  young  womanhood  she  was  capable  of  out- 
bursts of  ungovernable  rage.  I  have  heard  many  of  these,  and 
some  of  them  I  believe;  indeed,  I  do  not  care  to  deny  any  of 
them.* 

Mary  Lincoln  returned  to  Illinois,  and  lived  in  Chicago  for  a 
time,  at  372  West  Washington  Street  between  Elizabeth  and  Ann, 
in  one  of  the  marble  front  houses  then  in  vogue.  There  she  sat  in 
the  ashes  of  her  hopes,  and  brooded  and  raved  amid  the  unpaid 
bills  of  the  New  York  merchants  from  whom  she  had  foolishly 
bought  more  silks  than  she  could  ever  hope  to  wear.  There 
little  Tad  died,  July  15,  1871.  He  had  never  been  a  very  strong 
boy,  and  had  an  impediment  in  his  speech ;  and  his  mother's 
heart  had  clung  to  him  with  especial  tenderness. 

In  November,  1866,  eighteen  months  after  the  death  of  her 
husband,  Herndon  shamed  her  widowhood  by  proclaiming  that 
Lincoln  loved  Ann  Rutledge  and  never  loved  his  wife.  This  act 
of  Herndon's  was  the  less  commendable  because  he  had  but  re- 
cently written  to  her,  and  she  had  met  him  by  appointment  in  the 
St.    Nicholas  Hotel  in  Springfield,  on  one  of  her  surreptitious 

*If  any  future  biographer  of  Lincoln  shall  present  other  evidence,  taken 
from  an  important  document  whose  use  is  now  forbidden  for  any  purpose 
derogatory  to  the  character  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  I  suppose  myself  to  be  familiar 
with  that  document ;  and  while  observing,  as  I  am  in  honor  bound  to  do,  the 
conditions  under  which  it  is  permitted  to  be  read,  1  have  taken  its  content 
fully  into  account  in  my  estimate  of  Mary  Lincoln. 


MRS.  LINCOLN  417 

visits  to  her  husband's  grave,  and  had  talked  with  him  at  length 
and  in  kindness,  telling  him  many  incidents  of  value  to  him  for 
the  purpose  of  his  proposed  hook  about  her  husband.  That  was 
in  September,  1866.  The  following-  month,  Herndon  made  his 
visit  to  John  McNamar;  and  in  November  he  delivered  his  lec- 
ture on  Ann  Rutledge.  Only  about  a  dozen  people  came  out  to 
hear  him,  and  the  reception  accorded  the  lecture  and  the  sever- 
ity expressed  in  the  discussion  that  followed  were  so  unfavor- 
able that  Herndon  never  delivered  it  again.  But  the  widow  of 
the  president  of  the  United  States  was  thus  publicly  proclaimed 
to  have  been  unloved  by  the  father  of  her  children  ;  and  the 
country  and  world  began  to  shed  tears  at  the  grave  of  Ann  Rut- 
ledge.  That  young  woman  deserved  the  affectionate  remem- 
brance belonging  to  a  virtuous  prairie  maiden  ;  but  what  of  the 
two  men  who  told  her  story  as  a  slur  upon  the  widow  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  ? 

Some  years  ago  I  was  in  Springfield  at  a  time  when  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  Illinois  by  vote  took  adjournment  for  a  half- 
day  and  motored  over  to  New  Salem  where  there  were  speeches 
and  a  picnic  dinner  and  the  laying  of  a  wreath  upon  the  grave  of 
Ann  Rutledge.  That  evening  was  spent  in  the  home  of  a  niece 
of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  a  woman  of  culture  and  refinement  who  is  no 
longer  living.  She  had  read  in  the  evening  paper  a  full  account 
of  the  day's  performance,  and  was  hurt  and  indignant.  She 
said: 

"Mrs.  Lincoln's  nieces  and  her  other  relatives  have  no  occa- 
sion to  deny  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  youthful  sweetheart ;  most 
men  have  that  experience.  Nor  do  they  deny  that  Ann  Rutledge 
was  a  worthy  young  woman ;  but  no  one  in  Springfield  ever 
heard  of  her  until  Herndon  delivered  his  cruel  lecture  declaring 
that  Lincoln  never  loved  his  wife.  We  who  were  with  Mrs. 
Lincoln  in  those  days,  and  who  know  the  incurable  wound  which 
this  stab  gave  to  her  already  broken  heart,  must  be  pardoned  if 
we  are  less  enthusiastic  than  the  world  at  large  appears  to  be 
over  the  object  of  Lincoln's  youthful  affection.     It  is  hard   for 


418  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

us  to  forgive  the  neglect  and  slander  which  thereby  undeservedly 
came  to  Mary  Todd  Lincoln." 

I  have  repeatedly  served  for  a  day  or  a  week  at  a  time  as  chap- 
lain of  one  or  the  other  House  of  the  Illinois  General  Assembly. 
[  have  learned — if  I  did  not  already  know — that  the  chaplain  is 
not  permitted  to  address  the  House,  but  is  expected  to  direct  his 
words  to  Almighty  God.  I  therefore  have  never  felt  entitled  to 
introduce  a  motion  in  the  Legislature  of  the  sovereign  state  of 
Illinois.  If  at  any  future  time  it  should  become  my  privilege 
thus  to  propose  an  item  of  business  or  to  vote  upon  a  pending 
measure,  I  would  interpose  no  objection  to  any  plan  to  visit  New 
Salem  or  to  pay  deserved  honor  to  the  memory  of  Ann  Rutledge. 
But  I  might  venture  to  suggest  that  the  General  Assembly,  on  its 
return  from  New  Salem,  turn  aside  from  the  main  highway  that 
leads  to  the  comfort  of  the  Springfield  hotels,  and  pause  for  a 
reverent  moment  at  Oakwood  Cemetery  and  drop  a  tear  and  lay 
a  wreath  upon  the  grave  of  Mary  Todd  Lincoln. 

At  present  there  would  appear  no  probability  that  I  shall  have 
opportunity  to  make  such  a  motion  upon  the  floor  of  either; 
House  of  the  Illinois  General  Assembly.  I  may,  therefore,  use; 
such  privilege  as  is  mine  in  addressing  the  readers  of  this  book, 
and  suggest  that  they  do  not  permit  their  just  and  proper  regard 
for  Ann  Rutledge  to  add  even  though  unintentionally  to  the 
humiliation  that  has  attached  itself  to  the  memory  of  Abraham 
Lincoln's  wedded  wife. 

As  a  part  of  the  preparation  for  this  work  I  went  to  the  office 
of  the  court  of  Cook  County  and  asked  for  the  papers  relating 
to  the  trial  of  Mary  Todd  Lincoln  for  insanity.  A  preliminary 
search  failed  to  disclose  the  record.  The  index  contained  no  clue! 
to  such  a  case.  The  oldest  clerks  were  called,  and  they  knew 
nothing  about  it  and  were  disposed  to  be  incredulous.  They 
found  the  record,  more  by  special  providence  than  otherwise,  and 
50  far  as  the  office  knew,  no  one  had  ever  found  those  papers; 
since  they  had  been  put  away. 

So  far  as  the  records  show,  and  by  reading  between  the  lines. 


MRS.  LINCOLN  419 

ihe  sad  thing  was  done  as  decently  and  with  as  much  dignity  as 
possible.  The  complaining  witness  was,  of  necessity,  one  who 
stood  very  near  to  Mrs.  Lincoln,  her  own  son  Robert  T.  Lin- 
coln. The  jury  was  composed  of  twelve  as  prominent  men  as 
Chicago  had  at  that  time.  It  would  appear  that  everything  was 
done  that  legally  could  be  done  to  carry  out  what  was  deemed 
necessary,  with  as  little  publicity  and  with  as  much  regard  for 
propriety  as  possible.  No  docket  number  appears  to  have  been 
given  to  the  case,  and  the  loose  papers  were  conveniently  lost  or 
mislaid.  But  the  court  record  is  there,  with  the  names  of  judge 
and  jurors;  and  they  are  of  such  character  as  to  forbid  the  sus- 
picion that  they  acted  hastily  or  through  prejudice.  There  is 
also  a  transcript  of  the  evidence,  and  it  leaves  no  reasonable 
doubt.  Mary  Lincoln  wTas  found  insane,  and  a  fit  subject  for 
confinement  in  one  of  the  state  hospitals  for  the  insane  in  the 
state  of  Illinois.  She  was  not  taken  to  a  state  institution,  but  to 
a  private  asylum  at  Batavia,  Illinois,  where,  after  a  little  more 
than  a  year,  she  was  declared  cured.  Another  jury  found  her 
"restored  to  reason."  The  date  of  her  first  trial  at  which  she 
was  pronounced  insane  was  May  19,  1875;  the  second  which  re- 
sulted in  her  release  was  on  June  15,  1876  That  she  was  indeed 
insane  would  seem  past  dispute ;  that  she  was  restored  to  reason 
is  far  less  certain. 

Mary  Lincoln  went  abroad.  During  her  exile,  or  at  least  a 
part  of  it,  her  son  did  not  know  where  she  was.  She  returned  to 
America  in  October,  1880.  The  New  York  Sun  told  this  story 
of  her  arrival  in  the  land  where  she  had  been  hardly  less  than  a 
queen : 

"When  the  Amerique  reached  New  York  a  throng  was  assem- 
bled on  the  dock  and  a  greater  throng  was  in  the  street  outside 
the  gates.  During  the  tedious  process  of  working  the  ship  into 
her  dock,  there  was  a  great  crush  in  that  part  of  the  vessel  where 
the  gang-plank  was  to  be  swung.  Among  the  passengers  who 
were  here  gathered  was  an  aged  lady.  She  was  dressed  plainly. 
jHer  face  was  furrowed  and  her  hair  was  streaked  with  white. 


420  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

This  was  the  widow  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  She  was  almost  un- 
noticed. She  had  come  alone  across  the  ocean,  but  a  nephew 
met  her  at  quarantine.  She  had  spent  the  last  four  years  in  the 
south  of  France.  When  the  gang-plank  was  swung  aboard, 
Mme.  Bernhardt  and  her  companions,  .including  Mme.  Cohim- 
bier  of  the  troupe,  were  the  first  to  descend.  The  fellow  voy- 
agers of  the  actress  pressed  upon  her  to  bid  her  adieu,  and  a 
cheer  was  raised  which  turned  her  head  and  provoked  an  as- 
tonished smile  as  she  stepped  upon  the  wharf.  The  gates  were 
besieged,  and  there  was  some  difficulty  on  bringing  the  car- 
riage, which  was  to  convey  the  actress  to  the  hotel  She  tem- 
porarily waited  in  the  freight-office  at  the  entrance  to  the  wharf. 
Mrs.  Lincoln,  leaning  upon  the  arm  of  her  nephew,  walked 
toward  the  gate.  A  policeman  touched  the  aged  lady  on  the 
shoulder,  and  bade  her  stand  back.  She  retreated  with  her 
nephew  into  the  line  of  spectators,  while  Manager  Abbey's  car- 
riage was  slowly  brought  in.  Mme.  Bernhardt  was  handed  into 
the  carriage  which  made  its  way  out  through  a  mass  of  strug- 
gling longshoremen  and  idlers  who  pressed  about  it,  and  stared 
in  at  the  open  windows.  After  it,  went  out  the  others  who  had 
been  passengers  on  the  Amerique,  Mrs.  Lincoln  among  the  rest. 

This  is  a  story  to  bring  tears  to  the  eyes  and  rouse  the  soul  to 
righteous  indignation.  And  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that 
it  is  literally  true. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  returned  to  Springfield,  and  to  the  home  of  her 
sister,  Mrs.  Edwards.  It  was  the  home  in  which  she  had  first 
met  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  the  home  in  which  they  were  married. 

The  days  were  mercifully  shortened.  She  died  of  paralysis 
on  July  1 6,  1882.  The  attending  physician  made  a  post-mortem 
examination,  and  issued  a  statement  that  for  years  she  had  been 
the  victim  of  a  cerebral  disease.  This  ought  to  have  been  a 
sufficient  explanation  of  all  that  needed  to  be  explained  of  her 
violence  of  temper  and  her  unfortunate  words  and  doings. 

This  is  the  statement  of  her  physician,  Doctor  Thomas  W. 
Dresser : 

In  the  late  years  of  her  life,  certain  memai  peculiarities  were 
developed  which  finally  culminated  in  a  slight  apoplexy,  produc- 


MRS.  LINCOLN  421 

ing  paralysis,  of  which  she  died.  Among  the  peculiarities  alluded 
to,  one  of  the  most  singular  was  the  habit  she  had  during  the 
last  year  or  so  of  her  life  of  immuring  herself  in  a  perfectly  dark 
room.  and.  for  light,  using  a  small  candle  light,  even  when  the 
sun  was  shining  bright  out  of  doors.  Xo  urging  would  induce 
her  to  go  out  into  the  fresh  air.  Another  peculiarity  was  the  ac- 
cumulation of  large  quantities  of  silks  and  dress  goods  in  trunks 
and  by  the  cart-load,  which  she  never  used  and  which  accumu- 
lated until  it  was  really  feared  that  the  floor  of  the  store  room 
would  give  way.  She  was  bright  and  sparkling  in  conversation, 
and  her  memory  remained  singularly  good  up  to  the  very  close  of 
her  life.  Her  face  was  animated  and  pleasing ;  and  to  me  she 
was  always  an  interesting  woman ;  and  while  the  whole  world 
was  finding  fault  with  her  temper  and  disposition,  it  was  clear  to 
me  that  the  trouble  was  really  a  cerebral  disease. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  was  a  sadly  abused  woman.  After  all  has  been 
said  that  may  truthfully  be  said  about  her  unhappy  disposition, 
three  facts  seem  true  beyond  any  reasonable  question. 

The  first  of  these  is  that  Abraham  Lincoln  loved  his  wife. 
There  is  no  adequate  evidence  either  that  Lincoln  loved  Ann 
Rutledge  so  devoutly  as  to  be  incapable  of  loving  another  woman, 
or  that  the  demonstrations  of  Mrs.  Lincoln's  vehement  nature 
destroyed  his  affection  for  the  mother  of  his  children.  While 
she  was  often  a  trial  to  him,  and  he  as  frequently  a  trial  to  her, 
he  was  proud  of  her,  exhibited  a  tender  solicitude  for  her  com- 
fort, and  in  many  ways  manifested  a  sincere  affection  for  her. 

The  second  truth  is  that  Mary  Lincoln  loved  her  husband.  If 
she  had  not  loved  him  there  was  no  need  of  her  marrying  him,  for 
many  men  sought  her  hand  when  she  was  at  liberty  to  choose 
among  the  most  brilliant  men  of  Springfield.  While  he  offended 
her  by  his  lack  of  polish  and  his  ignorance  of  social  usage,  he 
still  realized  in  large  measure  her  ambitious  dreams  of  what  her 
husband  might  be,  and  the  position  to  which  his  success  would  and 
did  evidently  elevate  her. 

The  third  truth  is  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  loyal  to  the  nation. 
She  was  exposed  to  constant  suspicion  and  was  made  the  object 

33 


422  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  cruel  calumny.  There  is  no  shred  of  direct  evidence  of  any 
disloyal  word  or  act  upon  her  part.  Most  of  her  blood  relations 
were  on  the  side  of  the  Confederacy.  Her  brothers  were  Con- 
federate officers.  Her  sisters  were  the  wives  of  Confederate 
soldiers.  Her  heart  must  have  been  torn  in  her  divided  personal 
sympathies;  but  through  it  all  there  is  one  continuous  line  of 
testimony  unbroken  by  any  credible  record  of  any  disloyal  word 
or  treasonable  act.  She  deserves  very  high  commendation  for  a 
loyalty  which  under  very  trying  circumstances  she  unfalteringly 
maintained. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 


MR.    LINCOLN 


In  the  several  places  associated  with  the  life-work  of  Lincoln 
there  still  remain  small  and  diminishing  groups  of  those  who  re- 
member to  have  met  him  or  to  have  heard  him  speak.  In  even- 
such  place  visited  by  the  author  in  the  years  in  which  this  book 
has  been  in  preparation,  it  has  been  his  endeavor  to  search  out 
these  men  and  women  and  to  hear  from  their  own  lips  what  they 
remember  about  Lincoln.  Extensive  correspondence  has  sup- 
plemented this  method  of  inquiry,  and  I  suppose  myself  to  be 
personally  acquainted  with  no  inconsiderable  fraction  of  the  total 
number  of  men  and  women  now  living  who  knew  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. A  somewhat  recent  visit  to  Bloomington  brought  together, 
for  conference  with  me.  the  entire  group  of  men  now  living  who 
remember  to  have  heard  Abraham  Lincoln's  lost  speech.  A  large 
meeting  held  both  morning  and  afternoon  with  a  picnic  dinner 
between,  brought  to  the  churchyard  where  Thomas  and  Sally 
Lincoln  are  buried,  practically  all  the  people  who  remember  Lin- 
coln's father  and  Lincoln's  last  visit  to  his  father's  grave.  An- 
niversary celebrations  of  the  Lincoln  and  Douglas  debates  have 
gathered  to  these  seven  cities  the  people  who  were  present  in 
each  of  them  at  these  battles  of  the  giants.  Innumerable  have 
been  my  visits  to  Springfield,  in  which  city  less  than  fifty  people 
now  living  can  be  said  to  remember  Abraham  Lincoln.  This, 
among  other  things,  impressed  me  as  I  moved  among  the  men 
who  had  really  known  Lincoln.  They  did'  not  speak  of  him  as 
"President  Lincoln,''  nor  as  "Abraham  Lincoln,"  much  less  did 
they  use  that  offensive  affectation  of   familiarity  and  call  him 

423 


424  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

"Abe  Lincoln."  They  had  not  learned  die  simple  tribute  which 
the  world  pays  to  its  supremely  great  men,  in  dropping  all  titles 
and  given  names  and  referring  to  them  simply  as  "Napoleon,'' 
"Gladstone,"  or  "Washington";  they  did  not  call  him  "Lincoln." 
In  general  they  referred  to  him  as  "Mr.  Lincoln." 

There  are  titles  enough  by  which  we  might  call  him.  He  held 
a  commission  in  the  army  and  might  have  been  called  Captain 
Lincoln.  He  received  from  a  reputable  college  and  later  from  a 
great  university,  the  title  of  Doctor  of  Laws,  and  it  would  be 
legitimate  to  call  him  Doctor  Lincoln.  The  free  courtesy  of  the 
courts  and  the  fact  that  occasionally  he  sat  upon  the  bench,  would 
have  given  to  many  a  lesser  man  the  title,  Judge  Lincoln.  We 
may,  and  sometimes  we  must,  speak  of  him  as  President  Lincoln. 
But  "the  captains  and  the  kings  depart"  and  with  them  go  cap- 
taincies and  kingships.  Ultimately,  a  man  must  stand  and  answer 
to  his  own  name  without  titles  and  submit  to  an  estimate  of  his 
naked  personality  as  it  presents  itself  to  the  judgment  of  posterity. 
Stripping  away  all  titles,  save  only  that  which  his  neighbors  in 
affectionate  and  dignified  courtesy  bestow  upon  him,  let  us  en- 
deavor in  this  closing  chapter  to  discover  what  manner  of  man 
was  Mr.  Lincoln. 

i.  Lincoln's  personal  appearance 

Few  faces  are  more  familiar  than  that  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
His  countenance  looks  down  on  us  from  the  walls  of  homes, 
schools,  and  public  buildings.  His  full-length  figure  towers  in 
bronze  above  several  American  towns,  and  a  few  of  the  cities  of 
Europe.     But  how  did  he  really  look? 

Certainly  he  was  not  in  appearance  an  insignificant  man.  He 
has  been  described  as  ungainly  and  awkward,  but  no  one  ever 
described  him  as  contemptible.  There  was  that  about  him  which 
led  men  everywhere  'to  take  notice  of  him.  He  could  not  con- 
veniently be  hid.  Men  might  hate  Lincoln,  but  they  could  not 
well  ignore  him.     To  this  day,  he  may  be  held  up  to  ridicule,  and 


MR.  LINCOLN  425 

it  is  not  difficult  to  find  in  him  material  that  lends  itself  to  mis- 
representation, but  he  can  not  well  be  overlooked.  There  is, 
there  always  was,  in  Lincoln,  something  that  called  for  comment 
and  possibly  for  explanation. 

YVe  possess  a  very  large  body  of  material  that  enables  us  to 
judge  of  the  personal  appearance  of  Lincoln.  He  emerged  into 
prominence  as  the  daguerreotype  was  coming  into  common  use. 
Many  photographers  desired  to  make  pictures  of  him,  and  Lin- 
coln was  not  averse  to  having  his  picture  taken.  More  than  a 
hundred  authentic  and  original  photographs  exist,  showing  his 
appearance  from  early  in  his  career  in  Springfield  to  a  few  days 
before  his  death. 

"YYe  have  also  oil  portraits  in  considerable  number.  Soon  after 
Lincoln's  election,  artists  flocked  to  Springfield.  They  set  up 
their  easels  in  the  vacant  Legislative  Hall  of  the  old  Capitol,  and 
Lincoln  was  accustomed  to  sit  for  perhaps  an  hour  each  morning 
as  they  worked,  reading  his  mail  as  he  posed  for  them.  Most, 
if  not  all,  of  these  portraits  are  preserved.  Some  of  them  have 
merit  and  all  of  them  have  historic  interest. 

Of  portraits  after  he  became  president,  we  have  one  in  some 
respects  the  most  interesting  of  all,  and  surrounded  by  remarkable 
associations,  that  of  Frank  B.  Carpenter  made  for  and  preserved 
in  his  notable  historical  painting.  The  likeness  is  preserved  in 
the  detail  portrait  and  in  the  painting  of  The  Signing  of  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation.  The  events  which  accompanied  the 
making  of  this  portrait  are  recorded  in  Carpenter's  book,  Six 
Months  in  the  I J  lute  House. 

We  are  peculiarly  fortunate  in  possessing  the  life-mask  of 
Lincoln  as  well  as  the  casts  of  his  hands,  the  face  made  in  Chicago 
by  Leonard  Volk,  in  the  spring  before  Lincoln's  nomination  for 
the  presidency,  the  hands  made  in  Springfield  by  the  same  sculp- 
tor, within  a  week  after  Lincoln's  nomination.  Volk  was  not  a 
great  artist,  and  he  valued  these  casts  for  the  sake  of  a  statue 
which  he  made  and  which  possessed  no  considerable  merit.  But 
the  casts  were  well  made ;  and  they  preserve  to  all  coming  time 


426  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

not  simply  the  bony  structure  of  the  hands  and  head,  but  the  living 
lineaments  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  To  this  undoubtedly  authentic 
record  of  his  features  and  his  hands  must  every  sculptor  and 
artist  refer. 

Down  to  the  time  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  election  to  the  presidencv, 
he  was  clean-shaven.  His  decision  to  wear  a  beard  caused  wide- 
spread regret ;  for  the  beard  added  little  that  was  decorative,  and 
did  not  conceal  the  lower  lip  which  was  Lincoln's  least  attractive 
feature,  while  it  hid  a  well  modeled  chin,  and  a  jaw  that  was  at 
once  kind  and  firm. 

People  misjudged  Lincoln  who  set  him  down  as  a  clown  or  a 
simple  rustic.  A  second  and  more  careful  look  at  him  showed 
elements  of  dignity  and  nobility.  Lincoln  was  great  and  capable 
of  looking  great.  His  portrait  as  we  have  become  familiar  with 
it  is  the  portrait  of  a  great  man.  Of  him  we  could  almost  say, 
as  the  Duke  of  Wellington  said  after  he  had  seen  Webster: 

"Sir,  no  man  could  be  as  great  as  Daniel  Webster  looked." 

It  is  said  that  no  man  attains  to  distinction  in  public  life  who 
is  not  easily  caricatured.  The  man  who  is  really  great  must  em- 
phasize some  great  quality,  or  group  of  qualities,  to  the  dangerous 
margin  of  exaggeration.  Lincoln  was  easily  caricatured;  how 
gleefully  the  newspaper  artists  of  the  time  availed  themselves  of 
bis  peculiarities,  the  files  of  illustrated  journals  both  in  America 
and  in  England  testify. 

Lincoln  was  a  tall  man.  In  any  company  his  height  made 
him  conspicuous.  This  quality  he  accentuated  by  the  long  black 
coat  and  tall  stiff  hat  which  he  habitually  wore.  He  recognized 
the  value  of  his  own  physical  stature. 

In  his  eleventh  year  that  remarkable  and  rapid  growth  became 
noticeable.  It  was  accompanied  by  a  change  in  his  manner  and 
habit  of  thought.  He  passed  from  childhood  into  adolescence 
with  unusual  rapidity,  and  became  shy  and  timid  in  the  presence 
of  women  and  even  of  men.  It  was  almost  the  last  thing  he  ever 
did  rapidly.  By  the  close  of  his  seventeenth  year  he  had  reached 
a  stature  which  he  proudly  announced  as  six  feet  four  inches.    He 


MR.  LINCOLN  427 

was  loose  jointed  and  sometimes  sagged  down  to  less  than  his 
proper  height.  Leonard  Yolk,  the  sculptor,  measuring  him 
without  his  hoots,  pronounced  his  height  a  little  over  six  teet 
and  one  inch.  The  undertaker  who  prepared  his  coffin  found 
that  he  could  use  the  measurements  suitahle  to  a  large  man  six 
feet  in  height.  Lincoln  could  seldom  meet  a  tall  man  without 
proposing  that  they  measure  heights  by  standing  back  to  back. 
Very  seldom  did  he  meet  a  man  as  tall  as  himself. 

Lincoln  was  thin,  sinewy  and  raw-boned.  He  was  narrow 
across  the  shoulders.  His  usual  weight  was  about  one  hundred 
and  eighty  pounds.  Physically  he  was  a  very  powerful  man.  He 
could  lift  four  hundred  pounds  with  ease,  and  in  one  case  was 
known  to  have  lifted  six  hundred  pounds. 

Lincoln's  arms  and  legs  were  abnormally  long.  When  sitting 
on  a  chair  he  appeared  no  taller  than  other  men.  It  was  only  when 
he  stood  that  he  rose  above  them.  He  stood  with  his  feet 
parallel ;  his  toes  did  not  turn  out.  When  he  walked  he  did  not 
rise  upon  his  toes  but  lifted  his  whole  foot  at  once  and  put  it 
down  all  at  one  time,  not  landing  first  upon  the  heel.  A  stranger 
seeing  his  walk  might  easily  have  gotten  the  impression  of  cun- 
ning and  shrewdness  in  his  gait,  but  his  was  the  walk  of  firmness 
and  caution. 

Gaunt  and  awkward  as  he  was,  there  was  a  certain  symmetry 
in  his  ungainliness.  He  was  a  homely  man,  but  not  ugly  or 
repulsive.  There  was,  indeed,  a  kind  of  Herculean  majesty  in 
his  gigantic,  powerful  figure,  dominated  as  it  was  by  a  well  poised 
head  that  displayed  kindly  and  kindling  eyes.  He  possessed  a 
bearing  marked  at  once  by  self-confidence  and  vigor. 

Dwarfs  are  notoriously  ill-natured;  they  have  a  constant  feeling 
that  nature  has  cheated  them  out  of  certain  inches  of  stature 
which  they  are  compelled  to  make  good  by  self-assertion.  Their 
life  is  one  long  protest  against  the  world's  temptation  to  ignore 
them.  Giants,  on  the  other  hand,  are  habitually  genial.  They  do 
not  need  to  fight  for  recognition.  Lincoln  had  the  mental  secur- 
ity, the  complacent  good-nature,  which  are  native  in  a  tall  man. 


428  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

That  eminent  psychologist,  Doctor  G.  Stanley  Hall,  in  a  letter  to 
the  author,  said: 

The  longer  I  live,  the  more  importance  I  attach  to  physical 
traits.  Lincoln's  height,  long  limbs,  rough  exterior  and  frequent 
feeling  of  awkwardness,  must  have  made  him  realize  very  early 
that  to  succeed  in  life  he  must  cultivate  intrinsic  mental  or  moral 
traits  which  it  is  so  hard  for  a  handsome  man  or  woman  to  excel 
in.  Hence  he  compensated  by  trying  to  develop  intellectual  dis- 
tinction. The  mere  factor  of  height  and  physical  strength  gives 
a  man,  even  in  civilized  life,  a  certain  superiority  of  which  he 
and  others  are  conscious.  If  Lincoln  had  been  a  little  man,  he 
would  have  been  a  very  different  one. 

II.      THE  MIND   OF  LINCOLN 

The  study  of  the  human  intellect  has  passed  through  certain 
well-marked  periods  in  the  last  half-century.  In  Lincoln's  day 
phrenology  was  as  popular  as  psychology  is  now.  Those  who 
attempted  to  analyze  individual  character  studied  the  shape  of 
the  brain,  believing  themselves  to  be  able  to  locate  the  different 
"organs"  within  it,  by  which  the  mind  disclosed  its  various  apti- 
tudes. Phrenology  is  now  an  exploded  science.  Our  present- 
day  methods  in  psychology  may  one  day  be  as  obsolete  as  phren- 
ology now  appears  to  be.  Many  students  when  Lincoln  was 
living  or  soon  after  he  was  dead  attempted  to  account  for  him 
by  the  contour  of  his  brain.  Such  methods  would  require  ex- 
tensive modification  in  the  light  of  our  present-day  knowledge. 

The  study  of  psychology  as  conducted  in  colleges  forty  years 
ago  considered  the  human  mind  as  comprising  intellect,  sensi- 
bility and  will.  These  were  called  "faculties."  Memory  and 
conscience  were  also  sometimes  spoken  of  as  if  they  had  their 
seat  in  some  distinct  portion  of  the  mind.  Faithful  study  of  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness  resulted  in  discarding  the  theory  of 
faculties.  The  human  mind  came  to  be  considered  as  a  unit,  in 
which  perception  and  emotion  and  volition  worked  together. 

Still  another  day  has  dawned,  however.     It  is  now  clearly  per- 


MR.  LINCOLN  429 

ceived  that  there  is  an  ancient  and  primitive  part  of  the  brain 
common  to  all  vertebrates.  In  this  part  of  the  brain  the  emo- 
tions have  their  seat.  It  is  now  held  that  the  cerebral  hemis- 
pheres are  virtually  a  new  brain.  This  new  brain  is  not  needed 
for  emotion ;  a  cat  whose  cerebral  hemispheres  are  removed  will 
snarl  and  show  erection  of  its  hairs  quite  as  naturally  as  does  a 
cat  on  which  no  operation  has  been  performed. 

It  has  been  discovered  that  the  ductless  glands  have  an  extra- 
ordinary influence  upon  behavior.  There  must  have  been  a 
mighty  stimulant  of  the  pituitary  gland  in  Abraham  Lincoln 
just  as  he  was  emerging  into  adolesence.  It  would  be  an  inter- 
esting and  perhaps  not  a  wholly  unprofitable  exercise  for  some 
psychologist  to  trace  Lincoln's  development  in  the  light  of  such 
knowledge  as  we  now7  have  obtained  concerning  the  glandular 
influences  that  regulate  personality. 

This  we  now  know,  that  in  the  study  of  criminal  tendency,  it 
makes  a  difference  in  the  hopefulness  of  the  outcome  whether  a 
wayward  boy  is  intellectually  a  criminal,  or  emotionally  a  crim- 
inal. We  shall  not  return  to  the  old  psychology  with  its  division 
of  the  mind  into  faculties,  neither  shall  we  be  able  to  consider  the 
mind  so  completely  a  unit  as  we  once  were  disposd  to  think.  The 
human  mind  has  been  described  as  a  more  or  less  disorderly  attic, 
having  in  it  some  things  that  we  have  placed  there,  and  many 
heirlooms  and  cast-off  articles  which  we  discover  when  we  least 
expect  and  sometimes  least  desire  them. 

Not  to  all  his  associates  did  Abraham  Lincoln  appear  to  have 
a  mind  of  unusual  character.  There  were  those  among  his  ac- 
quaintances, including  some  who  called  themselves  his  friends, 
who  believed  his  mind  to  be  of  mediocre  quality,  and  who  held 
that  whatever  there  was  about  it  that  was  distinctive  contained 
nothing  of  which  Lincoln  had  any  occasion  to  be  proud.  Not 
a  few  men  who  knew  Lincoln  believed  that  his  most  important 
characteristic,  as  it  related  to  his  success  in  life,  was  a  kind  of 
cleverness  which  they  described  as  "low  cunning."  Lincoln  was 
secretive.    Lincoln    was    shrewd.      Certain   people    who    thought 


430  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

they  knew  him  spoke  of  him  with  his  shrewdness  and  his  love 
of  humor  as  "a  low,  cunning  clown."  Not  thus  easily  can  we 
classify  his  mentality. 

Lincoln's  mind  was  deliberate,  patient,  capable  of  sustained 
effort  and  concentration.  He  had  ability  to  reason  from  cause 
to  effect.  He  possessed  a  clear  discernment  of  power  of  motive. 
He  had  an  understanding  of  the  minds  of  men.  His  mental 
processes  were  slow  but  accurate,  and  he  was  quick  to  respond 
to  stimuli  in  conversation  or  discussion.  For  a  man  so  slow  in 
his  mental  processes  he  was  surprisingly  quick  in  repartee.  He 
shrank  from  the  necessity  of  important  decisions,  yet  when  im- 
pelled by  a  sense  of  need  or  duty,  he  made  his  decisions  with  pre- 
cision and  with  amazing  firmness  and  courage.  When  he  was 
certain  in  his  judgment,  it  was  exceeding-  difficult  to  move 
him.  He  was  capable  of  resisting  strong  pressure.  When  he 
did  not  know  what  to  do,  he  did  not  do  anything.  But  when 
he  decided  he  was  inflexible. 

But  for  all  Lincoln's  power  of  judgment,  and  his  ability  to 
reason,  he  held,  in  common  with  all  great  men,  large  confidence 
in  his  intuitions. 

Every  one  knew  that  Lincoln  was  gentle  and  tender-hearted. 
He  could  not  bear  to  see  oppression  in  any  form.  He  could  not 
endure  the  thought  of  the  infliction  of  needless  pain.  He  was 
so  kindly,  so  considerate,  so  patient,  few  people  knew  how  ca- 
pable he  was  of  righteous  indignation.  Yet  Lincoln  had  a 
mighty  temper.  He  seldom  lost  control  of  it,  but  when  he  ex- 
hibited any  outbreak  of  passion,  it  was  not  a  thing  to  be  lightly 
faced.  Now  and  then  a  political  opponent  provoked  him  to 
wrath.  Neither  he  nor  those  who  heard  Lincoln's  treatment  of 
him  could  ever  forget  the  scourging  that  Lincoln  would  admin- 
ister. One  still  may  hear  how  he  turned  upon  George  Forquer 
with  a  sally  as  sharp  as  the  point  of  the  new  lightning  rod  which 
Forquer  had  erected  above  his  home,  to  protect  him  from  the 
righteous  wrath  of  an  offended  God  for  changing  his  politics 
simultaneously  with  his  receiving  a  political  appointment.     The 


MR.  LINCOLX  431 

''skinning  of  Thomas"  is  an  extreme  instance  of  Lincoln's  sever- 
ity that  drove  his  antagonist  to  tears,  and  caused  Lincoln  himself 
to  feel  that  he  had  gone  too  far.  Seldom  did  Lincoln's  temper 
hreak  away  from  the  leash  of  his  control,  but  when  it  did  Lin- 
coln was  anything  but  a  vacillating  and  feeble  antagonist. 

If  it  were  necessary,  illustrations  might  be  multiplied  of  Lin- 
coln's capacity  for  mighty  wrath.  Like  his  father,  Thomas  Lin- 
coln, he  was  slow  to  anger,  but  like  all  truly  great  men  he  could 
be  indignant  when  it  was  necessary,  and  in  general,  his  periods 
of  anger  were  well  chosen.  He  was  angry  when  he  had  need  to 
be  angry.  The  fact  that  he  could  and  did  become  genuinely 
indignant  is  evidence  that  Lincoln  was  the  kind  of  man  he  ought 
to  have  been. 

Lincoln  declared  that  he  did  not  claim  to  have  controlled 
events,  but  that  he  had  been  controlled  by  them.  He  spoke  in 
part  truly,  but  that  was  not  the  whole  truth.  In  a  very  large 
sense  he  did  control  events,  and  his  control  was  that  of  a  man 
who  trusted  his  own  intellectual  judgments  and  was  capable  of 
compelling  other  men  to  accept  them,  and  approve  them. 

Lincoln  possessed  a  mind  capable  of  indefinite  growth.  Essen- 
tially one  with  the  people  among  whom  he  was  born  and  with 
whom  he  spent  the  years  of  his  boyhood  and  youth,  he  early  dis- 
played a  capacity  for  development  that  carried  him  beyond  the 
horizon  and  above  the  level  of  the  life  of  his  associates.  This 
he  accomplished  without  at  any  point  breaking  his  association 
with  them.  His  root  remained  in  the  soil  of  his  associations ; 
but  he  grew  until  the  terminal  bud  of  his  ideal  was  far  above  his 
associations. 

He  learned  by  his  disappointments.  Peter  the  Great  is  said 
to  have  accepted  his  early  defeats  in  battle  with  a  kind  of  glee — 
"They  are  teaching  me  how  to  fight,"  he  is  reported  to  have  said. 
Lincoln  fulfilled  in  his  own  career  the  old  Latin  proverb  that  it 
is  lawful  to  learn  from  the  enemy.  He  was  educated  by  his 
defeats.  After  he  suffered  humiliation  at  the  hands  of  Stanton 
in  the  Reaper  case,  he  returned  from  Cincinnati  to  Illinois  "to 


432  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

study  law."  He  had  learned  something  from  a  cruel  disappoint- 
ment, and  he  did  not  fail  to  make  use  of  what  he  had  learned. 
He  returned  from  his  one  term  in  Congress,  and  mastered  Eu- 
clid. He  disciplined  himself  through  his  disappointments.  Also, 
he  grew  through  his  successes.  They  increased  his  self-confi- 
dence, without  spoiling  him  with  vanity.  Thus  disciplined  by 
both  failure  and  success,  Lincoln  grew  mentally,  and  he  was 
growing  to  the  very  end  of  his  life.  His  mind  was  a  growing,  a 
retentive,  a  noble,  a  truly  great  mind. 

A  sure  test  of  Lincoln's  intellectual  processes  is  afforded  by 
his  literary  style.  The  free  use  of  words  is  no  assurance  of  the 
ability  to  think.  '  But  Lincoln's  clear,  clean-cut,  accurate  and 
transparent  use  of  English  is  the  indubitable  evidence  of  a  mind 
working  with  precision,  with  conviction  and  with  authority. 
Only  a  mind  strong  and  clear  and  logical  and  well  disciplined 
could  have  expressed  itself  as  Lincoln's  did  in  pure,  accurate  and 
forceful  language. 

Abraham  Lincoln  possessed  a  great  mind.  Born  in  the  midst  of 
penury,  and  destitute  not  only  of  educational  advantages  but 
of  incentive  to  study,  he  obtained  by  force  of  will  and  strength  of 
mental  power  a  mind  disciplined  and  of  commanding  ability. 

Lie  had  a  logical  mind.  He  wanted,  as  he  said,  to  be  able  to 
bound  his  subject,  north,  south,  east  and  west.  He  had  a  fond- 
ness for  mechanics  which  he  transferred  to  his  mental  processes; 
he  insisted  on  knowing  the  connections  of  truths,  their  causes 
and  effects.     He  would  be  content  with  nothing  short  of  truth. 

Where  he  inherited  this  power  and  aptitude  has  given  rise  to 
much  discussion.  From  his  mother,  as  he  believed,  he  inherited 
his  power  of  analysis,  his  intellectual  alertness,  his  gift  of  logic. 
But  this  is  only  a  partial  answer. 

In  his  earlier  environment  there  was,  as  he  said,  "absolutely 
nothing"  to  stimulate  within  him  the  love  of  learning;  yet  the 
love  of  learning  was  strong  within  him.  Much  did  he  owe  to 
solitude,  and  the  power  of  reflection.  Yet  his  was  a  nature 
strongly  social;  and  much  that  was  inherent  in  him  could  not 


MR.  LINCOLN  433 

have  been   evoked   except   in   association   and   competition   with 
other  men. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  such  attempts  as  have  been 
made  to  trace  Lincoln's  powers  through  his  converging-  lines  of 
ancestry  have  been  so  clumsy  and  futile.  The  requisite  material 
has  not  been  available,  and  what  little  has  been  at  hand  has  not 
been  explored  in  a  scientific  spirit.  The  only  group  of  his  rela- 
tions that  has  been  investigated  with  anything  approaching  thor- 
oughness has  been  certain  of  the  Hanks  families,  and  the  less 
said  about  these  investigations  the  better.  They  have  not  fur- 
thered reliable  knowledge,  and  in  the  main  have  perverted  truth. 
As  already  stated,  the  largest  present  group  of  blood  relations  of 
Lincoln  are  the  Sparrows,  descendants,  some  of  them  through 
several  lines,  from  his  grandmother,  Lucy  Hanks.  But  these 
add  their  evidence  to  the  maternal  and  not  the  paternal  side.  As 
yet  we  have  quite  inadequate  material  for  an  explanation  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  by  heredity.  From  whom  did  Abraham  Lin- 
coln inherit  his  mind? 

Thomas  Lincoln,  certainly,  was  no  such  intellectual  giant  as 
his  son;  and  who  among  the  Hankses  could  have  fathered  or 
mothered  such  a  mind  as  that  of  Lincoln  ? 

It  has  been  confidently  asserted  that  Abraham  Lincoln  did 
not  have  in  him  one  drop  of  Lincoln  blood ;  and  that  he  be- 
trayed this  fact  in  his  personal  appearance,  bearing  a  marked 
resemblance  to  the  Hanks  family,  which  was  a  family  of  tall 
men.*  Did  he  also  resemble  the  Lincolns?  Most  biographers 
have  traced  resemblance  or  difference  on  the  paternal  side  no 
farther  than  to  his  father.  The  extent  to  which  he  resembled 
Thomas  Lincoln  has  already  been  commented  upon.  Abraham 
Lincoln  appears  to  have  inherited  quite  as  much  from  his  father, 
Thomas  Lincoln,  as  his  son,  Robert  Todd  Lincoln,  inherited 
from  him.  That  Lincoln  resembled  his  mother's  family,  the 
Hankses,  is  undisputed  :  but  it  is  not  at  all  certain  that  this  re- 


*For  a  complete,  and  as  I   believe  a   final  discussion  of  this   question,   I 
refer  to  my  book  The  Paternity  of  Abraham   Lincoln. 


434  THE  LIFE  OF. ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

semblance  was  more  pronounced  than  that  which  he  bore  to  the 
Lincoln  side.  There  was  more  opportunity  of  comparison  be- 
tween him  and  the  Hankses  than  between  him  and  the  Lincolns. 
When  Thomas  Lincoln,  about  1802,  removed  from  Washington 
County  to  Hardin  County,  Kentucky,  he  left  the  Lincoln  family 
permanently  behind.  Members  of  the  Hanks  family,  on  the  other 
hand,  lived  near  him  in  Kentucky,  followed  him  to  Indiana  and 
accompanied  him  to  Illinois,  where  John  Hanks  was  already 
located.  At  no  time  until  his  removal  to  Washington  was  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  very  far  removed  from  representatives  of  his  moth- 
er's family;  but  in  all  his  life  he  appears  to  have  met  scarcely 
any  of  his  father's  relatives.  Evidence  is  not  lacking,  however, 
that  he  was  a  thorough  Lincoln,  even  in  those  very  particulars 
that  have  been  most  confidently  enumerated  as  belonging  to 
the  Hankses. 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  fact  is  found  in  the  diary  of 
John  Hay  in  the  year  1867  after  his  return  from  Washington  to 
Illinois,  and  before  his  appointment  to  diplomatic  service.  Of  a 
railroad  journey  in  that  state  he  left  the  following  contemporary 
record : 


Rode  to  Carthage  in  the  same  seat  with  Robert  Lincoln,  a  sec- 
ond cousin  of  the  late  President.  He  is  forty-one  years  old,  looks 
much  older.  The  same  eyes  and  hair  the  President  had — the  same 
tall  stature  and  shambling  gait  less  exaggerated;  a  rather  rough 
farmer-looking  man.  Drinks  hard,  chews  ravenously.  He  says 
the  family  is  about  run  out.  "We  are  not  a  very  marrying  set." 
He  is  dying  of  consumption,  he  said  very  coolly.  There  was 
something  startling  in  the  resemblance  of  the  straight  thicket  of 
hair,  and  the  grey,  cavernous  eyes  framed  in  black  brows  and 
lashes.  He  was  a  pioneer  of  our  country.  Knew  my  father 
since  long  years.  Brought  a  load  of  wheat  to  Gould  &  Miller 
in  1842  with  ox  team;  got  $90  in  gold  for  it.  Told  me  that  in 
i860  he  had  talked  with  "Abe"  about  assassination.  Abe  said, 
"I  never  injured  anybody;  No  one  is  going  to  hurt  me."  He 
says  he  was  invited  by  "Abe"  to  go  to  Washington  at  the  time 
of    the    inauguration,    but    declined,    thinking    it    dangerous — a 


MR.  LINCOLN  435 

naivete  of  statement   I   thought  would  have  been  impossible  out 
of  the  west.* 

Mr.  Hay  was  not  writing  with  any  thought  of  putting  on 
record  a  piece  of  evidence  regarding  the  paternity  of  Lincoln. 
He  was  simply  recording  the  spontaneous  impression  which  one 
received  who  had  known  Abraham  Lincoln  intimately,  on  meeting 
one  of  Lincoln's  near  relatives. 

It  has  been  my  privilege  to  extend  my  study  of  Lincoln's  ante- 
cedents much  farther  than  Air.  Hay  found  opportunity  to  do, 
and  to  give  some  especial  attention  to  the  family  group  in  which 
he  discovered  this  striking  resemblance.  The  conclusion  is  ineluc- 
table ;  Abraham  Lincoln  was  in  very  marked  degree  a  Lincoln, 
even  more  than  he  was  a  Hanks.  This  fact  does  not  wholly 
account  for  him ;  no  great  man  can  be  accounted  for.  Thomas 
Carlyle  had  his  scornful  word  concerning  biographers  who  "do 
what  they  call  account  for"  men  of  heroic  mold.  But  it  estab- 
lishes Lincoln's  place  in  the  Lincoln  family.  In  his  personal 
appearance,  movements  of  body  and  habits  of  thought.  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  thoroughly  a  Lincoln. 

The  largest  group  of  his  blood  relations  on  the  Lincoln  side 
are  the  descendants  of  Mordecai  Lincoln,  President  Abraham 
Lincoln's  uncle.  These  came  to  Illinois  about  a  year  before 
Thomas  Lincoln  migrated  to  Indiana,  and  made  their  home  in 
Hancock  County.  There  Mordecai  Lincoln  died  in  the  winter  of 
the  deep  snow,  1830.  I  have  visited  his  descendants  and  have 
obtained  not  only  facts'  and  traditions  and  family  records,  but  a 
considerable  quantity  of  manuscript  that  comes  direct  from  the 
Lincolns  of  the  first  generation  in  Illinois.  Among  these  paper.- 
are  many  letters,  accounts  and  essays  of  the  second  Mordecai 
Lincoln,  first  cousin  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  His  handwriting  is 
strikingly  like  that  of  his  cousin  Abraham,  and  his  mental  traits 
are  arrestingly  similar.  It  is  little  wonder  that  John  Hay  was 
impressed  by  the  startling  resemblance  of  one  of  these  cousins. 


'William  Roscoe  Thayer:  Life  of  John  Hay.  i.  p.  279. 


436  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

one  degree  more  remote,  to  "the  great,  dead  man."  These  Lin- 
colns  resembled  Abraham  Lincoln  not  only  in  stature,  color  of 
hair,  eyes,  gait  and  manner  of  speech,  but,  what  is  more  strik- 
ing, they  possessed  and  recognized  as  a  family  trait  the  moods 
to  which  the  president  was  all  his  life  subject.  They  went  from 
boisterous  mirth  to  the  depths  of  despair  without  any  visible  oc- 
casion. They  had  what  they  called  "the  Lincoln  horrors."  None 
of  them  ever  went  insane,  but  all  of  them,  the  men  even  more 
than  the  women,  were  subject  to  violent  transitions  from  one 
mood  to  another. 

Lincoln's  superstition,  his  fatalism,  his  belief  in  dreams  and 
signs  and  portents  was  more  than  a  family  inheritance ;  it  be- 
longed to  his  environment.  But  certain  mental  predispositions 
appear  to  have  been  particularly  characteristic  of  his  family. 
Lincoln  believed  that  he  would  die  a  violent  death.  That  fact 
may  not  be  difficult  to  account  for  considering  the  dangers  in 
which  he  lived,  and  the  repeated  warnings  received  by  him  that 
his  life  was  in  danger.  A  premonition  of  approaching  death  was 
not,  however,  an  unknown  thing  in  the  Lincoln  family.  One  of 
his  cousins  was  so  sure  of  the  manner  in  which  he  was  to  die, 
that  his  wife  did  not  wish  him  to  go  to  the  woods  alone  lest  a 
tree  should  fall  upon  him. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  Lincoln  family  is  far  too  meager  to 
justify  sweeping  generalizations.  It  is  a  subject  that  will  bear 
much  more  painstaking  study  than  any  one  has  yet  devoted  to  it. 
Such  study  as  I  have  been  able  to  make  appears  to  make  it  certain 
that  some  of  Lincoln's  most  important  characteristics  were  not 
purely  individualistic,  but  are  to  be  accounted  for  by  family 
inheritance. 

One  subject,  of  very  great  delicacy  and  involving  no  little  dif- 
ficulty, will  have  to  be  considered  in  any  thorough  attempt  to 
account  for  the  mentality  of  Lincoln,  and  that  is  the  degree  of 
normality  of  his  sexual  life.  The  present  would  appear  to  be  a 
time  in  which  the  phenomena  of  sex  is  finding  over-emphasis, 
not  only  in  current  fiction  and  poetry  but  in  more  serious  branches 


MR.  LINCOLN  437 

of  literature.  From  this  overstrained  condition  we  may  hope  for 
a  wholesome  reaction.  Nevertheless,  the  facts  of  sex  are  not  to 
be  ignored. 

There  is  agreement  among  competent  authorities  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  lived  a  chaste  life  both  before  and  after  his  marriage  to 
Mary  Todd.  No  charge  of  sexual  irregularity,  worthy  of  a  mo- 
ment's attention,  has  ever  been  made  against  him.  Before  his  mar- 
riage he  was  shy  in  his  relations  with  women;  after  his  marriage, 
although  he  spent  long  weeks  away  from  home  and  did  not  habit- 
ually return  to  Springfield  for  week-ends  while  he  was  riding  the 
circuit,  there  lies  against  him  no  charge  of  loose  conduct. 

His  first  child,  Robert  T.  Lincoln,  was  born  on  the  two  hundred 
and  seventieth  day  following  the  marriage  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  Mary  Todd,  a  period  which  tells  its  own  story  of  immediate 
conception.  His  other  children  were  born  at  regular  intervals  of 
about  three  years.  Although  he  was  neither  impotent  nor  sterile, 
Abraham  Lincoln  had  a  morbid  dread  of  the  responsibilities  of 
matrimony.  In  the  case  of  Mary  Owens,  a  partial  explanation  is 
to  be  found  in  his  poverty,  and  the  depression  growing  out  of 
uncertainty  regarding  his  own  financial  future. 

But  this  does  not  wholly  account  for  that  strange  courtship. 
In  the  case  of  Mary  Todd,  a  partial  explanation  is  to  be  found  in 
such  knowledge  as  we  have  of  her  violent  temper  and  Lincoln's 
realization  of  his  own  lack  of  social  grace.  Other  men,  however, 
have  contemplated  marriage  when  disparities  quite  as  great  stared 
them  in  the  face,  and  have  made  their  decision  unvexed  by  any 
such  mental  perturbation  as  characterized  Abraham  Lincoln.  He 
was  nearly  thirty-four  years  of  age  when  he  married,  and  he 
contemplated  the  step  with  a  thoroughly  morbid  hesitation. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  review  in  detail  the  story  of  his  courtship. 
We  discover  in  Lincoln  a  man  of  domestic  tastes  and  of  pure 
life,  a  man  who  was  upright  in  his  relations  with  women  before 
his  marriage,  was  true  to  his  wife  and  the  father  of  a  family  of 
children,  yet  whose  attitude  toward  marriage  was  influenced  by 
a  large  degree  of  abnormality. 


438  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Robert  Lincoln,  the  president's  second  cousin,  told  John  Hay 
that  the  Illinois  Lincolns  ''were  not  a  marrying  set."  This  fact 
has  frequently  been  mentioned  and  commented  upon  in  letters  to 
me  from  members  of  the  Lincoln  family.  The  Lincolns  tend  to 
marry  late  if  at  all,  and  not  to  remarry  in  case  of  the  death  of 
husband  or  wife.  The  Hanks  family  was  quite  evidently  ade- 
quately sexed.  The  Lincoln  family  appears  to  have  been 
under-sexed. 

There  is  a  vague  rumor  to  the  effect  that  Lincoln  was  at  one 
time  in  an  insane  asylum.  That  story  appears  to  have  no  foun- 
dation whatever  in  fact ;  neither  have  I  found  records  of  near 
relatives  of  his  who  were  pronounced  insane.  Twice,  however, 
and  perhaps  oftener,  Lincoln  exhibited  unstable  mental  equilib- 
rium. One  of  these  occasions  occurred  after  the  death  of  Ann 
Rutledge.  The  current  accounts  of  his  alleged  insanity  at  that 
time  have  been  considerably  exaggerated ;  nevertheless  there  is 
adequate  evidence  of  marked  mental  disturbance  superinduced  by 
grief. 

The  other  period  is  that  which  followed  what  he  called,  "the 
fatal  first  of  January,"  1841.  Here  also  there  has  been  exag- 
geration as  has  been  shown  in  another  chapter.  But  his  letter  to 
Stuart  can  have  no  other  meaning  than  this,  that  Lincoln  be- 
lieved himself  to  be  in  danger  of  going  permanently  insane. 

Lincoln,  in  common  with  other  members  of  the  Lincoln  fam- 
ilv,  had  periods  of  profound  depression,  alternating  with  others 
of  boisterous  hilarity.  Not  only  did  he  make  others  laugh  when 
he  was  gay;  he  laughed  uproariously  at  his  own  jokes.  But 
there  were  other  times  when  his  gloom  "dripped  from  him  as  he 
walked."  His  mind  was  rocked  between  mighty  emotions,  from 
gleeful  mirth  to  profound  melancholy. 

Superficial  critics  have  their  easy  way  of  accounting  for  Lin- 
coln's moods.  The  sentimental  ones  among  them  like  to  think 
that  he  received  such  a  shock  by  reason  of  the  death  of  Ann  Rut- 
ledge,  that  he  never  was  completely  happy  afterward.  Those 
who  enjoy  putting  the  worst  possible  aspects  upon  his  none  too 


MR.  LINCOLN  439 

happy  married  life,  have  no  difficulty  in  explaining  his  moods  by 
reference  to  the  hot  temper  and  unreasonable  and  capricious  will 
of  Mary  Todd.  There  is  no  occasion  to  deny  whatever  of  in- 
fluence may  properly  be  attributed  to  these  conditions  of  Lin- 
coln's life.  But  these  alone  do  not  account  for  his  alternate 
mirth  and  melancholy.  Something  of  the  explanation  is  to  be 
found  in  these  incidents,  but  something  also  in  those  elements  of 
the  man  himself  which  grow  out  of  his  heredity  and  his  own 
peculiar  psychological  development. 

No  man  has  any  right  entirely  to  outgrow  his  emotions. 
Abraham"  Lincoln  never  did  so.  Affection,  sympathy,  mirth,  and 
even  capacity  for  mighty  wrath,  belonged  to  him.  But  the  man 
who  would  think  clearly  must  sometimes  be  able  to  keep  his  in- 
tellectual processes  in  one  compartment,  and  his  emotions  in  an- 
other, separated  by  a  nearly  water-tight  bulkhead.  If  he  can 
not  do  this  he  will  find  his  thinking  water-logged,  and  his  con- 
clusions will  flounder  and  sink.  There  comes  a  time  when  a  man 
must  learn  to  get  light  without  heat.  Abraham  Lincoln  ac- 
quired that  ability.  He  was  able  to  face  an  intellectual  problem 
intellectually,  and  resolutely  think  it  through.  He  was  gifted 
with  a  kind  of  remorseless  logic,  which  upon  occasion  made 
him  master  of  an  intellectual  adjustment  almost  mechanical  in 
the  perfection  of  its  workings. 

His  very  ability  to  tell  a  story  or  crack  a  joke  in  a  time  when 
the  emotional  strain  grew  tense,  was  evidence  of  a  high  degree 
of  normality  of  judgment.  It  enabled  Lincoln  to  accomplish  an 
adjustment  between  emotion  and  sound  logic  which  tended  enor- 
mously to  a  clarity  of  judgment.  "I  laugh  because  I  must  not 
cry :  that's  all,  that's  all,"  he  said.  That  was  as  good  a  reason, 
perhaps,  as  he  could  give  to  any  one  else,  but  there  was  a  deeper 
psychological  reason  than  he  could  have  understood.  He  laughed 
because  for  him  it  was  a  time  when  laughter  was  the  most 
rormal  method  possible  of  adjusting  the  balance  between  intel- 
lect and  emotion,  and  preparing  for  sound  and  sensible  judg- 
ment. 


44Q  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

This  fact  about  Lincoln's  poise  of  intellect  and  emotion  must 
not  pass  without  emphasis.  Lincoln  was  by  nature  a  man  of 
powerful  emotions.  More  than  once  in  his  youth  his  mind  ap- 
proached a  condition  of  instability.  Anger,  lust  and  a  melan- 
choly so  deep  that  it  blackened  the  whole  sky,  were  all  within  the 
potentialities  of  his  nature.  He  learned  self-control.  Capable  of 
towering  rage,  he  seldom  lost  his  temper.  Capable  of  mighty 
sexual  passion,  he  lived  a  life  of  chastity.  And  as  the  years 
went  by,  he  so  far  mastered  his  moods  as  to  make  him  capable 
of  concentrated  and  continuous  thought. 

We  are  living  in  a  time  when  it  is  fashionable  to  talk  of  "com- 
plexes" and  "inhibitions,"  and  there  is  much  tendency  to  make 
men  the  victims  of  circumstances  and  the  helpless  puppets  of 
their  own  subconscious  minds.  Lincoln  taught  his  conscious 
mind  and  deliberate  will  to  rule  his  spirit  and  direct  his  ener- 
gies. He  became  master  of  his  own  destiny  by  being  the  captain 
of  his  own  soul. 

An  important  lesson  is  here  for  men  and  women  who  suppose 
themselves  to  be  the  inevitable  victims  of  their  own  environment 
and  heredity.  Powerful  as  are  the  dead  hands  which  reach 
down  through  heredity  and  grip  the  lives  of  successive  genera- 
tions, life  and  the  mastery  thereof  belong  not  to  the  dead  but  to 
the  living.  Men  are  not  inevitably  the  victims  of  their  own  de- 
bilitated wills  or  disordered  imaginations.  It  is  possible  by 
patient,  resolute,  persistent  soul-culture,  to  rise  measurably  above 
constitutional    and    hereditary    limitations.      Tennyson    declared 

That  men  may  rise  on  stepping  stones 
Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things. 

Rather  more  difficult  appears  the  problem  in  the  light  of  pres- 
ent day  psychology.  A  man  must  rise,  if  he  rises  at  all,  on  step- 
ping stones  of  his  living  self  to  higher  things.  St.  Paul  was  not 
the  only  man  who  discovered  the  necessity  of  buffeting  his  own 
body  and  keeping  it  under,  lest  having  preached  to  others,  he 


MR.  LINCOLN  441 

should  himself  become  a  castaway.  The  problem  of  triumphant 
life  is  that  and  more.  A  man  must  buffet  and  conquer  certain 
elements  in  his  own  mentality,  enthroning  not  simply  the  mind 
above  the  body,  but  enthroning  also  within  the  mind  those  pow- 
ers and  faculties  which  constitute  his  noblest  self. 

The  lesson  of  the  Chambered  Nautilus  is  still  as  good  as 
when  Holmes  wrote  his  poem  about  it.  The  soul  must  build 
itself,  and  the  human  mind  has  built  for  itself,  "more  stately  man- 
sions" than  those  which  the  anatomy  of  the  human  brain  makes 
manifest  as  the  evolution  of  the  primitive  heritage  of  vertebrate 
life.  But  we  are  not  able  wholly  to  "leave  our  low- vaulted  past." 
As  we  bear  about  in  our  bodies  rudimentary  organs  analagous  to 
those  of  lower  animal  life,  yet  use  instead  of  them  those  that  are 
distinctive  of  our  humanity,  so  we  bear  about  in  our  minds  the 
vestiges  of  impulse  and  desire  whose  enthronement  within  us 
would  be  fatal  to  all  nobility  of  soul. 

This  we  know  about  Abraham  Lincoln,  that  with  much  in  his 
environment  unfavorable  to  higher  development,  and  with  inher- 
ent tendency  to  lethargy,  indolence,  torpor  and  a  brooding  melan- 
choly which  if  indulged  would  have  been  fatal  to  all  resolute 
endeavor,  he  made  himself  master  of  his  environment  and  master 
of  his  own  mind.  Wise  was  the  man  who,  in  the  book  of  Prov- 
erbs, is  placed  highest  among  the  conquerors,  the  man  that  ruleth 
his  own  spirit. 

III.    LINCOLN    AS   A    BUSINESS    MAN 

This  topic  might  be  treated  with  extreme  brevity.  It  might  be 
affirmed  that  Lincoln  was  not  a  business  man.  and  that  there 
was,  therefore,  nothing  to  be  said  about  him  in  that  capacity.  If 
proof  were  demanded,  a  considerable  body  of  testimony  would 
be  found  available.  It  would  be  remembered  that  Lincoln  was 
declared  by  his  friends  to  "have  had  no  money  sense.''  It  will 
be  recalled  that  his  successive  ventures  as  a  merchant  in  Xew 
Salem  all  were  doomed  to  financial  ruin.  It  will  not  be  forgotten 
that  for  many  years  he  was  in  debt,  and  did  not  succeed  in  paying 


442  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  last  of  his  indebtedness  until  his  term  in  Congress  in  1847-8. 
It  will  not  be  forgotten  that  in  his  second  term  in  the  Legislature 
of  Illinois  he  was  oil  the  Finance  Committee,  and  that  he  had  his 
full  share  of  responsibility  for  plunging  Illinois  into  that  morass 
of  speculation  and  wild  financiering  which  wrought  ruin  for  the 
state  and  for  all  who  shared  the  unfounded  hopes  of  that  period. 
It  will  surely  be  recited  that  in  those  days  Lincoln  aspired  to  be 
"the  DeWitt  Clinton  of  Illinois, "  considering  himself  to  possess 
a  financial  acumen  which  he  did  not  possess  then  or  afterward. 
All  this  can  be  said  and  Jias  been  said,  and  it  would  seem  to  prove 
the  unwisdom  of  attempting  to  talk  about  Abraham  Lincoln  as 
a  business  man.     But  it  is  that  subject  which  we  are  to  consider. 

First  of  all,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  honest.  He  had  that  first 
requisite  for  business  success.  Business  is  done  on  the  basis  of 
confidence,  and  confidence  must  be  founded  upon  the  belief  that 
men  are  honest.  He  paid  his  debts ;  he  paid  the  debts  incurred 
by  his  partner.  It  took  him  years  to  do  it,  but  he  did  it.  While 
still  a  young  man  he  earned  the  name  of  "Honest  Abe,"  and  he 
held  it  and  deserved  it  as  long  as  he  lived.  In  this  particular,  at 
least,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  the  fundamental  qualification  for  a  suc- 
cessful business  life.  He  possessed  moral  character,  and  he  was 
able  to  make  men  believe  in  him.  Without  this  quality  there  can 
be  no  permanently  successful  business. 

Further,  we  should  remember,  Lincoln  did  not  fail  permanently. 
We  are  told  every  now  and  again  that  nine-tenths  of  American 
business  men  fail.  The  proportion  probably  is  not  anywhere 
nearly  so  large  as  this.  But  if  they  fail,  they  do  not,  for  the 
most  part,  fail  permanently.  The  man  who  fails  as  a  farmer 
succeeds  as  an  inventor.  The  man  who  fails  as  a  school-teacher 
succeeds  as  an  editor.  The  man  who  fails  as  a  preacher  succeeds 
as  a  doctor.  The  man  who  fails  as  a  lawyer  succeeds  as  a  vendor 
of  real  estate.  This  is  the  characteristic  of  American  life,  not 
that  no  one  fails  in  America  but  that  very  few  men  stay  failed. 
They  rise  again,  if  they  have  energy,  character  and  enthusiasm; 
and  after  one  or  more  failures,  thev  succeed.     Lincoln  failed  as 


MR.  LINCOLN  443 

the  keeper  of  a  country  store.  The  town  failed.  It  "winked 
out."  It  was  not  possible  that  any  one  should  permanently  suc- 
ceed there.  The  hopes  upon  which  the  future  of  the  town  were 
based  were  insecure.  But  when  the  firm  of  Lincoln  and  Berry 
failed,  Lincoln  studied  surveying  and  law,  and  he  found  some- 
thing that  he  could  do  successfully. 

To  be  sure,  he  gained  money  slowly.  Fees  were  small,  and 
Lincoln's  fees  were  smaller  than  those  of  some  of  his  associates. 
Still,  he  gained  wealth  in  modest  measure.  He  paid  up  his  debt. 
He  bought  and  paid  for  a  home.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  sue  the 
Illinois  Central  Railway  Company  for  a  good  round  fee,  and  he 
collected  it.  He  was  not  covetous,  but  he  knew  the  value  of 
money,  and  the  money  that  he  earned  he  collected  and  kept. 
W 'hen  he  left  Springfield  for  Washington,  he  had  money  in  the 
bank,  no  large  sum,  but  still  quite  enough  to  keep  him  out  of  fear 
of  poverty,  and  his  practise  was  growing  more  remunerative 
year  by  year.  His  investments  were  conservative,  and  the  money 
which  he  gained  was  not  wasted  in  idle  neglect  or  covetous  specu- 
lation. Had  he  lived  on  as  a  lawyer,  he  would  never  have  been 
rich ;  but  he  would  have  developed  more  and  more  of  business 
ability  within  the  sphere  of  his  experience,  and  would  have  been 
accounted  a  successful  man.     Such  we  may  properly  account  him. 

Lincoln's  office  has  often  been  described  as  a  very  untidy  and 
disorderly  place.  Lincoln  had  no  system  or  order  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  his  office  affairs.  But  he  was  able  to  draw  his  papers 
in  good  form,  and  write  out  his  documents  in  a  clear  hand  and 
with  precision  of  statement.  His  bookkeeping  was  of  the  very 
simplest  character,  if,  indeed,  he  can  be  said  to  have  kept  any 
books.  \\  nen  he  collected  a  fee,  he  divided  it  in  two  equal  parts, 
and  marked  one  "Herndon's  half"  and  left  it  on  his  table.  That 
was  simple,  but  it  was  methodical.  And  it  was  sufficient  for 
their  needs. 

Finally,  Lincoln  died  possessed  of  a  modest  fortune.  It  is 
true  that  after  his  death  many  articles  were  published  stating  that 
Mrs.  Lincoln  had  been  left  in  a  condition  of  penury.     Mrs.  Lin- 


444  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

coin  herself,  in  her  disordered  mental  condition,  contributed 
something  to  this  impression.  As  late  as  December,  1922,  let- 
ters of  hers  which  had  not  previously  been  published  appeared  in 
the  newspapers,  telling  of  her  poverty  after  the  death  of  her 
husband.  The  truth  is  that  at  the  time  of  his  death,  Lincoln 
was  worth  more  than  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand  dollars, 
most  of  it  invested  in  good  government  bonds.  While  he  was 
not  rich,  even  as  wealth  was  then  estimated  among  men  in  high 
official  life,  he  left  Mrs.  Lincoln  an  assured  income  of  about 
five  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  Congress  added  to  this  a  modest 
pension. 

Thus,  judged  even  from  the  standpoint  of  success  in  accumulat- 
ing wealth,  Lincoln  can  not  be  counted  a  failure  as  a  business 
man.  Judged  by  the  principles  which  underlay  this  measure  of 
success,  his  integrity,  honesty  and  application  to  duty,  Lincoln 
may  be  counted  a  success. 

'  Nearly  every  man  has  to  be  a  business  man  in  some  degree. 
Not  every  man  has  to  be  a  merchant  prince,  but  it  is  important 
that  a  man  shall  do  well  such  business  as  he  has  to  do.  Judged 
by  what  was  necessary  to  him  in  the  conduct  of  the  business  that 
legitimately  belonged  to  him,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  a  failure 
as  a  man  of  affairs.  He  may  be  considered  something  of  a  suc- 
cess; for  he  paid  his  honest  debts  and  left  his  family  sufficient 
provision  for  their  requirements.     That  is  success  in  business. 

IV.      THE    CHARACTER   OF   LINCOLN 

Some  aspects  of  the  character  of  Lincoln  lie  revealed  upon  its 
surface.  His  transparent  sincerity,  his  rugged  honesty,  his  ex- 
alted sense  of  honor,  his  kindness  of  heart,  are  written  so  plain 
that  he  who  runs  may  read.  Yet  he  who  attempts  to  account 
for  Abraham  Lincoln  by  any  simple  canon  of  judgment  will  find 
himself  baffled.  Whatever  consistency  there  was  in  Lincoln's 
life  was  made  up  of  the  union  of  antithetic  elements.  Of  him 
might  have  been  said  as  was  said  of  Brutus : 


MR.  LINCOLN  445 

His  life  was  gentle,  and  the  elements 

So  mixed  in  him  that  Nature  might  stand  up 

And  say  to  all  the  world,  "This  was  a  man." 

All  strong-  characters  have  to  their  credit  some  quality  of 
obstinate  and  laudable  inconsistency  without  which  they  could 
not  be  consistent  with  themselves.  In  them  we  discover  that 
paradox  which  John  Hay  attributed  to  Jim  Bludsoe,  by  reason 
of  which  the  passengers  of  the  flaming  boat  "put  their  faith  in 
his  cussedness,  and  knew  "that  he'd  keep  his  word."  Tennyson 
recognized  this  strong  moral  paradox : 

His  honor,  rooted  in  dishonor  stood, 

And  faith,  unfaithful,  kept  him  falsely  true. 

What  St.  Paul  and  Augustine  and  Anthony  found  of  the  war- 
fare within  themselves  is  that  which  all  great  men  have  experi- 
enced. If  the  inconsistency  be  not  in  the  sphere  of  ethics,  still 
is  it  present  in  some  mental  maladjustment  which  provides  at 
length  its  own  equilibrium.  The  equipoise  of  mental  traits  that 
seem  opposed  and  of  moral  principles  in  apparent  conflict,  con- 
stitute the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces  of  character.  Few 
men  have  been  so  consistently  inconsistent  as  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  character  of  Abraham  Lincoln  combined  in  marked  de- 
gree humility  and  self-confidence.  In  some  aspects  of  his  life, 
his  humility  was  very  nearly  complete.  He  felt  his  own  limita- 
tions and  acknowledged  them  with  sincerity  and  sometimes  with 
sorrow.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  strangely  and  profoundly 
conscious  of  his  power.  Seward  and  Chase  and  other  men  who 
knew  the  superiority  of  their  training  to  his,  and  who  heard 
him  confess  his  own  deficiencies,  were  amazed  when  he  quietly 
ceased  to  defer  to  them  and  asserted  his  own  judgment  and  con- 
\  iction  with  a  finality  that  brooked  no  further  opposition.  John 
Hay  is  right  in  saying  that  in  this  aspect  of  his  character  Lin- 
coln was  far  from  being  a  modest  man,  that  this  power  of  self- 
assertion  in  him  was  something  which  these  men  found  almost 
intolerable,  and  were  never  able  to  forget. 


446  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Every  truly  great  man  recognizes  his  own  limitations;  Lin- 
coln was  painfully  aware  of  them.  But  every  great  man  is 
?.ware,  also,  of  his  power,  and  without  that  consciousness  of 
power  he  could  never  become  great.  Lincoln  had  this  conscious- 
ness of  strength,  and  it  combined  with  an  enormous  ambition. 
Not  all  his  protestations  of  humility  are  to  be  taken  at  their  full 
face  value.  Some  of  them  were  half  ironical,  and  were  used  to 
disarm  an  opponent  by  a  confession  of  inequality,  an  acknowl- 
edgement of  his  adversary's  superior  education  or  wealth  or  so- 
cial position.  They  were  sometimes  as  clever  as  were  Mark 
Antony's  declaration  of  his  own  lack  of  eloquence  and  unwor- 
thiness  to  speak  at  Caesar's  funeral,  and  his  praise  of  Brutus  and 
the  other  honorable  men. 

Lincoln  was  self-assertive  to  the  point  of  arrogance.  He 
made  demands  upon  his  friends  which  had  no  meaning  except  as 
he  and  they  understood  his  position  of  superiority.  The  pa- 
tient, humble  Lincoln  is  known,  or  supposed  to  be  known,  to  the 
world;  but  the  men  who  really  knew  Lincoln  knew  a  man  so 
confident  of  his  own  powers,  and  so  sure  of  his  right  to  demand 
the  loyalty  and  obedience  of  other  men,  that  they  never  quite 
understood  him.     But  they  did  his  bidding. 

Lincoln  never  worked  well  in  a  subordinate  position.  Dennis 
Hanks  has  told  us  how,  in  Lincoln's  youth,  if  a  stranger  passed 
along  the  road  and  asked  a  question,  it  was  Abraham  who  was 
ready  with  the  first  word,  often  to  the  displeasure  of  Abraham's 
father.  Lincoln  liked  it  little,  when  he  entered  Stuart's  office, 
that  he  was  expected  to  do  the  drudging  work  of  the  office 
while  Stuart  was  out  making  political  speeches ;  and  when  Lin- 
coln became  Judge  Logan's  junior  partner,  Lincoln  was  ambi- 
tious enough  to  aspire  to  the  very  office  which  Judge  Logan 
wanted;  in  fact,  Lincoln  obtained  it  first,  and  his  one  term  of 
Congress  made  it  impossible  for  Logan  to  get  there.  When  Lin- 
coln worked  to  advantage,  it  was  always  in  a  position  in  which 
he  could  be  the  leader.  He  was  never  so  constituted  as  to  follow 
other  men's  lead.     Writers  who  know  only  the  imaginary  Lin- 


MR.  LINCOLN  44; 

coin  tell  us  much  of  his  modesty;  he  was  modest,  in  a  sense. 
Rut  the  men  who  knew  Lincoln  did  not  think  of  him  as  modest. 
They  thought  of  him  as  a  man  of  towering  ambition  and  inordi- 
nate self-assertion.  It  was  this  quality  in  Lincoln,  a  quality  still 
for  the  most  part  unrecognized,  and  habitually  denied,  that  com- 
bined with  his  modesty  and  made  him  capable  of  leadership. 

Lincoln  had  a  remarkable  combination  of  caution  and  courage. 
His  caution  was  nothing  less  than  abnormal.  His  periods  of  in- 
decision were  marked  by  what  seemed  an  almost  hopeless  inabil- 
ity to  meet  the  situation.  His  hesitation  when  he  was  about  to 
marry,  as  manifested  in  his  relations  with  Mary  Owens,  and 
again  with  Mary  Todd,  are  not  the  only  instances  of  his  great 
caution.  He  displayed  that  caution  in  the  earlier  periods  of  his 
anti-slavery  convictions.  Again  and  again  it  disappointed  and 
even  disgusted  outspoken  abolitionists  that  Abraham  Lincoln  did 
not  seem  to  possess  the  courage  of  their  convictions.  On  the 
other  hand  Lincoln  had  abundant  courage  both  as  to  his  own 
person  and  acts  as  to  public  policies  and  military  movements. 

It  is  not  always  understood  to  what  extent  Lincoln  himself 
was  compelled  to  direct  the  movements  of  the  eastern  army  up 
to  the  very  hour  that  Grant  took  hold  of  them.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  he  virtually  compelled  every  move  that  the  reluctant  McClel- 
lan  ever  made,  and  he  frequently  devised  plans  more  bold  than 
his  generals  were  willing  to  accept. 

On  September  11,  1863,  John  Hay  wrote  to  his  associate  John 
G.  Nicolay,  who  just  then  was  away  from  Washington  : 

Some  well-meaning  newspapers  advise  the  President  to  keep 
his  fingers  out  of  the  military  pie,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
The  truth  is,  if  he  did,  the  pie  would  be  a  sorry  mess.  The  old 
man  sits  here  and  wields  like  a  back-woods  Jupiter,  the  bolts  of 
war  and  the  machinery  of  government  with  a  hand  equally 
steady  and  equally  firm. 

In  John  Hay's  diary  under  date  of  April  28,  1864,  he  re- 
corded : 


448  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  President  told  a  queer  story  of  Meigs.  When  McClel- 
lan  lay  at  Harrison's  Landing,  Meigs  came  one  night  to  the 
President  and  waked  him  up  at  the  Soldiers'  Home,  to  urge  upon 
him  the  immediate  flight  of  the  army  from  that  point — the  men 
to  get  away  on  transports,  and  the  horses  to  be  killed,  as  they 
could  not  be  saved.  "Thus  often,"  says  the  President,  "I,  who 
am  not  a  specially  brave  man,  have  had  to  restore  the  sinking 
courage  of  these  professional  fighters  in  critical  times." 

Lincoln  combined  a  certain  coarseness  and  obtuseness  to  some 
of  the  niceties  of  convention  with  a  remarkable  delicacy  and  sen- 
sitiveness to  some  of  life's  finer  obligations.  This  contradiction 
has  been  exploited  with  quite  sufficient  fullness  by  various  writ- 
ers on  Lincoln,  and  need  not  here  be  enlarged  upon.  Alfred 
Tennyson  had  the  same  coarse  streak  in  him,  and  so  had  Robert 
Browning.  No  English  gentleman  who  called  on  Lincoln  was 
ever  more  profoundly  shocked,  or  with  anything  like  so  good 
reason,  as  was  Henry  W.  Longfellow  by  the  vulgarity  of  Alfred 
Tennyson.  I  have  no  occasion  to  reconcile  that  quality  in  any 
of  these  men  with  the  undeniable  high  character  of  their  thinking 
or  the  noble  spirituality  of  the  best  that  was  in  them.  Still  less 
do  I  find  occasion  to  tell  any  lies  about  it.  Lincoln  was  both 
coarse  and  delicate ;  sensitive  and  obtuse.  I  do  not  attempt  to 
harmonize  these  contradictions.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  a 
consistent  man.  After  all,  "consistency  is  the  hob-goblin  of  little 
minds." 

Lincoln  was  in  some  respects  an  excellent  and  in  others  a  very 
poor  judge  of  human  nature.  At  times  he  had  keen  insight  into 
men's  motives,  and  at  other  times  was  strangely  blind  to  them. 
Mr.  Weik,  in  his  recent  volume*  instances,  and  I  think  correctly, 
the  case  of  Mark  W.  Delahay  of  Kansas.  Delahay  was  a  lawyer 
of  no  great  ability,  a  distant  relative  of  Lincoln  on  the  Hanks 
side.  He  went  to  Kansas  a  Democrat,  but  changed  his  politics 
when  the  change  became  advantageous.  Lincoln  paid  his  fare  to 
the  Chicago  Convention  of   i860,  and  kept  in  telegraphic  com- 


*The  Real  Lincoln,  pp.  221-226. 


MR.  LINCOLN  449 

munication  with  him  from  clay  to  day.*  Lincoln  made  him  a 
Federal  judge,  a  position  which  he  was  most  unfit  to  fill,  and 
from  which  he  was  subsequently  removed  in  disgrace.  By  such 
men  Lincoln  was  often  imposed  upon.  In  some  respects  Lincoln 
showed  good  judgment  of  men;  in  others  his  judgment  of  char- 
acter was  almost  culpably  weak.  It  is  easy  enough  to  say  that 
Lincoln,  in  the  goodness  of  his  heart,  assumed  that  other  men 
were  as  guileless  as  himself;  that  explanation  does  not  explain. 
Lincoln  knew  to  his  sorrow  that  many  other  men  were  not  so 
honest  and  righteous  as  he.  There  is  no  easy  explanation. 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  a  man  to  be  accounted  for  by  rule  of 
thumb.  His  consistency,  if  he  was  consistent,  was  not  of  that 
sort. 

Lincoln  combined  strong  animal  passion  with  chastity  and  self- 
control.  The  world's  work  must  be  done  by  men  of  initiative, 
passion  and  powTer.  Emasculated  saintliness  will  never  bring  in 
the  good  time  coming.  But  while  the  world's  work  requires  men 
of  virility,  it  requires  also  men  who  do  not  waste  the  energy 
which  their  power  produces,  or  enfeeble  themselves  in  sensual 
self-indulgence. 

He  held  power  in  reserve.  He  created  it  and  conserved  it,  and 
on  occasion  he  used  it ;  he  never  wasted  it  in  futile  rage  or  unrea- 
sonable vexation  over  minor  discomforts  or  in  the  weakness  of 
self-indulgence. 

Lincoln  rarely  touched  alcoholic  liquor  in  any  form,  and  he  did 
not  use  tobacco.  The  reason  he  gave  was  that  he  did  not  care 
for  them.  It  can  hardly  be  said  that  he  was  a  total  abstainer  on 
principle,  but  he  was  an  earnest  friend  of  the  Washingtonian 
movement,  and  a  believer  in  temperance.  How  he  wrould  have 
stood  on  the  present-day  question  of  prohibition,  we  may  only 
conjecture.  We  know  that  he  would  have  stood  strongly  for  the 
enforcement  of  law.  We  also  know  that  when,  on  January  2$, 
1853,  Reverend  James  Smith  preached  a  sermon  in  which  he 


*This  fact  I  have  from  Addison  G.  Proctor,  a  delegate  from  Kansas,  to 
whom  Delahay  showed,  the  telegrams  as  he  received  them. 


450  THE  LIFE  OF -ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

called  on  theLegislature  then  in  session  to  enact  a  law  forbidding 
the  manufacture  and  sale  of  alcoholic  liquor  for  use  as  a  beverage, 
a  strikingly  advanced  position  at  that  date,  Lincoln  was  one  of 
those  who,  signing  themselves  "Friends  of  temperance,"  asked  for 
the  printing  of  the  sermon. 

It  is  claimed  on  what  might  seem  good  authority  that  Lincoln, 
in  1855,  in  company  with  another  man  of  like  view,  made  a  tour 
of  "more  than  six  months"  through  a  portion  of  Illinois  and 
delivered  temperance  addresses.  This  story  is  vouched  for  by  a 
man  of  such  credibility  that  to  deny  the  story  may  seem  ungra- 
cious, but  I  do  not  believe  it.  The  local  newspapers,  so  far  as 
examined,  are  silent  as  to  these  addresses,  and  Lincoln  cared  too 
much  for  the  German  vote  to  alienate  it  when  he  had  no  occasion 
for  doing  so.  He  knew  he  would  need  that  vote  in  1858.  It  is 
unpleasant  to  take  direct  issue  with  as  many  good  men  as  I  am 
compelled  to  contradict  in  this  book.  They  were  on  the  ground 
and  I  was  not.  But  old  men  remember  a  great  many  things  that 
never  occurred,  and  too  largely  history  is  based  on  their 
imaginings.* 

Lincoln  was  a  man  at  times  easily  influenced.     He  liked  to  do 


*This  declaration  rests  on  the  unsupported  testimony  of  Reverend  James 
P..  Merwin,  and  is  contained  in  a  little  volume  entitled  Lincoln  and  Prohibi- 
tion, by  my  friend,  Charles  T.  White.  Mr.  Merwin  removed  to  Illinois  in 
1855,  and  became  acquainted  with  Lincoln.  He  was  a  chaplain  during  a  por- 
tion of  the  Civil  War,  his  work  being  especially  in  hospitals.  He  affirmed 
that  when  he  was  in  Washington  during  the  war,  he  slept  in  a  small  room 
in  the  White  House,  and  he  claimed  to  have  dined  with  Lincoln  on  the  day 
of  the  latter's  assassination,  a  claim  which  Robert  T.  Lincoln  denies.  Mr. 
Merwin  had  a  watch  which  was  presented  to  him  in  1855.  In  it  was  an  in- 
scription alleged  to  have  been  composed  by  Abraham  Lincoln.  This  was 
presented  to  Mr.  Merwin  in  the  rooms  of  the  Northzvestern  Christian  Advo- 
cate in  Chicago,  Abraham  Lincoln,  according  to  Mr.  Merwin's  memory,  being 
one  of  the  prominent  participants.  Mr.  White  naively  states  that  he  has 
looked  up  the  incident  in  the  files  of  the  Northwestern  Christian  Advocate, 
and  finds  the  incident  recorded  there,  except  as  to  the  presence  of  Lincoln. 
My  impression  is  that  it  would  be  safe  to  omit  Lincoln  from  the  rest  of  Mr. 
Merwin's  recollections,  except  for  two  or  three  inconsequential  matters.  Mr 
Merwin  declared  that  in  1855,  he  and  Abraham  Lincoln  stumped  Illinois  to- 
gether for  six  months  in  the  interests  of  a  state  law  prohibiting  the  sale  of 
liquor.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  brand  such  a  statement  as  untrue,  but  I  have 
no  hesitation  in  doing  so.  If  Lincoln,  between  his  two  campaigns  for  United 
States  senator,  had  given  six  months  to  such  lectures,  the  Illinois  newspapers 
would  have  been   full  of  it. 


MR.  LINCOLN  451 

what  he  was  asked  to  do.  In  many  matters  he  was  ready  to 
accept  the  judgment  of  ether  men,  and  to  modify  his  own  judg- 
ment in  view  of  what  seemed  to  them  to  be  desirable.  But  his 
pliability  was  counterbalanced  by  an  element  of  dogged  stubborn- 
ness. People  who  supposed  that  Lincoln  was  easily  influenced, 
discovered  that  his  will  was  a  rock  of  adamant.  Many  men  who 
had  grown  impatient  with  him  because  he  was  so  slow  to  promul- 
gate a  policy  of  emancipation,  really  believed  that  some  time 
between  September,  1862,  when  the  proclamation  was  issued,  and 
January  1,  1863,  when  it  went  into  effect,  Lincoln  would  be  pre- 
vailed upon  by  stronger  wills  than  his  own  to  modify,  or  even  to 
rescind,  that  proclamation.  Both  they  and  those  who  opposed 
them  in  their  desires,  were  amazed  at  the  vigor  with  which  Lin- 
coln resisted  every  suggestion  of  this  character.  He  would  rather 
have  been  impeached  and  removed  from  office.  He  declared 
with  the  utmost  vigor  that  if  any  president  modified  that  procla- 
mation, it  would  be  another  occupant  of  the  White  House  and  not 
himself.  When  it  was  suggested  that  the  rebellion  might  end 
peace  fully  and  on  terms  which  involved  the  restoration  of  the 
emancipated  slaves  to  their  masters,  Lincoln's  indignation  waxed 
hot  at  the  thought  of  a  proposal  so 'dishonorable.  Any  such  plan, 
he  said,  would  involve  stripping  the  uniform  off  the  backs  of 
black  men  who  had  been  soldiers,  and  exposing  those  backs  to 
the  lash  of  the  slave-driver. 

Yet  Lincoln  knew  that  it  was  more  than  possible  that  just  this 
might  happen  if  the  war  should  end  and  the  seceded  states  be 
restored  before  the  passage  of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment.  Those 
men  who  had  been  unable  to  drive  Lincoln  to  the  issuing  of  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  were  astonished  at  the  length  he  went 
in  driving  the  nation  toward  the  adoption  of  that  amendment  to 
the  Constitution. 

This  insistence  upon  making  slavery  forever  impossible  in  the 
United  States  Lincoln  pushed  without  rancor  though  with  tre- 
mendous determination.  To  the  very  end  he  would  have  been 
glad  to  equalize  the  economic  burden  north  and  south  entailed  by 


452  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  freeing  of  the  slave  by  some  sort  of  compensated  emancipa- 
tion. It  is  not  commonly  known  that  as  late  as  February  5, 
1865,  a  short  month  before  the  second  inaugural,  Lincoln  rea< 
to  his  Cabinet  a  short  message  which  he  proposed  to  transmit  t( 
Congress  asking  for  an  appropriation  of  $400,000,000,  to  be 
used  at  the  discretion  of  the  president,  to  be  paid  to  the  states 
then  in  rebellion,  for  emancipation,  peace  and  the  ratification  of 
the  Thirteenth  Amendment.  The  Cabinet  unanimously  disap- 
proved the  project,  and  Lincoln  did  not  further  urge  it.  Lin- 
coln did  not  need  to  buy  the  good  will  of  the  South  by  any 
such  proposal;  the  South  was  hopelessly  beaten;  the  end  of  the 
conflict  was  in  sight.  Had  Lincoln  been  disposed,  he  might 
have  taken  the  high  ground,  which  his  entire  Cabinet  took,  that 
it  was  no  time  for  any  conciliatory  measure.  It  is  a  fine  tribute 
to  his  greatness  of  heart  as  well  as  to  his  sagacity  and  statesman- 
ship that  he  wanted  to  go  before  Congress  with  a  proposal  to  pay 
four  hundred  millions  of  dollars  to  the  defeated  South  toward 
compensation  for  their  liberated  slaves  and  for  the  rehabilitation 
of  that  distressed  region.  The  fact  that  Lincoln  could  advocate 
such  a  plan  while  remorselessly  pushing  his  campaign  for  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment  speakes  volumes  for  his  wisdom  and 
kindness. 

The  tests  of  greatness  in  politics  are  not  immediate  and  un- 
disputable.  Lincoln  was  denounced  in  his  own  day  in  terms 
which  were  bitter,  cruel  and  unjust.  But  he  was  able  to  hold 
men  in  working  relationships  and  to  accomplish  his  purposes  and 
secure  permanent  results.  In  the  best  sense  he  was  an  opportun- 
ist. He  combined  vision  with  practical  sagacity.  He  was  subtle 
and  at  times  stubborn.  He  was  pliable  and  in  time  of  need 
adamant.     He  was  a  man  of  strange  and  contradictory  qualities. 

Lincoln  was  unmethodical  and  disorderly  in  his  office  and  un- 
systematic in  his  work  of  preparation  for  his  cases.  But  he  had 
a  singular  ability  to  discriminate  in  his  mental  processes  between 
the  essential  and  non-essential.  This  process  he  carried  over 
into  his  moral  judgments.     He  believed  in  a  government  dedi- 


MR.  LINCOLN  453 

cated  to  equality  of  rights  before  the  law.  We  are  much  more 
likely  to  think  ourselves  the  equal  of  Lincoln  than  to  think 
humbler  men  our  equals.  Lincoln  faced  honestly  the  full  impli- 
cations of  his  convictions. 

Lincoln  took  very  little  interest  in  local  affairs.  He  did  not 
greatly  care  who  was  mayor  of  Springfield  unless  the  election 
of  mayor  had  linked  to  it  some  measure  which  was  likely  to  in- 
fluence the  district,  state  or  national  vote.  He  was  not  in  any 
narrow  sense  a  public-spirited  citizen.  He  was  not  quick  to  see 
nor  swift  to  contribute  toward  measures  for  purely  local  causes. 
Springfield  was  agitated  several  times  over  trials  of  runaway 
slaves.  Lincoln,  unless  professionally  employed  as  counsel,  is 
not  known  to  have  offered  his  legal  services  or  have  made  finan- 
cial contribution  in  such  cases.  His  mind  moved  in  the  political 
arena,  and  did  not  readily  descend  to  the  consideration  of  mat- 
ters that  were  not  related  to  his  own  ambitions  or  convictions. 
His  mind  lacked  the  power  of  generalized  visualization,  and  the 
things  which  he  did  not  see  with  his  mind's  eye  fell  on  a  brain 
rather  obtuse  and  sluggish.  But  the  things  that  he  could  visual- 
ize made  a  powerful  appeal  to  his  imagination  and  deeply  stirred 
his  sympathies. 

He  did  not  complain  of  dirty  sheets  and  bad  meals  in  the 
hotels  when  he  was  on  the  circuit,  because  they  did  not  greatly 
annoy  him.     Largely  his  mind  was  on  other  things,  and  when  he 
noticed  small  discomforts,   he  was  not  very  sensitive  to  them. 
!  Some  of  the  stings  and  smarts  of  his  later  official  life  were  mer- 
.  cifully  blunted  by  his   convenient   thick   skin.      But  there   were 
.  times  when  he  suffered,  and  suffered  most  keenly.     Xo  one  can 
tell  just  at  what  point  he  became  sensitive  or  where  he  was  ob- 
livious of  discomfort,  for  he  was  a  man  of  strange  contradic- 
tions. 

Lincoln  was  a  shrewd  man,  but  a  man  unflinchingly  honest. 
He  knew  how  political  situations  were  controlled,  and  he  adapted 
himself  to  the  political  life  of  his  generation.     But  he  struggled 

on  with  poverty  vear  after  vear.     When  he  might  have  made  his 

34 


454  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

politics  a  basis  for  prosperity,  he  still  remained  poor  and  in  debt. 
Interesting  stories  were  told  in  New  Salem  concerning  his 
truthfulness  and  honor.  He  made  a  mistake  in  the  weighing  of 
tea  by  using  a  lighter  weight  than  he  intended.  He  did  not 
rest  until  he  had  carried  the  additional  few  ounces  of  tea  to  the 
woman  to  whom  it  belonged.  He  made  a  mistake  in  the  change 
which  he  gave  to  a  woman,  and  walked  three  miles  to  rectify 
his  error.  When  the  post-office  at  New  Salem  was  given  up,  he 
owed  the  government  a  trifling  balance  and  there  was  no  officer 
present  to  whom  he  could  pay  it.  Some  months  afterward  when 
he  had  removed  to  Springfield,  a  post-office  official  called  upon 
him  for  a  settlement.  Lincoln  produced  the  money,  of  course, 
but  the  interesting  thing  about  it  was  that  he  drew  out  an  old 
blue  sock  and  handed  over  the  original  copper  cents  and  other 
fractional  currency  in  which  the  amounts  had  been  paid  to  him 
while  he  was  postmaster  at  New  Salem.  While  still  in  that 
little  village  he  won  the  loving  and  appreciative  title  "Honest 
Abe."  He  deserved  it  then  and  continued  to  deserve  it  as  long 
as  he  lived. 

Lincoln  was  a  man  both  just  and  generous.  A  man  so  loyal 
to  a  high  standard  of  justice  is  not  always  considerate  of  those 
who  fail  to  attain  to  his  exalted  station.  Lincoln  was  as  consid- 
erate in  his  judgment  of  other  men  as  he  was  exacting  in  his  own 
ethical  standards. 

Lincoln  combined  strong  common  sense  with  loyalty  to  con- 
science. He  had  an  almost  intuitive  way  of  getting  at  the  essen- 
tial elements  in  any  situation  which  he  needed  to  appraise.  As 
a  lawyer  he  was  noted  for  his  habit  of  stripping  a  case  of  all  its 
unnecessary  and  incidental  features,  and  coming  directly  to  the 
heart  of  the  matter.  His  lucidity  of  expression  was  closely  joined 
with  his  power  of  just  estimation.  Even  in  his  advocacy  of  one 
side  of  the  case,  there  was  present  a  certain  judicial  quality.  In 
the  perplexing  problems  that  came  to  him  as  president,  the  na- 
tion came  to  rely  more  and  more  upon  these  qualities  of  sound 
judgment  and  simple  discernment  of  right.     Disappointed  as  the 


MR.  LINCOLN  455 

people  of  the  North  were  at  the  settlement  of  the  Trent  affair, 
and  smarting-  as  they  did  under  a  stinging  sense  of  injustice, 
they  accepted  Lincoln's  solution  of  the  problem  because  they  had 
come  to  believe  in  his  discernment  of  the  right.  James  Russell 
Lowell  spoke  for  the  nation  when  he  represented  Brother  Jona- 
than as  saying  to  John  Bull : 

"We  gave  the  critters  back,  John, 
'Cause  Abr'am  thought  'twas  right." 

The  country  learned  to  trust  his  judgment  concerning  things 
that  were  right  and  wrong.  He  forced  Douglas  and  the  nation 
to  deal  with  slavery  as  a  moral  question,  and  both  Douglas  and 
the  nation  came  so  to  regard  it. 

Outstanding  among  Lincoln's  high  qualities  wras  his  magnanim- 
ity. In  him  was  no  petty  malice,  no  spirit  of  revenge.  He 
smarted  under  the  sting  of  injustice,  but  he  did  not  render  evil 
for  evil.  Again  and  again  he  repaid  wTith  kindness  those  who 
had  done  him  wrong. 

Reference  need  not  here  be  made  to  what  has  already  been 
mentioned  of  his  treatment  of  McClellan,  Meade,  Seward,  Chase 
and  Stanton.  These  outstanding  examples  of  Lincoln's  great- 
ness, which  caused  him  to  rise  above  all  personal  resentment, 
must  stand  forever  as  high  proofs  of  Lincoln's  inherent  nobility. 
They  are  examples  of  a  magnanimity  as  meritorious  as  it  is  rare. 

There  are  two  essentials  of  leadership.  The  first  is  that  he 
who  leads  a  people  shall  be  part  and  parcel  of  the  life  of  those 
whom  he  leads.  The  other  is  that  he  shall  have  some  quality 
which  lifts  him  above  and  makes  him  superior  to  those  whose 
leader  he  is.  Many  men  possess  one  of  these  qualities,  but  very 
fewr  posses-s  them  both.  Abraham  Lincoln  combined  them  in 
preeminent  degree.  He  was  above  the  people  but  he  was  of  the 
people.  His  life  was  bone  of  their  bone  and  flesh  of  their  flesh. 
Yet  there  was  ever  something  in  him  that  lifted  him  above  other 
men.     They  felt  it  and  he  felt  it.     They  did  not  approach  him 


456  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

with  rude  familiarity,  and  call  him  by  his  first  name.  There  was 
something  in  him  that  restrained  them  from  such  acts  of  unmiti- 
gated freedom.  Lincoln  was  the  embodiment  of  the  life  of  the 
common  people.  He  believed  in  them  and  thought  God  must 
love  them  because  he  made  so  many  of  them.  On  the  other  hand 
Lincoln  embodied  in  himself  those  high  qualities  of  superiority 
which  men  could  not  fail  to  recognize.  Few  men  in  all  the 
world's  history  have  held  in  such  perfect  equilibrium  these  two 
essential  characteristics  as  did  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Only  those  men  professed  to  know  Abraham  Lincoln  intimately 
who  knew  him  very  little  if  at  all.  Lincoln  combined  an  engaging 
frankness  with  a  nature  phenomenally  secretive.  Those  men  who 
visited  Lincoln  and  to  whom  he  confided  highly  important  infor- 
mation learned,  in  general,  what  all  the  world  was  certain  to  know 
a  few  hours  later.  The  secrets  that  Lincoln  wished  kept,  he  did 
not  tell. 

If  any  man  in  Illinois  knew  Lincoln  from  the  time  he  returned 
from  Congress  until  his  election  to  the  presidency,  that  man  was 
David  Davis.  He  was  judge  in  the  Eighth  Judicial  District  dur- 
ing nearly  the  whole  period  of  Lincoln's  later  years  at  the  bar. 
and  Lincoln  was  the  one  lawyer  who  rode  the  whole  circuit.  He 
and  Davis  drove  together  in  Lincoln's  buggy,  for  Lincoln  had 
little  fondness  for  horseback  riding  and  Davis  was  too  heavy  to 
ride  a  horse  far.  They  ate  and  slept  together.  Lincoln  repeat- 
edly sat  on  the  bench  when  Davis  wished  to  be  away  for  a  day. 
Davis  was  Lincoln's  campaign  manager  at  the  Chicago  Conven- 
tion. Lincoln  elevated  Davis  to  the  Supreme  Court.  Davis  was 
Mrs.  Lincoln's  attorney  after  her  husband's  death,  knowing,  as 
she  could  not  help  knowing,  that  there  was  no  man  whom  her 
husband  trusted  more  fully. 

If  any  man  knew  Lincoln  intimately  in  the  four  years  of  his 
presidency,  it  was  Orville  H.  Browning.  He  and  Lincoln  had 
known  each  other  in  the  Illinois  Legislature.  Browning  was  a 
trustee  of  Knox  College,  and  was  the  man  who  introduced  the 
motion,  just  after  the  Chicago  Convention,  that  Knox  confer  its 


MR.  LINCOLN  457 

first  honorary  degree,  the  Doctorate  of  Laws,  upon  Abraham 
Lincoln,  thus  doing-  what  Princeton  did  later.  Browning-  sue- 
ceeded  Douglas  in  the  Senate.  He  was  a  man  of  honor  and  of 
sincere  religious  principle.  Lincoln  held  him  in  the  highest  pos- 
sible esteem.  He  was  often  in  the  White  House  at  meals.  Even 
Isaac  N.  Arnold  had  to  obtain  from  Browning  his  most  important 
information  as  to  the  inside  of  the  White  House  during  Lincoln's 
administration. 

On  the  day  following  Lincoln's  death,  these  two  men,  Senator 
Browning  and  Judge  David  Davis,  sat  down  together  and  con- 
fessed that  they  did  not  know  Abraham  Lincoln  very  well.  Sena- 
tor Browning  recorded  in  his  diary  that  in  conversation  with 
Judge  Davis  about  Mr.  Lincoln,  Davis  spoke  of  some  of 
Lincoln's  characteristics,  saying  he  had  neither  strong  friendships 
nor  enmities.  He  declared  that  Lincoln  had  never  written  him, 
Davis,  a  letter,  nor  asked  his  opinion  upon  any  subject  since  he 
was  elected  president. 

No  wonder  his  partner,  Herndon,  who  also  confessed  that  he 
was  not  wrell  acquainted  with  Lincoln,  denounced  as  liars  the  men 
who  professed  to  have  been  taken  into  Lincoln's  inmost  confidence 
at  first  sight,  and  said  that  while  Lincoln  appeared  to  those  who 
did  not  know  him,  to  be  a  man  who  told  his  whole  mind  to  any 
one  who  inquired  of  him,  he  was  "the  most  secretive,  shut- 
mouthed  man  that  ever  lived." 

Having  followed  the  trail  of  Lincoln  for  many  years,  and 
talked  with  innumerable  men  who  knew  him,  I  read  with  genuine 
admiration,  if  not  with  approval,  the  books  by  men  to  whom  the 
mind  and  soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln  are  not  merely  an  open 
book,  but  a  tablet  so  written  that  he  who  runs  may  read.  Year 
by  year,  as  these  studies  have  gone  forward,  my  admiration  for 
Lincoln  has  grown;  but  I  have  less  and  less  confidence  in  the 
popular  interpretations  of  his  life.  His  character  was  the 
synthesis  of  many  contradictions. 

The  first  biographer  of  Lincoln  to  visit  Springfield  and  gather 
his  material  at  first  hand,  was  Josiah  G.  Holland.  He  wrote  con- 
cerning Lincoln : 


458  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  writer  has  conversed  with  multitudes  of  men  who  claimed 
to  know  Air.  Lincoln  intimately :  yet  there  are  not  two  of  the 
whole  number  who  agree  in  their  estimate  of  him.  The  fact  was 
that  he  rarely  showed  more  than  one  aspect  of  himself  to  one 
man.  He  opened  himself  to  men  in  different  directions.  To  il- 
lustrate the  effect  of  the  peculiarity  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  intercourse 
with  men  it  may  be  said  that  men  who  knew  him  through  all 
his  professional  and  political  life  offered  opinions  as  diametrically 
opposite  as  these,  viz :  that  he  was  a  very  ambitious  man,  and 
that  he  was  without  a  particle  of  ambition;  that  he  was  one  of 
the  saddest  men  that  ever  lived,  and  that  he  was  one  of  the  j oiliest 
men  that  ever  lived;  that  he  was  very  religious,  but  that  he  was 
not  a  Christian ;  that  he  was  a  Christian,  but  did  not  know  it ; 
that  he  was  so  far  from  being  a  religious  man  or  a  Christian  that 
"the  less  said  upon  that  subject  the  better" ;  that  he  was  the  most 
cunning  man  in  America,  and  that  he  had  not  a  particle  of  cunning 
in  him ;  that  he  had  the  strongest  personal  attachments,  and  that 
he  had  no  personal  attachments  at  all — only  a  general  good  feel- 
ing toward  everybody;  that  he  was  a  man  of  indomitable  will, 
and  that  he  was  a  man  almost  without  a  will ;  that  he  was  remark- 
able for  his  pure-mindedness,  and  that  he  was  the  foulest  in  his 
jests  and  stories  of  any  man  in  the  country;  that  he  was  a  witty 
man,  and  that  he  was  only  the  retailer  of  the  wit  of  others ;  that 
his  apparent  candor  and  fairness  were  only  apparent,  and  that  they 
were  as  real  as  his  head  and  hands ;  that  he  was  a  boor,  and  that 
he  was  in  all  respects  a  gentleman ;  that  he  was  a  leader  of  the 
people,  and  that  he  was  always  led  by  the  people ;  that  he  was  cool 
and  impassive,  and  that  he  was  susceptible  of  the  strongest  pas- 
sions. It  is  only  by  tracing  these  separate  streams  of  impression 
back  to  their  fountain  that  we  were  able  to  arrive  at  anything 
like  a  competent  comprehension  of  the  man,  or  to  learn  why  he 
came  to  be  held  in  such  various  estimation.  Men  caught  only 
separate  aspects  of  his  character — only  the  fragments  that  were 
called  into  exhibition  by  their  own  qualities. 

Commenting  on  the  foregoing  Herndon  said: 

Doctor  Holland  had  only  found  what  Lincoln's  friends  had  al- 
ways experienced  in  their  relations  with  him — that  he  was  a  man 
with  many  moods  and  many  sides.  He  never  revealed  himself 
entirelv  to  any  one  man,  and  therefore  he  will  always  to  a  certain 


MR.  LINCOLN  459 

extent  remain  enveloped  in  doubt.  Even  those  who  were  with  him 
through  long  years  of  hard  study  and  under  constantly  varying 
circumstances  can  hardly  say  they  knew  him  through  and 
through. 

v.    Lincoln's  religion 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  deeply  religious  man.  He  who  would 
establish  a  contrary  opinion  must  assume  a  burden  of  proof  from 
which  only  confirmed  prejudice  or  judicial  incompetence  could 
fail  to  shrink.  To  assure  ourselves  that  he  was  religious  is 
not  difficult,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  classify  him  among  religionists 
or  to  define  in  terms  of  accepted  creeds  the  precise  tenets  of  his 
religious  faith.  His  religion  was  part  and  parcel  of  his  life,  and 
his  life  was  a  life  of  growth.*  In  order  to  know  something  of 
the  forms  in  which  Lincoln's  religious  life  expresses  itself,  it  is 
important  first  to  know  what  form  of  such  life  was  known  to 
him  and  available  for  his  selection. 

The  religious  background  of  the  early  life  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, was  that  offered  by  the  organization  and  preaching  of  the 
Baptist  churches  in  the  backwoods  districts  of  Kentucky  and 
southern  Indiana.  It  was  a  militant  and  dogmatic  Calvinism. 
While  those  churches  were  democratic  in  their  government,  their 
conception  of  the  administration  of  the  universe  was  arbitrary 
and  despotic.  The  sovereignty  of  God  as  it  was  preached  in 
those  churches  practically  eliminated  the  freedom  of  the  human 
will.  Lincoln  probably  never  listened  in  his  boyhood  to  a  Bap- 
tist minister  who  believed  the  earth  round.  Profoundly  affected 
in  his  thinking  by  the  system  or  theology  which  he  heard  in  his 
youth,  he  revolted  against  its  interpretation  of  God  and  of  hu- 
man life.  When  he  came  to  New  Salem  and  read  the  works  of 
Voltaire  and  of  Paine,  he  was  much  influenced  by  them,  and  had 
some  inclination  toward  skepticism. 


*I  have  considered  the  ouestion  of  the  development  of  Lincoln's 
spiritual  life  in  a  volume  entitled  The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lxncohi.^  To  that 
volume  reference  is  made  for  a  full  discussion  of  Lincoln's  religion  in  the 
different  periods  of  his  life.  This  chapter  attempts  nothing  more  than  a 
concise  summary  of  the  conclusions  of  that  volume. 


460  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Two  books  which  he  read  while  living  in  Springfield  im- 
pressed him  deeply.  One  was  Chambers'  Vestiges  of  Creation. 
This  gave  to  him  a  conception  of  the  orderly  working  of  a  right- 
eous God  in  creation  and  in  human  life.  He  came  to  believe  in 
what  he  called  "Miracles  under  Law."  The  other  book  was  en- 
titled The  Christian  s  Defense.  It  was  an  imposing  work  on  the 
evidences  of  Christianity,  the  outgrowth  of  a  protracted  debate, 
one  of  whose  participants  was  the  Reverend  James  Smith,  pastor 
of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  in  Springfield.  In  1850  the  Lin- 
colns  became  affiliated  with  this  church.  Mrs.  Lincoln  united 
with  the  church  in  full  communion,  and  Lincoln  became  a  pew 
holder  and  habitual  attendant. 

Two  markedly  different  strains  in  the  mind  of  Lincoln  con- 
tributed to  the  formation  of  his  religious  thinking.  One  was  a 
powerful  tendency  toward  rationalism.  He  desired  and  needed 
a  consistent  theory  underlying  all  his  thinking.  The  other  was 
an  equally  strong  strain  of  mysticism.  His  rationalism  did  not 
halt  at  the  threshold  of  the  supernatural.  His  was  a  mind  that 
easily  accepted  forces  whose  origin  and  purpose  were  beyond 
human  knowledge.  Not  only  did  he  accept  the  supernatural, 
but  he  accentuated  it  to  the  point  of  superstition.  Lincoln's  su- 
perstition, however,  was  not  the  main  current  of  his  thinking ;  it 
was  a  kind  of  spiritual  undertone.  He  never  was  wholly  free 
irom  it,  but  the  strong  tides  of  his  moral  nature  had  currents, 
and  reached  elevations  of  their  own. 

A  mighty  factor  in  the  formation  of  Lincoln's  religious  views, 
was  his  clear  and  unconquerable  sense  of  justice.  Believing  as 
he  did  in  the  sovereignty  of  God,  and  holding  it  in  terms  of  a 
Calvinism  that  would  have  out-Calvined  Calvin,  he  believed  also 
in  a  Divine  justice  and  a  Divine  mercy  which  he  never  fully 
reconciled  with  his  thoughts  of  God's  sovereignty,  but  which  pro- 
duced in  him  a  profound  conviction  that  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth  would  do  right.  He  believed  in  future  punishment,  and 
thought  that  ministers  preached  that  too  little  rather  than  too 
much ;  but  he  did  not  believe  in  the  eternity  of  that  punishment. 


MR.  LINCOLN  461 

He  believed  that  a  righteous  and  all-powerful  God  would  find 
it  possible  somehow  to  eliminate  suffering  and  sin  from  His 
universe. 

Holding  these  convictions  and  influenced  by  these  ideas,  Lin- 
coln sought  with  great  earnestness  to  work  in  his  own  mind  a 
consistent  theory  of  the  purpose  of  God  in  the  great  Civil  War. 
In  the  latter  part  of  the  year  1862,  in  the  effort  to  clarify  his 
own  thinking,  he  wrote  these  words  on  a  slip  of  paper  which  was 
not  published  until  his  secretaries  Xicolay  and  Hay  wrote  their 
biography : 

The  will  of  God  prevails.  In  great  contests  each  party  claims 
to  act  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  God.  Both  may  be.  and 
one  must  be.,  wrong.  God  cannot  be  for  and  against  the  same 
thing  at  the  same  time.  In  the  present  Civil  War  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  God's  purpose  is  something  different  from  the  purpose 
of  either  party;  and  yet  the  human  instrumentalities,  working 
just  as  they  do,  are  of  the  best  adaptation  to  effect  his  purpose. 
I  am  almost  ready  to  say  that  this  is  probably  true ;  that  God 
wills  this  contest,  and  wills  that  it  shall  not  end  yet.  By  his 
mere  great  power  on  the  minds  of  the  now  contestants,  he  could 
have  either  saved  or  destroyed  the  Union  without  a  human  con- 
test. Yet  the  contest  began.  And,  having  begun,  He  could 
give  the  final  victory  to  either  side  any  day.  Yet  the  contest 
proceeds. 

As  the  war  wore  on  it  grew  more  clear  to  him  that  the  pur- 
pose of  God  in  America's  great  war  involved  the  removal  of 
slavery,  with  the  inevitable  punishment  of  the  whole  nation, 
North  and  South,  for  its  share  in  that  iniquity.  Thus  in  his  sec- 
ond inaugural,  he  said  : 

The  Almighty  has  his  own  purposes,  "Woe  unto  the  world 
because  of  offenses !  for  it  must  needs  be  that  offenses  come :  but 
woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offense  cometh."  If  we  shall  sup- 
pose that  American  slavery  is  one  of  those  offenses  which,  in 
the  providence  of  God,  must  needs  come,  but  which,  having  con- 
tinued through  his  appointed  time,  he  now  wills  to  remove,  and 


462  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  he  gives  to  both  North  and  South  this  terrible  war,  as  the 
woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offense  came,  shall  we  discern 
therein  any  departure  from  those  divine  attributes  which  the  be- 
lievers in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  him?  Fondly  do  we 
hope — fervently  do  we  pray — that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war 
may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills  that  it  continue  un- 
til all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of 
blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with 
the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must 
be  said,  "The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous 
altogether." 

The  quality  of  Lincoln's  religious  life  is  nobly  illustrated  in 
the  threefold  record  of  the  Cabinet  meeting  in  which  he  pre- 
sented the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation.  He  did  not  present 
that  proclamation  for  any  discussion  of  its  main  point.  He  had 
already  settled  that.  He  had  made  a  solemn  covenant  with  God 
and  he  fulfilled  that  covenant. 

Lincoln  did  not  speak  easily  or  lightly  of  those  things  which 
were  deepest  in  his  life.  He  knew  that  his  Cabinet  was  not  united 
in  its  support  of  a  policy  of  abolition.  But  his  own  statement 
of  his  reasons  for  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  silenced  every 
word  of  opposition.  His  Cabinet  could  not  do  other  than  accept 
it.  Lincoln  had  promised  his  God  that  he  would  do  it.  His 
Cabinet  knew  better  than  to  oppose  him  in  that  hour.  He  kept 
the  promise  which  he  had  made  to  his  God. 

Abraham  Lincoln  never  attempted  to  put  his  own  convictions 
into  the  form  of  a  creed.  It  is  doubtful  if  he  could  have  assented 
to  any  of  the  great  orthodox  creeds  in  the  form  and  with  the 
meaning-  which  certain  of  the  churches  attach  to  them.  In  anoth- 
er  and  more  extended  study  of  Lincoln's  religious  life,  I  have  en- 
deavored to  compile  practically  all  of  his  religious  affirmations 
that  were  embodied  in  signed  documents  or  formal  addresses.  I 
did  not  think  it  wise  to  include  any  that  depended  upon  the  recol- 
lection of  other  people.  In  one  chapter  of  the  book  already 
referred  to;  I  made  a  selection  from  these  utterances  of  Lincoln 


MR.  LINCOLN  463 

with  something  of  their  context,  and  then  proceeded  to  extract 
from  these  more  extended  quotations  some  briefer  sentences 
and  clauses  which  might  go  toward  the  composition  of  something 
approaching  a  creed.  No  liberties  were  taken  with  Lincoln's 
words,  except  to  change  the  number  of  some  of  the  pronouns  from 
plural  to  singular,  or  to  make  other  verbal  modifications  neces- 
sary to  the  unifying  of  the  statements,  and  to  prefix  the  words  "I 
believe."  Any  reader  who  would  prefer  to  make  a  compilation 
of  his  own,  will  find  in  the  volume  already  alluded  to,  material 
for  his  own  work. 

I  do  not  here  repeat  the  full  and  extended  quotations,  the 
quarry  from  which  the  several  articles  of  this  creed  are  taken, 
for  these  are  available  in  the  book  already  referred  to;  but  copy 
here  from  that  volume,  the  creed  itself. 

THE    CREED    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN IN    HIS    OWN    WORDS 

I  believe  in  God,  the  Almighty  Ruler  of  Nations,  our  great  and 
good  and  merciful  Maker,  our  Father  in  Heaven,  who  notes  the 
fall  of  a  sparrow,  and  numbers  the  hairs  of  our  heads. 

I  believe  in  His  eternal  truth  and  justice. 

I  recognize  the  sublime  truth  announced  in  the  Holy  Scriptures 
and  proven  by  all  history  that  those  nations  only  are  blest  whose 
God  is  the  Lord. 

I  believe  that  it  is  the  duty  of  nations  as  well  as  of  men  to  own 
their  dependence  upon  the  overruling  power  of  God,  and  to  in- 
voke the  influence  of  His  Holy  Spirit ;  to  confess  their  sins  and 
transgressions  in  humble  sorrow,  yet  with  assured  hope  that 
genuine  repentance  will  lead  to  mercy  and  pardon. 

I  believe  that  it  is  meet  and  right  to  recognize  and  confess  the 
presence  of  the  Almighty  Father  equally  in  our  triumphs  and  in 
those  sorrows  which  we  may  justly  fear  are  a  punishment  in- 
flicted upon  us  for  our  presumptuous  sins  to  the  needful  end  of 
our  reformation. 

I  believe  that  the  Bible  is  the  best  gift  which  God  has  ever 


464  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

given  to  men.  All  the  good  from  the  Saviour  of  the  world  is 
communicated  to  us  through  this  book. 

I  believe  the  will  of  God  prevails.  Without  Him  all  human 
reliance  is  vain.  Without  the  assistance  of  that  Divine  Being 
I  can  not  succeed.   With  that  assistance  I  can  not  fail. 

Being  a  humble  instrument  in  the  hands  of  our  Heavenly 
Father,  I  desire  that  all  my  works  and  acts  may  be  according  to 
His  will;  and  that  it  may  be  so,  I  give  thanks  to  the  Almighty, 
and  seek  His  aid. 

I  have  a  solemn  oath  registered  in  Heaven  to  finish  the  work 
I  am  in,  in  full  view  of  my  responsibility  to  my  God,  with  malice 
toward  none ;  with  charity  for  all ;  with  firmness  in  the  right  as 
God  gives  me  to  see  the  right.  Commending  those  who  love  me 
to  His  care,  as  I  hope  in  their  prayers  they  will  commend  me,  I 
look  through  the  help  of  God  to  a  joyous  meeting  with  many 
loved  ones  gone  before. 

VI.     ABRAHAM   LINCOLN,  AMERICAN 

Our  country  is  large.  It  was  perilously  large  in  the  beginning. 
It  is  a  fair  question  whether  the  thirteen  colonies  could  long  have 
been  held  together  but  for  the  discovery  of  the  uses  of  steam. 
From  the  time  it  became  a  nation,  it  was  threatened  with  disrup- 
tion; Washington  sadly  said,  "We  are  one  nation  to-day,  and 
thirteen  to-morrow."  Washington  was  himself  the  strongest  of 
all  those  personal  forces  that  bound  the  colonies  together  at  the 
beginning,  and  as  the  nation  has  grown  to  vaster  greatness,  his 
name  and  personality  have  proved  adequate  to  fit  the  American 
ideal.  Still  more  potent  in  giving  personality  to  a  nation's  best 
interpretation  of  its  own  life  is  the  character  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Lincoln's  life  epitomizes  American  history.  He  was  born  in  a 
cabin  as  primitive  as  that  of  the  first  settlers  in  the  colonial 
period.  He  lived  through  the  successive  periods  of  American 
development  as  expressed  in  the  backwoods  settlement,  the  fron- 
tier town,  the  new  state  capital,  and  the  seat  of  national  power. 


MR.  LINCOLN  465 

From  the  cabin  on  Nolin  to  the  White  House  in  Washington  he 
expressed  and  embodied  the  life  of  the  nation. 

Lincoln  was  born  in  the  South,  but  we  do  not  think  of  him 
as  a  southerner.  He  directed  the  armies  of  the  North,  but  we 
do  not  think  of  him  as  a  northerner.  He  fought  the  war  without 
hate,  and  he  never  cherished  sectional  jealousy  or  bigotry.  The 
South  had  no  truer  friend;  the  spirit  of  unified  nationalism  had 
no  finer  or  worthier  exponent. 

America  makes  high  profession  of  faith  when  she  claims 
Abraham  Lincoln  as  the  norm  and  exponent  of  her  national  life. 
The  manhood  of  a  nation  that  claims  Lincoln  should  be  clean, 
upright,  honest,  patriotic,  sympathetic,  magnanimous,  noble.  Can 
America  make  this  claim  for  her  manhood  ?  It  is  her  clear  duty 
and  her  high  privilege  to  aspire  that  this  shall  be  true.  She  has  a 
right  to  tell  to  her  youth  the  story  of  Lincoln,  and  to  teach  her 
young  manhood  to  emulate  his  simple  virtues.  She  has  a  right 
to  hang  his  portrait  on  the  walls  of  her  legislative  halls  and  her 
courts  of  justice.  She  has  a  right  to  name  him  in  her  intercourse 
with  other  nations.  She  has  a  right  to  define  her  own  principles 
in  terms  of  his  integrity  and  transparent  righteousness.  America 
that  produced  Abraham  Lincoln  can  beget  other  sons  in  his  like- 
ness and  train  them  up  in  his  spirit.  It  will  be  a  proud  day  for 
our  country  when  other  nations  think  of  him,  and  believe  that 
Americans  are  like  him  and  that  America  is  filled  with  his  spirit. 
His  name  unifies  America. 

VII.       ABRAHAM    LINCOLN,    WORLD    CITIZEN 

A  nation  divided  against  itself,  into  ignorant  and  educated, 
righteous  and  unrighteous,  can  not  stand.  We  must  educate  and 
elevate  all  our  people  and  make  the  rule  of  the  people  something 
else  than  the  rule  of  the  mob.  A  world  divided  against  itself 
can  not  stand.  It  can  not  endure  half  armed  and  half  unarmed, 
half  peaceable  and  half  militaristic.  It  can  not  endure  with  one 
half  cherishing  hatred  and  contempt  and  suspicion  against  the 


466  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

other  half.  The  world  must  learn  a  basis  of  self-government  in 
righteousness.  The  world  is  just  beginning  to  believe  this;  and 
that  is  one  reason  why  the  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  being 
honored  in  meetings  for  international  good  will,  not  in  America 
only,  but  throughout  the  earth. 

Democracy  in  America  is  more  than  a  form  of  government; 
it  is  a  confession  of  faith  in  the  moral  character  of  the  universe. 
It  is  a  philosophy  of  life,  and  the  expression  of  a  hope  for  the 
future  of  the  human  race.  This  is  why,  spite  of  all  the  unpleas- 
ant and  self-assertive  forms  in  which  Americans  have  flouted 
their  noisy  patriotism  in  the  face  of  other  peoples,  the  world  has 
an  ever  growing  affection  and  respect  for  the  character  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  England  claims  him  by  right  of  his  descent,  and 
the  free  nations  of  the  world  claim  him  by  reason  of  the  kinship 
they  discover  in  his  spirit.  There  is  little  danger  that  his  fame 
will  grow  less;  it  is  as  certain  as  anything  future  can  well  be 
that  it  will  grow  from  more  to  more  until  it  is  loved  and  honored 
the  whole  world  around. 

The  personality  of  Abraham  Lincoln  grows  dim  with  the  flight 
of  years.  The  last  man  who  saw  and  knew  him  will  soon  be 
dead.  A  halo  about  his  personality  refracts  the  light  of  calm 
judgment.  Already  he  is  in  good  part  a  mythical  character.  To 
him  are  attributed  many  utterances  which  have  no  place  in  his 
writings  or  speeches.  Concerning  him  are  current  past  any  hope 
of  eradication  incidents  which  never  occurred  or  in  which  he 
had  no  part.  Poetry  and  song  and  the  myth-making  tendency  of 
the  human  mind  are  all  at  work,  and  have  been  at  work  for  half 
a  century.  But  only  a  mighty  man  could  thus  have  been  idealized. 
If  the  outline  of  his  personality  grows  dim  in  the  mists  of  the 
decades,  his  figure  bulks  big  and  regal.  We  measure  his  stature 
by  the  shadow  which  he  casts;  it  is  nothing  less  than  colossal. 
And  the  crest  of  his  character  is  the  dignity  of  his  moral 
grandeur. 

Men  whom  the  world  counts  great  have  been  conveniently 
grouped  into  three  classes — those  who  are  born  great,  those  who 


MR.  LINCOLN  467 

attain  to  greatness,  and  those  who  have  greatness  thrust  upon 
them.  The  first  two  groups  may  in  reality  be  one — those  who, 
born  with  inherent  qualities  of  greatness,  attain  to  its  realization 
and  recognition  by  their  own  innate  power,  and  its  fortunate 
adaptation  to  opportunity.  When  a  truly  great  man  becomes  the 
advocate  of  a  great  cause,  and  meets  a  great  situation  adequately, 
worthily  and  triumphantly,  the  patient  ages  rise  from  their 
somnolence  and  rejoice. 

Those  men  who  have  greatness  thrust  upon  them  live  not  long 
in  the  rarified  atmosphere  to  which  they  are  suddenly  elevated. 
They  must  die  soon  or  they  outlive  their  fame.  Some  of  them, 
fortunately  caught  by  death  in  the  brief  hour  of  their  publicity, 
are  impulsively  enrolled  among  the  notable  men  of  their  genera- 
tion ;  but  even  so,  they  lengthen  but  little  the  period  in  which  they 
are  accounted  notable.  Die  they  soon  or  die  they  late,  their  fame 
fades,  and  they  pass  in  due  time  to  their  own  place  in  oblivion. 

But  they  who,  being  great,  match  their  quality  against  the 
challenging  front  of  opportunity,  achieve  a  distinction  which 
grows  toward  immortality.  Like  snow-capped  mountains  hidden 
at  close  view  by  their  own  foot-hills,  and  emerging  to  appear  at 
first  only  as  slightly  higher  elevations  in  the  range,  they  tower 
more  loftily  as  the  years  recede,  dwarfing  all  lesser  hills  of  their 
contemporaries,  until  they  stand  in  solitary  grandeur.  While  the 
plain  is  yet  dark,  they  greet  with  radiant  crest  the  dawn  of  suc- 
ceeding generations.  Of  these,  greatest  of  all  men  of  his  genera- 
tion was  Abraham  Lincoln. 

THE   END 


APPENDIX 

I.       CORPORAL  TANNER'S  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  DEATH  OF  LINCOLN 

Perhaps  the  only  man  now  living  who  was  in  the  Peterson 
house  on  the  night  of  Lincoln's  assassination  is  Honorable 
James  Tanner,  to  whom  reference  is  made  in  the  text  of  this  vol- 
ume. His  account,  written  on  Sunday,  April  17,  1865,  has  re- 
cently been  printed  in  the  American  Historical  Review  from 
which  I  quote.  The  foot-notes  are  by  Professor  J.  Franklin 
Jameson.* 

The  following  letter,  now  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Hadley  H. 
Walch,  of  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan,  son  of  the  man  to  whom  it 
was  addressed,  was  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  Review  by 
Professor  C.  H.  Van  Tyne.  The  writer,  Honorable  James  Tan- 
ner, now  residing  in  Washington,  where  since  1904  he  has  been 
register  of  wills  for  the  District  of  Columbia,  kindly  consents  to 
its  publication.  Born  in  1844,  ^r-  Tanner  enlisted  early  in  the 
Civil  War  in  the  87th  Xew  York  Volunteers,  and  lost  both  legs 
at  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run. 

In  1864  [he  writes]  I  attended  Ames's  Business  College,  Syra- 
cuse, New  York,  for  the  purpose  of  studying  shorthand.  Hadley 
F.  Walch,  of  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan,  was  a  fellow  student  of 
shorthand  and  we  kept  up  a  desultory  acquaintance  for  some 
years.  That  winter  of  '64  I  came  to  Washington  to  take  a  clerk- 
ship in  the  War  Department.  Walch  continued  his  study  and 
perfected  himself  in  shorthand  and  was  for  many  years,  I  think, 
reporter  in  the  courts  at  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan.f 

Mr.  Tanner  remembers  writing  the  letter  to  Walch.  On  the 
same  day  or  the  day  preceding  he  wrote  to  his  mother  a  long  let- 


*Yol.  XXIX,  April   1924,  pp.  514.17- 

fMr.  Walch  occupied  that  position  from  1869  till  his  death  in  1920. 

469 


470  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ter  of  similar  purport.  From  that  letter,  which  afterward  came 
into  his  possession,  a  paragraph  is  quoted  in  an  account  by  him  of 
President  Lincoln's  death,  in  the  New  York  Sun  of  April  16, 
1905  ;  this  quotation  is  repeated  in  David  M.  De Witt's  The  As- 
sassination of  Abraham  Lincoln,  p.  270. 

Ordnance  Office,  War  Department, 

Washington,  April  17,  1865. 
Friend  Walch : 

Your  very  welcome  letter  was  duly  received  by  me  and  now  I 
will  steal  a  few  minutes  from  my  duties  in  the  office  to  answer  it. 

Of  course,  you  must  know  as  much  as  I  do  about  the  terrible 
events  which  have  happened  in  this  city  during  the  past  few  days. 
I  have  nothing  else  to  write  about  so  I  will  give  you  a  few  ideas 
about  that,  perhaps,  which  you  have  not  yet  got  from  the  papers. 

Last  Friday  night  a  friend  invited  me  to  attend  the  theatre 
with  him,  which  I  did.  I  would  have  preferred  the  play  at  Ford's 
Theatre,  where  the  President  was  shot,  but  my  friend  chose  the 
play  at  Grover's,  which  was  'Aladdin,  or  the  Wonderful 
Lamp."*  While  sitting  there  witnessing  the  play  about  ten 
o'clock  or  rather  a  little  after,  the  entrance  door  was  thrown  open 
and  a  man  exclaimed,  "President  Lincoln  is  assassinated  in  his 
private  box  at  Ford's !"  Instantly  all  was  excitement  and  a  ter- 
rible rush  commenced  and  someone  cried  out,  "Sit  down,  it  is  a 
ruse  of  the  pickpockets."  The  audience  generally  agreed  to  this, 
for  the  most  of  them  sat  down,  and  the  play  went  on ;  soon,  how- 
ever, a  gentleman  came  out  from  behind  the  scenes  and  informed 
us  that  the  sad  news  was  too  true.    We  instantly  dispersed. 

On  going  out  in  the  street  we  were  horrified  to  learn  that 
Mr.  Seward  had  been  attacked  and  severely  injured  while  in  bed 
at  his  house.  Myself  and  friend  went  up  to  Willard's,t  which  is  a 
short  distance  above  Grover's,  to  learn  what  we  could,  but  could 
learn  nothing  there.  The  people  were  terribly  excited.  Ford's 
Theatre  is  on  Tenth  St.  between  E  and  F.  Grover's  is  on  the 
Avenue  near  Fourteenth  St.  and  just  below  AVillard's ;  it  is  about 
four  blocks  up  from  Ford's.  My  boarding  house  is  right  opposite 
Ford's  Theatre.  We  then  got  on  the  cars  and  went  down  to 
Tenth  St.  and  up  Tenth  St.  to  Ford's  and  to  my  boarding  house. 
There  was  an  immense  throng  there,  very  quiet  yet  very  much 

*Grover's,  or  the  New  National  Theatre,  still  called  by  the  latter  name. 
tWillard's  Hotel. 


APPENDIX  471 

excited ;  the  street  was  crowded  and  I  only  got  across  on  account 
of  my  boarding  there.  The  President  had  been  carried  into  the 
adjoining  house*  to  where  I  board ;  I  went  up  to  my  room  on  the 
second  floor  and  out  on  the  balcony  which  nearly  overhangs  the 
door  of  Mr.  Peterson's  house.  Members  of  the  cabinet,  the  chief 
justice,  Generals  Halleck,  Meiggs,  Augur  and  others  were  going 
in  and  out,  all  looking  anxious  and  sorrow-stricken.  Bv  leaning 
over  the  railing  I  could  learn  from  time  to  time  of  His  Excel- 
lency's condition,  and  soon  learned  that  there  was  no  hope  of  him. 
Soon  they  commenced  taking  testimony  in  the  room  adjoining 
where  he  lay,  before  Chief  Justice  Carter, f  and  General  HalleckJ 
called  for  a  reporter :  no  one  was  on  hand,  but  one  of  the  head 
clerks  in  our  office,  who  boarded  there,*.*  knew  I  could  write 
shorthand  and  he  told  the  General  so,  and  he  bade  him  call  me,  so 
he  came  to  the  door  and  asked  me  to  come  down  and  report  the 
testimony.  I  went  down  and  the  General  passed  me  in,  as  the  house 
was  strictly  guarded,  of  course.  I  went  into  a  room  between  the 
rear  room  and  the  front  room.tt  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  in  the  front 
room  weeping  as  though  her  heart  would  break.  In  the  back 
room  lay  His  Excellency  breathing  hard,  and  with  every  breath 
a  groan.  In  the  room  where  I  was,  were  Generals  Halleck, 
Meiggs,  Augur  and  others,  all  of  the  cabinet  excepting  Mr.  Sew- 
ard, Chief  Justice  Chase  and  Chief  Justice  Carter  of  the  District 
of  Columbia,  Andrew  JohnsoniJ  and  many  other  distinguished 
men.  A  solemn  silence  pervaded  the  whole  throng;  it  was  a  ter- 
lible  moment.  Never  in  my  life  was  I  surrounded  by  half  so  im- 
pressive circumstances.     Opposite  me  at  the  table  where   I  sat 


*The  Petersen  house  at  453,  (now  516)  Tenth  Street,  still  standing,  in 
which  the  present  occupant,  Mr.  O.  H.  Olclroyd,  has  for  many  years  preserved 
his  Lincoln  Memorial  Collection. 

fDavid  K.  Carter,  chief  justice  of  the  supreme  court  of  the  District  of 
Columbia. 

±Mr.  Tanner  tells  the  editor  that  the  name  of  Halleck  was  written  by 
inadvertence;  it  was  Major-General  C.  C.  Augur,  then  commanding  the  de- 
partment of  Washington. 

**It  was  Albert  Daggett,  afterward  of  some  prominence  as  the  contractor 
for  post-cards. 

tfThe  house  was  two  rooms  deep,  but  with  an  L.  The  President  had 
been  laid  on  a  bed  in  the  L  room  on  the  first  floor,  here  designated  as  the 
rear  room.  There  is  a  diagram  of  the  house  in  Xicolay  and  Hay's  Abraham 
Lincoln,  X.  300,  and  a  diagram  and  a  picture  in  Oldroyd,  Assassination  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  pp.  36,  30. 

++Mr.  Tanner  thinks  that  this  was  an  error,  that  Johnson  was  not  pres- 
ent;  but  there  is  evidence  that  the  Vice-President  came  in  for  a  brief  period. 


472  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

writing-  sat  Secretary  Stanton  writing  dispatches  to  General  Dix 
and  others,  and  giving  orders  for  the  guarding  of  Ford's  and  the 
surrounding  country.  At  the  left  of  me  was  Judge  Carter  pro- 
pounding the  questions  to  the  witnesses  whose  answers  I  was  jot- 
ting down  in  Standard  Phonography.  I  was  so  excited  when  I 
commenced  that  I  am  afraid  that  it  did  not  much  resemble  Stand- 
ard Phonography  or  any  other  kind,  but  I  could  read  it  readily 
afterward,  so  what  was  the  difference  ?  In  fifteen  minutes  I  had 
testimony  enough  down  to  hang  Wilkes  Booth,  the  assassin, 
higher  than  ever  Haman  hung.*  I  was  writing  shorthand  for 
about  an  hour  and  a  half,  when  I  commenced  transcribing  it.  I 
thought  I  had  been  writing  about  two  hours  when  I  looked  at  the 
clock  and  it  marked  half  past  four  A.  M.  I  commenced  writing 
about  12  M.  I  could  not  believe  that  it  was  so  late,  but  my  watch 
corroborated  it.  The  surrounding  circumstances  had  so  en- 
grossed my  attention  that  I  had  not  noticed  the  flight  of  time.  In 
the  front  room  Airs.  Lincoln  was  uttering  the  most  heartbroken 
exclamations  all  the  night  long.  As  she  passed  through  the  hall 
back  to  the  parlor  after  she  had  taken  leave  of  the  President  for 
the  last  time,  as  she  went  by  my  door  I  heard  her  moan,  "O,  my 
God,  and  have  I  given  my  husband  to  die,"  and  I  tell  you  I  never 
heard  so  much  agony  in  so  few  words.  The  President  was  still 
alive,  but  sinking  fast.  He  had  been  utterly  unconscious  from  the 
time  the  shot  struck  him  and  remained  so  until  he  breathed  his 
last.  At  6 145  Saturday  morning  I  finished  my  notes  and  passed 
into  the  back  room  where  the  President  lay;  it  was  very  evident 
that  he  could  not  last  long.  There  was  no  crowd  in  the  room, 
which  was  very  small,  but  I  approached  quite  near  the  bed  on 
which  so  much  greatness  lay,  fast  losing  its  hold  on  this  world. 
The  head  of  the  bed  was  toward  the  door ;  at  the  head  stood  Cap*. 
Robert  Lincoln  weeping  on  the  shoulder  of  Senator  Sumner. 
General  Halleck  stood  just  behind  Robert  Lincoln  and  I  stood 
just  to  the  left  of  General  Halleck  and  between  him  and  General 

*Mr.  Tanner  writes,  "Various  witnesses  were  brought  in  who  had 
either  been  in  Ford's  Theatre  or  up  in  the  vicinity  of  Mr.  Seward's  residence. 
Among  them  were  Harry  Hawk,  who  had  been  Asa  Trenchard  that  night  m 
the  play,  Our  American  Cousin,  Mr.  Alfred  Cloughly,  Colonel  G.  V.  Ruther- 
ford, and  others.  .  .  .  Through  all  the  testimony  given  by  those  who  had 
been  in  Ford's  Theatre  that  night  there  was  an  undertone  of  horror  which 
held  the  witnesses  back  from  positively  identifying  the  assassin  as  Booth. 
Said  Harry  Hawk,  To  the  best  of  my  belief,  it  was  Mr.  John  Wilkes  Booth, 
but  I  will  not  be  positive,'  and  so  it  went  through  the  testimony  of  others  but 
the  sum  total  left  no  doubt  as  to  the  identity  of  the  assassin." 


APPENDIX  473 

Meiggs.*  Secretary  Stanton  was  there  trying  every  way  to  be 
calm  and  yet  he  was  very  much  moved.  The  utmost  silence  pre- 
vailed, broken  only  by  the  sound  of  strong  men's  sobs.  It  was  a 
solemn  time,  I  assure  you.  The  President  breathed  heavily  until 
a  few  minutes  before  he  breathed  his  last,  then  his  breath  came 
easily  and  he  passed  off  very  quietly. 

As  soon  as  he  was  dead  Rev.  Dr.  Gurley,  who  has  been  the 
President's  pastor  since  his  sojourn  in  this  city,f  offered  up  a  very 
impressive  prayer.  I  grasped  for  my  pencil  which  was  in  my 
pocket,  as  I  wished  to  secure  his  words,  but  I  was  very  much 
disappointed  to  find  that  my  pencil  had  been  broken  in  my' pocket. 
I  could  have  taken  it  very  easily  as  he  spoke  very  favorably  for 
reporting.  The  friends  dispersed,  Airs.  Lincoln  and  family  going 
to  the  White  House,  which  she  had  left  the  night  before  to  attend 
the  theatre  with  him  who  never  returned  to  it  except  in  his  coffin. 

Secretary  Stanton  told  me  to  take  charge  of  the  testimony  I 
had  taken,  so  I  went  up  to  my  room  and  took  a  copy  of  it,  as  I 
wished  to  keep  both  my  notes  and  the  original  copy  which  I  had 
made  while  there  in  the  house.  They  will  ever  be  cherished  mon- 
uments to  me  of  the  awful  night  and  the  circumstances  with  which 
I  found  myself  so  unexpectedly  surrounded  and  which  will  not 
soon  be  forgotten. $ 

Saturday  night  I  took  the  copy  I  had  made  to  the  Secretary's 
house,  but  as  he  was  asleep  I  did  not  see  him,  so  I  left  them  with 
my  card.  I  tell  you,  I  would  not  regret  the  time  and  money  I 
have  spent  on  Phonography  if  it  never  brought  me  more  than  it 
did  that  night,  for  that  brought  me  the  privilege  of  standing  by 
the  deathbed  of  the  most  remarkable  man  of  modern  times  and 
one  who  will  live  in  the  annals  of  his  country  as  long  as  she  con- 
tinues to  have  a  history. 

Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated**  will  have  a  good  picture  of  the 
building  there  made  celebrated  by  this  sad  event  on  that  evening. 
I  saw  the  sketch  made  by  the  artist  of  the  theatre,  and  it  was  very 

*See  the  diagram  in  Xicolay  and  Hay. 

fRev.  Dr.  Phineas  D.  Gurley,  of  the  New  York  Avenue  Presbyterian 
Church. 

$They  were  subsequently  bound  in  a  volume,  and  presented  by  Mr. 
Tanner  to  the  Union  League  Club  of  Philadelphia,  of  whose  Lincoln  Memo- 
rial Collection  they  now  form  a  part. 

**Leslie's  Illustrated  Weekly  for  April  29,  has  drawings,  by  Albert  Berg- 
haus,  of  the  scene  in  the  President's  box  at  Ford's  Theatre,  and  of  the  scene 
in  the  room  where  he  died  ;  the  issue  for  May  20,  of  the  exterior  of  the 
theatre  and  of  the  Petersen  house,  showing  also  the  house  next  door,  and 
its  balcony. 


474  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

correct,  indeed.  He  also  sketched  the  inside  of  the  room  where 
the  President  died,  also  the  outside  of  the  building,  as  well  as  the 
adjoining  buildings  on  both  sides.  You  will  see  the  house  I  board 
in  has  a  balcony  along  the  front  of  the  two  rooms  on  the  second 
floor;  I  occupy  both  of  those  rooms. 

You  can  imagine  the  feeling  here  by  judging  of  the  feeling  in 
your  own  place,  only  it  is  the  more  horrifying  from  the  fact  that 
the  President  lived  in  our  midst  and  was  universally  beloved  by 
the  People. 

This  morning  there  was  published  in  the  Chronicle  the  state- 
ment of  one  of  the  witnesses  whom  I  reported,  Mr.  James  B. 
Ferguson.*  You  will  doubtless  see  it  in  your  papers  as  it  is  most 
important.  I  have  an  idea,  which  is  gaining  ground  here,  and 
that  is  that  the  assassin  had  assistance  in  the  theatre,  and  that  the 
President  was  invited  there  for  the  express  purpose  of  assassinat- 
ing him.    The  theatre  is  very  strictly  guarded  now  night  and  day. 

Very  truly  your  friend, 

James  Tanner. 

I  inquired  of  Mr.  Tanner  how  far  this  contemporary  account, 
whose  vividness  carries  its  own  evidence  of  its  essential  truth- 
fulness, accorded  with  his  mature  recollections,  as  he  checked 
them  up  with  the  memories  of  other  men,  especially  with  refer- 
ence to  the  presence  of  Andrew  Johnson,  at  Lincoln's  deathbed. 
By  way  of  reply  he  gave  me  in  manuscript  what  he  had  used 
once  or  more  as  an  address,  in  part  following  the  content  of  his 
letter,  but  making  one  or  two  corrections,  the  most  important  of 
them  being  with  reference  to  Andrew  Johnson.  I  am  permitted 
to  use  this  interesting  document : 


II.       THE   PASSING   OF  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

By  James  Tanner 

Among  all  the  characters  who  loomed  large  in  the  public 
mind  from  1861  to  1865,  one  came  to  stand  apart  and  alone  in 


^Washington  Morning  Chronicle.  Testimony  of  Ferguson,  who  kept  a 
restaurant  adjoining  the  theatre,  is  also  in  Benn  Pitman's  edition  of  the  Trial 
of  the  Conspirators,  pp.  76-77. 


APPENDIX  475 

supremacy,  finally  recognized  almost  unanimously  the  world 
over  as  without  a  peer.  It  took  the  perspective  of  many  years  to 
enable  us  to  get  a  correct  view  of  the  greatness  of  his  character, 
his  transcendent  intellectual  endowment,  the  utter  unselfishness 
of  his  purpose,  his  absolute  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  nation 
which  had  called  him  to  its  leadership  and  the  great  agony  en- 
dured by  his  loving  gentle  heart  as  he  staggered  under  his  awful 
burden,  an  agony  never  equaled  since  the  Savior  of  mankind 
passed  the  night  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane. 

Our  people  have  shown  in  a  thousand  ways  and  particularly 
in  his  recent  centennial  that  every  atom  relating  to  the  life  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  is  of  intense  and  continuous  interest  to  them 
and  because  of  this  and  because  of  the  fact  that  I  was  a  spectator 
of  the  final  scene  of  the  supreme  tragedy  of  that  time  on  the 
morning  of  April  15,  1865,  I  pen  these  lines. 

At  that  time  I  was  an  employe  of  the  Ordnance  Bureau  of 
the  War  Department  and  had  some  ability  as  a  shorthand  writer. 
The  latter  fact  brought  me  within  touch  of  the  events  of  that 
awful  night.  I  had  gone  with  a  friend  to  witness  the  perform- 
ance that  evening  at  Grover's  Theater,  where  now  stands  the  New 
National.  Soon  after  ten  o'clock  a  man  rushed  in  from  the  lobby 
and  cried  out,  "President  Lincoln  has  been  shot  in  Ford's  Thea- 
ter." There  was  great  confusion  at  once,  most  of  the  audience 
rising  to  their  feet.  Some  one  cried  out,  "It's  a  ruse  of  the  pick- 
pockets ;  look  out !"  Almost  everybody  resumed  his  seat,  but  al- 
most immediately  one  of  the  cast  stepped  out  on  the  stage  and 
said,  "The  sad  news  is  too  true ;  the  audience  will  disperse." 

My  friend  and  myself  crossed  to  Willard's  Hotel  and  there 
were  told  that  Secretary  Seward  had  been  killed.  Men's  faces 
blanched  as  they  at  once  asked,  "What  news  of  Stanton?  Have 
they  got  him  too  ?"    The  wildest  rumors  soon  filled  the  air. 

I  had  rooms  at  the  time  in  the  house  adjoining  the  Peterson 
house,  into  which  the  president  had  been  carried.  Hastening 
down  to  Tenth  Street,  I  found  an  almost  solid  mass  of  humanity 
blocking  the  street  and  the  crowd  constantly  enlarging.    A  silence 


tf6  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  was  appalling  prevailed.  Interest  centered  on  all  who 
entered  or  emerged  from  the  Peterson  House  and  all  of  the  lat- 
ter were  closely  questioned  as  to  the  stricken  president's  condition. 
From  the  first  the  answers  were  unvarying — that  there  was  no 
hope. 

A  military  guard  had  been  placed  in  front  of  the  house  and 
those  adjoining  but  upon  telling  the  commanding  officer  that  I 
lived  there,  I  passed  up  to  my  apartment,  which  comprised  the 
second  story  front  of  the  house.  There  was  a  balcony  in  front 
and  I  found  my  rooms  and  the  balcony  thronged  by  the  other 
occupants  of  the  house.  Horror  was  in  every  heart  and  dismay 
on  every  countenance.  We  had  just  about  a  week  of  tumultuous 
joy  over  the  downfall  of  Richmond  and  the  collapse  of  the  Con- 
federacy and  now  in  an  instant  all  this  was  changed  to  the  deep- 
est woe  by  the  foul  shot  of  the  cowardly  assassin. 

It  was  nearly  midnight  when  Major  General  Augur  came  out 
on  the  stoop  of  the  Peterson  House  and  asked  if  there  was  any 
one  in  the  crowd  who  could  write  shorthand.  There  was  no  re- 
sponse from  the  street  but  one  of  my  friends  on  the  balcony  told 
the  general  there  was  a  young  mail  inside  who  could  serve  him, 
whereupon  the  general  told  him  to  ask  me  to  come  down  as  they 
needed  me.  So  it  was  that  I  came  into  close  touch  with  the 
scenes  and  events  surrounding  the  final  hours  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln's life. 

Entering  the  house  I  accompanied  General  Augur  down  the 
hallway  to  the  rear  parlor.  When  we  passed  the  door  of  the  front 
parlor  the  moans  and  sobs  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  struck  painfully  upon 
our  ears.  Entering  the  rear  parlor,  I  found  Secretary  Stanton, 
Judge  David  K.  Carter,  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  District  of  Columbia,  Honorable  B.  A.  Hill  and  many  others. 

I  took  my  seat  on  one  side  of  a  small  library  table  opposite 
Air.  Stanton,  with  Judge  Carter  at  the  end.  Various  witnesses 
were  brought  in  who  had  either  been  in  Ford's  Theater  or  up  in 
the  vicinity  of  Mr.  Seward's  residence.  Among  them  were 
Harry  Hawk,  who  had  been  Asa  Trenchard  that  night  in  the 


APPENDIX  477 

play,  Our  American  Cousin,  Mr.  Alfred  Cloughly,  Colonel  G.  V. 
Rutherford  and  others.  As  I  took  down  the  statements  they 
made  we  were  distracted  by  the  distress  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  for 
though  the  folding  doors  between  the  two  parlors  were  closed, 
her  frantic  sorrow  was  distressingly  audible  to  us. 

She  was  accompanied  by  Miss  Harris,  of  Xew  York,  who, 
with  her  fiance,  Major  Rathbone,  had  gone  to  the  theater  with 
the  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln.  Booth  in  his  rush  through  the 
box  after  firing  the  fatal  shot  had  lunged  at  Major  Rathbone 
with  his  dagger  and  wounded  him  in  the  arm  slightly.  In  the 
naturally  intense  excitement  over  the  president's  condition,  it  is 
probable  that  Major  Rathbone  himself  did  not  realize  that  he 
was  wounded  until  after  he  had  been  in  the  Peterson  House 
some  time,  when  he  fainted  from  loss  of  blood,  was  attended  to, 
his  wound  dressed,  and  he  taken  to  his  apartments.  He  and 
Miss  Harris  subsequently  married. 

Through  all  the  testimony  given  by  those  who  had  been  in 
Ford's  Theater  that  night,  there  was  an  undertone  of  horror 
which  held  the  witnesses  back  from  positively  identifying  the  as- 
sassin as  Booth.  Said  Harry  Hawk,  'To  the  best  of  my  belief, 
it  was  Mr.  John  Wilkes  Booth,  but  I  will  not  be  positive,"  and  so 
it  went  through  the  testimony  of  others  but  the  sum  total  left  no 
doubt  as  to  the  identity  of  the  assassin. 

Our  task  was  interrupted  very  many  times  during  the  night, 
sometimes  by  reports  or  despatches  for  Secretary  Stanton  but 
more  often  by  him  for  the  purpose  of  issuing  orders  calculated  to 
enmesh  Booth  in  his  flight.  "Guard  the  Potomac  from  the  city 
down,"  was  his  repeated  direction.  "He  will  try  to  get  South." 
Many  despatches  were  sent  from  that  table  before  morning, 
some  to  General  Dix  at  Xew  York,  others  to  Chicago,  Philadel- 
phia, etc. 

Several  times  Mr.  Stanton  left  us  a  few  moments  and  passed 
back  to  the  room  in  the  ell  at  the  end  of  the  hall  where  the  pres- 
ident lay.  The  doors  were  open  and  sometimes  there  would  be  a 
few  seconds  of  absolute  silence  when  we  could  hear  plainly  the 


478  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

stertorous  breathing  of  the  dying  man.  I  think  it  was  on  his  re- 
turn from  his  third  trip  of  this  kind  when,  as  he  again  took  his 
seat  opposite  me,  I  looked  earnestly  at  him,  desiring  yet  hesitating 
to  ask  if  there  was  any  chance  of  life.  He  understood  and  I  saw 
a  choke  in  his  throat  as  he  slowly  forced  the  answer  to  my  un- 
spoken question — "There  is  no  hope."  He  had  impressed  me 
through  those  awful  hours  as  being  a  man  of  steel  but  I  knew 
then  that  he  was  dangerously  near  a  convulsive  breakdown. 

During  the  night  there  came  in,  I  think,  about  every  man 
then  of  prominence  in  our  national  life  who  was  in  the  capital  at 
the  time  and  who  had  heard  of  the  tragedy.  A  few  whom  I  dis- 
tinctly recall  were  Secretaries  Welles,  Usher  and  McCullough, 
Attorney  General  Speed  and  Postmaster  General  Dennison,  As- 
sistant Secretaries  Field  and  Otto,  Governor  Oglesby,  Senators 
Sumner  and  Stewart,  and  Generals  Meigs  and  Augur.  I  have 
seen  many  asserted  pictures  of  the  deathbed  scene  and  most  of 
them  have  Vice-President  Andrew  Johnson  seated  in  a  chair 
near  the  foot  of  the  bed  on  the  left  side.  Mr.  Johnson  was  not 
in  the  house  at  all  but  in  his  rooms  in  the  Kirkwood  House  and 
knew  nothing  of  the  events  of  that  night  till  he  was  aroused  in 
the  morning  by  Senator  Stewart  and  others  and  told  that  he  was 
President  of  the  United  States. 

With  the  completion  of  the  taking  of  the  testimony  I  at  once 
began  to  transcribe  my  shorthand  notes  into  longhand.  Twice 
while  so  engaged,  Miss  Harris  supported  Mrs.  Lincoln  down  the 
hallway  to  her  husband's  bedside.  The  door  leading  into  the 
hallway  from  the  room  wherein  I  sat  was  open  and  I  had  a  plain 
view  of  them  as  they  slowly  passed.  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  not  at 
the  bedside  when  her  husband  breathed  his  last.  Indeed,  I  think 
it  was  nearly,  if  not  quite,  two  hours  before  the  end,  when  she 
paid  her  last  visit  to  the  death  chamber  and  when  she  passed  our 
door  on  her  return,  she  cried  out,  "Oh !  my  God,  and  have  I  given 
my  husband  to  die !" 

I  have  witnessed  and  experienced  much  physical  agony  on 


APPENDIX  479 

battle-field  and  in  hospital  but  of  it  all,  nothing-  sunk  deeper  in 
my  memory  than  that  moan  of  a  breaking-  heart. 

I  finished  transcribing  my  notes  at  six  forty-five  in  the  morn- 
ing and  passed  back  into  the  room  where  the  president  lay. 
There  were  gathered  all  those  whose  names  I  have  mentioned  and 
many  others — about  twenty  or  twenty-five  in  all,  I  should  judge. 
The  bed  had  been  pulled  out  from  the  corner  and  owing  to  the 
stature  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  lay  diagonally  on  his  back.  He  had 
been  utterly  unconscious  from  the  instant  the  bullet  plowed  into 
his  brain.  His  stertorous  breathing  subsided  a  couple  of  minutes 
after  seven  o'clock.  From  then  to  the  end  only  the  gentle  rise 
and  fall  of  his  bosom  gave  indication  that  life  remained. 

The  surgeon  general  was  near  the  head  of  the  bed,  sometimes 
sitting  on  the  edge  thereof,  his  finger  on  the  pulse  of  the  dying 
man.  Occasionally  he  put  his  ear  down  to  catch  the  lessening 
beats  of  his  heart.  Mr.  Lincoln's  pastor,  The  Reverend  Doctor 
Gurley,  stood  a  little  to  the  left  of  the  bed.  Mr.  Stanton  sat  in  a 
chair  near  the  foot  on  the  left,  where  the  pictures  place  Andrew 
Johnson.  I  stood  quite  near  the  head  of  the  bed  and  from  that 
position  had  full  view  of  Mr.  Stanton  across  the  president's  body. 
At  my  right  Robert  Lincoln  sobbed  on  the  shoulder  of  Charles 
Sumner. 

Stanton's  gaze  was  fixed  intently  on  the  countenance  of  his 
dying  chief.  He  had,  as  I  said,  been  a  man  of  steel  throughout 
the  night  but  as  I  looked  at  his  face  across  the  corner  of  the  bed 
and  saw  the  twitching  of  the  muscles  I  knew  that  it  was  only  by  a 
powerful  effort  that  he  restrained  himself. 

The  first  indication  that  the  dreaded  end  had  come  was  at 
twenty-two  minutes  past  seven  when  the  surgeon  general  gently 
crossed  the  pulseless  hands  of  Lincoln  across  the  motionless 
breast  and  rose  to  his  feet. 

Reverend  Doctor  Gurley  stepped  forward  and  lifting  his 
hands  began,  "Our  Father  and  our  God" — I  snatched  pencil  and 
note-book  from  my  pocket  but  my  haste  defeated  my  purpose. 
My  pencil  point  (I  had  but  one)  caught  in  my  coat  and  broke,  and 


480  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  world  lost  the  prayer — a  prayer  which  was  only  interrupted 
by  the  sobs  of  Stanton  as  he  buried  his  face  in  the  bedclothes. 
As  "Thy  will  be  done,  Amen,"  in  subdued  and  tremulous  tones 
floated  through  that  little  chamber,  Mr.  Stanton  raised  his  head, 
the  tears  streaming  down  his  cheeks.  A  more  agonized  expres- 
sion I  never  saw  on  a  human  countenance  as  he  sobbed  out  the 
words,  "He  belongs  to  the  ages  now." 

Mr.  Stanton  directed  Major  Thomas  M.  Vincent  of  the  staff 
to  take  charge  of  the  body,  called  a  meeting  of  the  Cabinet  in  the 
room  where  we  had  passed  most  of  the  night  and  the  assemblage 
dispersed. 

Going  to  my  apartment,  I  sat  down  at  once  to  make  a  second 
longhand  copy  for  Mr.  Stanton  of  the  testimony  I  had  taken,  it 
occurring  to  me  that  I  wished  to  retain  the  one  I  had  written  out 
that  night.  I  had  been  thus  engaged  but  a  brief  time  when  hear- 
ing some  commotion  on  the  street,  I  stepped  to  the  window  and 
saw  a  coffin  containing  the  body  of  the  dead  president  being 
placed  in  a  hearse  which  passed  up  Tenth  Street  to  F  and  thus  to 
the  White  House,  escorted  by  a  lieutenant  and  ten  privates.  As 
they  passed  with  measured  tread  and  arms  reversed,  my  hand 
involuntarily  went  to  my  head  in  salute  as  they  started  on  their 
long,  long  journey  back  to  the  prairies  and  the  hearts  he  knew 
and  loved  so  well,  the  mortal  remains  of  the  greatest  American 
of  all  time,  bar  none. 

(Signed)       James  Tanner. 

III.       THE  DIARY  OF  JOHN   WILKES  BOOTH 

Interest  in  matters  relating  to  John  Wilkes  Booth  has  been 
increased  in  recent  years  by  a  book  written  by  Finis  L.  Bates,  of 
Memphis,  entitled  The  Escape  and  Suicide  of  John  Wilkes  Booth. 
Mr.  Bates  knew,  in  1872,  a  man  who  called  himself  John  St. 
Helen,  then  living  at  Granberry,  Texas.  This  man  he  firmly 
believed  to  have  been  Booth.  On  January  13,  1903,  a  man  com- 
mitted suicide  at  Enid,  Oklahoma,  whose  name  as  known  in 


APPENDIX  481 

that  locality  was  David  E.  George.  This  man,  by  a  chain  of  evi- 
dence which  need  not  here  be  repeated,  was  believed  by  some  to 
have  been  Booth.  Mr.  Bates  went  to  Enid  and  became  convinced 
that  George  was  the  man  he  had  known  in  1872  as  St.  Helen,  and 
he  secured  additional  evidence  which  caused  him  to  believe  that 
this  was  Booth.  Reverend  Clarence  True  Wilson  has  delivered 
a  lecture  setting  forth  this  claim,  and  it  has  been  accepted  by  the 
Oklahoma  State  Historical  Society.  Ray  Stannard  Baker,  in 
McClure's  for  May,  1897,  gives  in  detail  the  story  of  the  death 
and  burial  of  Booth.  William  G.  Shepherd  in  Harper's  Mag- 
azine for  November,  1924,  investigates  and  denies  the  Bates 
claim.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  Mr.  Bates'  good  faith,  and  his 
evidence  was  worked  up  with  real  ability.  He  died  on  Thanks- 
giving Day,  1923. 

The  Library  of  Harvard  College  has  the  record  book  of  the 
Baltimore  cemetery  in  which  the  stubs  show  a  receipt  for  the 
body  of  Booth.  This  shows  unquestionably  what  Booth's  rel- 
atives believed,  or  at  the  very  least  what  they  wished  the  public 
to  think  they  believed.  Mr.  H.  H.  Kohlsatt  recently  published 
in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  the  letters  of  the  Booth  family  to 
Andrew  Johnson  and  President  Grant  asking  for  the  body,  which 
eventually  they  obtained  and  buried  in  Baltimore. 

The  War  Department  has,  and  keeps  with  great  care,  the 
Diary  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,  recovered  from  his  body  as  he  was 
shot  in  the  Garrett  corn-crib.  It  is  a  small  volume,  bound  in  red 
leather,  lined  with  silk.  I  have  copied  its  story  of  the  assassina- 
tion and  of  the  events  that  followed.  In  one  or  two  places  I  am 
unable  to  decipher  the  words.  It  is  apparent  that  Booth  expected 
to  be  hailed  as  a  hero  and  was  horrified  that  he  was  regarded  as 
a  common  criminal. 

It  was  written  at  two  different  times.  The  entry  dated  April 
fourteenth  may  be  presumed  to  have  been  penned  in  the  house  of 
Doctor  Mudd,  where  Booth  rested  for  a  few  hours  while  his  leg 
was  set,  and  the  other,  dated  April  twenty-first,  four  days  before 
his  discovery. 


482  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


April  14.  Friday  the  Ides.  Until  to-day  nothing  was  ever 
thought  of  sacrificing  to  our  country's  wrongs.  For  six  months 
we  had  worked  to  capture.  But,  our  cause  being  almost  lost, 
something  decisive  and  great  must  be  done.  But  its  failure  was 
owing  to  others  who  did  not  strike  for  their  country  with  a  heart. 
I  struck  boldly,  and  not  as  the  papers  say.  I  walked  with  a  firm 
step  through  a  thousand  of  his  friends,  was  stopped,  but  pushed 
on.  A  Colonel  was  at  his  side.  I  shouted  sic  semper  before  I 
fired.  In  jumping,  broke  my  leg.  I  passed  all  his  pickets,  rode 
sixty  miles  that  night  with  the  bone  of  my  leg  tearing  the  flesh  at 
every  jump.  I  can  never  repent  it.  Though  we  hated  to  our 
country  owed  all  her  troubles  to  him,  and  God  simply  made  me 
the  instrument  of  his  punishment.  The  country  is  not  what  I 
have  loved.  I  care  not  what  becomes  of  me.  I  have  no  desire  to 
outlive  my  country.  This  night  before  the  deed  I  wrote  a  long 
article  and  left  it  for  the  National  Intelligencer  in  which  I  fully 
set  forth  our  reasons  for  our  proceedings.    We  of  the  south. 

Friday  21.  After  being  hunted  like  a  dog  through  swamps, 
woods,  and  last  night  being  chased  by  gunboats  till  I  was  forced 
to  return,  wet,  cold  and  starving,  with  every  man's  hand  against 
me,  I  am  here  in  despair,  and  why  ? 

For  doing  what  Brutus  was  honored  for — who  made  Tell  a 
Hero.  And  yet  I  have  stricken  down  a  greater  tyrant  than  they 
ever  knew.  I  am  looked  upon  as  a  common  cut-throat.  My  ac- 
tion was  purer  than  either  of  theirs.  One  hoped  to  be  great  him- 
self, the  other  had  not  only  his  country's  but  his  own  wrongs  to 
avenge.  I  hoped  for  no  gain.  I  knew  no  private  wrongs.  I 
struck  for  my  country,  and  for  that  alone.  A  country  ground 
down  under  this  tyranny,  and  prayed  for  this  ....  yet  now 
behold  the  cold  hand  they  ....  to  me.  God  cannot  pardon  me 
if  I  have  done  wrong.  Yet  I  cannot  see  any  wrong  except  in 
serving  a  degenerate  people. 

The  little,  the  very  little  I  left  behind  to  clear  my  name,  the 
Govmt  will  not  permit  to  be  printed.  So  ends  all.  For  my  coun- 
try I  have  given  all  that  makes  life  sweet  and  Holy,  brought  mis- 
ery upon  my  family,  and  am  sure  there  is  no  pardon  in  the  Heav- 
ens for  me,  since  Man  condemns  me  so  ....  of  what  has  been 
done  ....  I  did  myself  and  it  fills  me  with  horror. 

God !  try  and  forgive  me  and  bless  my  mother.  To-night  I 
will  once  more  try  the  river  with  the  intention  to  cross,  though  I 
have  a  greater  desire  and  almost  a  mind  to  return  to  Washington, 


APPENDIX  483 

and  in  a  measure  clear  my  name  which  I  feel  I  could  do.  I  do 
not  repent  the  blow  I  struck.  I  may  before  my  God,  but  not  to 
man.  I  think  I  have  done  well,  though  I  am  abandoned,  with  the 
curse  of  Cain  upon  me,  when,  if  the  world  knew  my  heart,  that 
one  blow  would  have  made  me  great,  though  I  did  not  desire 
greatness. 

To-night  I  try  to  escape  the  bloodhounds  once  more.  Who, 
who  can  read  his  fate?  God's  will  be  done  ....  too  great  a 
soul  to  die  like  a  criminal. 

May  He,  may  He  spare  me  that,  and  let  me  die  bravely !  I 
bless  the  entire  world.  Have  never  hated  or  wronged  any  one. 
This  was  not  wrong  unless  God  deems  it  so,  and  it's  with  Him  to 
damn  or  bless  me.  And  ....  this  brave  boy  Herold  with 
me  ...  .  often  prayes  (yes,  before  and  since)  with  a  true  and 
sincere  heart.     Was  it  a  crime  in  him? 

If  so,  why  can  he  pray  the  same?  I  do  not  wish  to  shed  a 
drop  of  blood,  but  I  must  "fight  the  course."  'Tis  all  that's  left 
me. 

There  is  little  need  to  comment  on  these  records,  or  to  empha- 
size the  contrast  between  the  frame  of  mind  the  writer  was  in  at 
the  time  when  he  made  the  first  of  them  and  that  which  succeeded 
in  the  distressing  week  that  followed. 

His  attempt  to  escape  did  not  succeed.  The  pursuing  aven- 
gers hemmed  him  in  closer  and  yet  more  closely.  Late  on  the 
afternoon  of  April  twenty-fifth,  a  cavalry  squad  located  him  in 
a  barn  in  Virginia,  and  ordered  him  to  surrender.  On  his  re- 
fusal, they  fired  the  barn.  Booth  still  refused  to  come  out,  but 
asked  that  Herold  be  permitted  to  surrender,  and  he  was  taken 
prisoner.  As  the  flames  lighted  up  the  interior  of  the  building, 
Booth  was  seen  with  a  carbine,  and  was  shot,  against  orders,  by 
a  half-insane  soldier,  Boston  Corbett.  The  bullet  lodged  in  the 
base  of  Booth's  brain,  and  he  was  paralyzed  below  that  point, 
but  fully  conscious  until  his  death.  The  wound  he  received  was 
similar  to  that  he  inflicted  upon  the  president,  with  this  differ- 
ence, that  Lincoln  knew  no  moment  of  suffering,  and  Booth  must 
have  suffered  exquisite  pain  from  the  moment  he  was  wounded 
until  his  death  on  the  following  morning. 


484  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

IV.   HOW  EDWIN  BOOTH  SAVED  ROBERT  LINCOLN^  LIFE 

Edwin  Booth  was  playing  in  Boston  when  his  brother 
murdered  President  Lincoln.  He  did  not  complete  his  en- 
gagement, and  the  theater  was  closed  for  an  indefinite  period. 
Some  newspapers  made  a  commendable  effort  to  dissociate  his 
name  from  that  of  his  brother  by  affirming  that  he  had  always 
been  a  friend  of  the  Union.  The  New  York  Times,  on  Sunday 
April  16,  1865,  the  day  following  the  death  of  Lincoln,  in  a 
editorial  on  the  murder,  related  the  following  incident,  which 
proves,  on  investigation,  to  have  been  substantially  correct.  It  is 
certainly  a  coincidence  worth  recording  that  only  a  few  weeks 
before  the  assassination,  the  brother  of  Lincoln's  murderer  saved 
the  life  of  Lincoln's  son: 


Quite  recently  his  brother  Edwin  ejected  him  (John  Wilkes 
Booth)  from  his  house  in  New  York,  simply  because  his  expres- 
sions were  unbearable  to  a  man  of  loyalty  and  intelligence.  And 
here  it  is  only  thoughtful  and  just  to  say  that  the  Union  cause 
has  no  stronger  or  more  generous  supporter  than  Mr.  Edwin 
Booth.  From  the  commencement  he  has  been  earnestly  and  ac- 
tively solicitous  for  the  triumph  of  our  arms  and  the  welfare  of 
our  soldiers.  An  incident — a  trifle  in  itself — may  be  recalled 
at  this  moment  when  the  profound  monotony  of  grief  overwhelms 
us.  Not  a  month  since,  Mr.  Edwin  Booth  was  proceeding  to 
Washington.  At  Trenton  there  was  a  general  scramble  to  reach 
the  cars,  which  had  started,  leaving  many  behind  in  the  refresh- 
ment saloons.  Mr.  Edwin  Booth  was  preceded  by  a  gentleman 
whose  foot  slipped  as  he  was  stepping  on  the  platform,  and  who 
would  have  fallen  at  once  beneath  the  wheels  had  not  Mr.  Edwin 
Booth's  arm  sustained  him.  The  gentleman  remarked  that  he 
had  had  a  narrow  escape  of  his  life  and  was  thankful  to  his 
preserver.  It  was  Robert  Lincoln,  the  son  of  the  great,  good 
man  who  now  lies  dead  before  our  blistered  eyes,  and  whose 
name  we  cannot  mention  without  choking. 

In  some  way  this  incident  came  to  the  knowledge  of  Lieut- 
General  Grant,  who  at  once  wrote  a  civil  letter  to  Mr.  Edwin 
Booth  and  said  that  if  he  could  serve  him  at  any  time  he  would 
be  glad  to  do  so.     Mr.  Booth  replied,  playfully,  that  when  he 


APPENDIX  485 

(Grant)  was  in  Richmond,  he  (Booth)  would  like  to  play  for 
him  there.  It  was  a  trifle,  but  it  is  well  to  remember  trifles  when 
a  man  so  stricken  and  overwhelmed  as  is  Mr.  Edwin  Booth  is 
spoken  of. 

V.       THE    GETTYSBURG    ADDRESS 

It  is  surprising  that  so  short  an  address  should  exist  in  so 
many  varying  yet  apparently  authoritative  forms.  It  will  be  found 
of  value  to  have  for  comparison  the  most  interesting  and  signifi- 
cant of  the  drafts  and  press  reports.  Doctor  Charles  Moore,  head 
of  the  Manuscripts  Division  of  the  Library  of  Congress,  has  com- 
piled a  typewritten  text  of  seven  different  versions  from  original 
documents.  These  have  been  collated  with  meticulous  care.  I 
am  using  these  by  his  courtesy  and  am  adding  certain  others 
which  for  particular  reasons  are  of  special  value  in  this  work. 

As  here  arranged,  Numbers  One  and  Two,  which  are  known 
as  the  First  and  Second  Library  of  Congress  drafts,  are  bound  in 
a  single  cover.  The  first  is  a  rough  and  the  second  a  fair  copy 
of  the  same  version  of  the  address.  These  manuscripts  were 
given  to  the  Library  of  Congress  by  the  children  of  John  Hay. 
Apparently  both  were  written  before  the  address  was  delivered. 
The  first  page  of  Number  One  is  written  on  a  sheet  of  Executive 
Mansion  paper,  in  ink.  The  second  page  is  written  in  pencil  on  a 
sheet  of  foolscap,  and  a  few  words  at  the  bottom  of  the  first  page 
are  changed  in  pencil.  According  to  Nicolay's  account  {Century 
Magazine,  February,  1894,)  these  changes  were  made  by  Lincoln 
after  he  arrived  in  Gettysburg.  If  so,  the  second  Library  of  Con- 
gress draft  must  also  have  been  written  in  Gettysburg,  after  the 
first  draft  was  corrected  and  before  delivery.  It  contains  certain 
phrases  that  are  not  in  the  first  draft,  but  arc  in  the  reports  of  the 
address  as  delivered  and  in  subsequent  copies  made  by  Lincoln.  It 
seems  probable  that  this  second  Library  of  Congress  draft  was 
the  final  revision  before  delivering  the  address,  and  was  the  copy 
that  Lincoln  held  in  his  hand  while  speaking,  although  he  appar- 
ently referred  to  it  so  little  that  some  of  those  present  thought  he 


486  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

spoke  extemporaneously.  The  words  "under  God,"  in  the  last 
sentence  of  the  address  as  reported,  and  in  all  subsequent  copies 
made  by  Lincoln,  are  not  in  either  of  the  Library  of  Congress 
drafts. 

Number  One 

First  Library  of  Congress  draft 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth, 
upon  this  continent,  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and  ded- 
icated to  the  proposition  that  "all  men  are  created  equal." 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that 
nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived,  and  so  dedicated,  can  long 
endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We 
have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  it,  as  a  final  resting  place  for 
those  who  died  here,  that  the  nation  might  live.  This  we  may,  in 
all  propriety  do. 

But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  can  not  dedicate — we  can  not  con- 
secrate— we  can  not  hallow,  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living 
and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  hallowed  it,  far  above  our 
poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long 
remember  what  we  say  here ;  while  it  can  never  forget  what  they 
did  here.  It  is  rather  for  us,  the  living,  we  here  be  dedicated  to 
the  great  task  remaining  before  us — that,  from  these  honored 
dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they 
here  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion — that  we  here  highly 
resolve  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain;  that  the  nation, 
shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the 
people  by  the  people  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth. 

Number  Two 
Second  Library  of  Congress  draft 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth, 
upon  this  continent,  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  Liberty,  and  ded- 
icated to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  nation,  or  any  nation,  so  conceived,  and  so  dedicated,  can 
long  endure.  We  are  met  here  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war. 
We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  it  as  a  final  resting  place 


APPENDIX  487 

for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live. 
It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

But  in  a  larger  sense  we  can  not  dedicate — we  can  not  con- 
secrate— we  can  not  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men.  living 
and  dead,  who  struggled  here.,  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our 
poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long 
remember,  what  we  say  here,  but  can  never  forget  what  they  did 
here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the 
unfinished  work  which  they  have,  thus  far,  so  nobly  carried  on. 
It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining 
before  us — that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  de- 
votion to  that  cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the  last  full  meas- 
ure of  devotion — that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall 
not  have  died  in  vain ;  that  this  nation  shall  have  a  new  birth  of 
freedom:  and  that  this  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth, 

X umber  Three 
The  Associated  Press  Report 

Different  newspapers  using  the  Associated  Press  report 
made  mistakes  in  transcription.  That  report  is  given  in  the  text, 
and  is  the  basis  of  all  reports  that  showed  ''Applause."  The 
New  York  Tribune  was  one  of  several  papers  having  special  cor- 
respondents present,  and  used  the  Associated  Press  report,  prob- 
ably in  a  special  dispatch  from  Gettysburg.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
careful  of  the  special  reports. 

(Special  Correspondence  Xew  York  Tribune,  November  21, 

1863.) 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth 
upon  this  continent  a  new  Nation,  conceived  in  Liberty,  and  ded- 
icated to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  [Ap- 
plause]. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  Nation  or  any  Nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated  can  long 
endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We  are 
met  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  it  as  the  final  resting-place  of  those 
who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is  al- 
together fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 


488  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

But  in  a  larger  sense  we  can  not  dedicate,  we  cannot  conse- 
crate, we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men  living  and 
dead  who  struggled  here  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  power 
to  add  or  detract.  [Applause].  The  world  will  little  note  nor 
long  remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what 
they  did  here.  [Applause] .  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be 
dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  that  they  have  thus  far  so 
nobly  carried  on.  [Applause].  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  ded- 
icated to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us,  that  from  these  hon- 
ored dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which 
they  here  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion;  that  we  here 
highly  resolve  that  the  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain  [Ap- 
plause] ;  that  the  nation  shall,  under  God,  have  a  new  birth  of 
freedom ;  and  that  governments  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and 
for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth.  [Long-continued 
applause.] 

Number  Four — Charles  Hale's  Report 
The  Fourth  is  the  report  taken  down  by  Charles  Hale,  and 
incorporated  in  the  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Commissioners 
to  Governor  John  A.  Andrew,  and  by  him  included  in  Massachu- 
setts Legislative  Documents  (Senate,  1864,  No.  1,  p.  lxii)  pre- 
sented to  the  Legislature.  Mr.  Hale  affirmed  that  Lincoln  spoke 
very  deliberately  and  that  Hale  took  down  every  word  precisely 
as  Lincoln  uttered  it.  This,  presumably,  gives  us  precisely  the 
words  which  President  Lincoln  actually  spoke  at  Gettysburg : 

As  reported  by  the  Massachusetts  Commissioners.  [In  Mas- 
sachusetts Legislative  Docs.  Senate.   1864]. 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago,  our  fathers  brought  forth 
upon  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty  and  ded- 
icated to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  nation — or  any  nation,  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated — can 
long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We 
are  met  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  it  as  the  final  resting-place  of 
those  who  have  given  their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It 
is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  can  not  dedicate,  we  can  not  conse- 
crate, we  can  not  hallow,  this  ground.     The  brave  men,  living 


APPENDIX  489 

and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it,  far  above  our 
power  to  add  or  to  detract.  The  world  will  very  little  note  nor 
long  remember  what  we  say  here ;  but  it  can  never  forget  what 
they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated, 
here,  to  the  unfinished  work  that  they  have  thus  far  so  nobly  car- 
ried on.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task 
remaining  before  us ;  that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  in- 
creased devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the  last 
full  measure  of  devotion ;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these 
dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain ;  that  the  nation  shall,  under  God, 
have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


Number  Five 
The  Philadelphia  Inquirer's  Report 

Of  the  reports  that  attempted  some  degree  of  independence  of 
the  manuscript  of  the  reporter  for  the  Associated  Press,  some 
are  of  considerable  interest,  two  of  them  markedly  so.  The  first 
of  these  is  the  report  that  appeared  in  the  Philadelphia  Inquirer 
of  November  20,  1863.  The  Philadelphia  papers  appear  to  have 
been  the  only  ones  that  reported  Lincoln  as  speaking  of  "our  poor 
power."  Neither  the  Massachusetts  nor  the  Associated  Press 
report  contains  the  adjective.  It  was  in  the  manuscript  which 
Lincoln  held  and  in  his  later  revisions,  but  he  appears  inadver- 
tently to  have  omitted  the  word.  The  Gettysburg  Compiler  used 
this  report  in  its  account  of  the  ceremonies,  November  twenty- 
third  ;  so  this  is  the  version  which  the  Gettysburg  people  had  be- 
fore them  as  that  which  they  had  heard  from  the  lips  of  Lincoln. 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth 
upon  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty  and  ded- 
icated to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now 
we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  the  question  whether 
this  nation  or  any  nation  so  conceived,  so  dedicated,  can  long  en- 
dure. We  are  met  on  the  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We  are 
met  to  dedicate  it,  on  a  portion  of  the  field  set  apart  as  the  final 


49Q  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

resting  place  of  those  who  gave  their  lives  for  the  nation's  life, 
but  the  nation  must  live,  and  it  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper 
that  we  should  do  this. 

In  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate, 
we  cannot  hallow  this  ground  in  reality.  The  number  of  men, 
living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here  have  consecrated  it  far  above 
our  poor  attempts  to  add  to  its  consecration.  The  world  will  lit- 
tle know  and  nothing  remember  of  what  we  see  here,  but  we  can- 
not forget  what  these  brave  men  did  here. 

We  owe  this  offering  to  our  dead.  We  imbibe  increased  de- 
votion to  that  cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the  last  full  meas- 
ure of  devotion ;  we  here  might  resolve  that  they  shall  not  have 
died  in  vain;  that  the  nation  shall,  under  God,  have  a  new  birth 
of  freedom,  and  that  the  Government  of  the  people,  for  the  peo- 
ple, and  for  all  people,  shall  not  perish  from  earth. 

Number  Six 
The  Cincinnati  Gazette's  Report 

A  number  of  papers,  among  them  the  Cincinnati  Daily  Ga- 
zette for  November  twenty-first,  gave  to  their  readers  this  very 
faulty  version  of  the  Gettysburg  Address : 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  established  upon 
this  Continent  a  Government  subscribed  in  liberty  and  dedicated 
to  the  fundamental  principle  that  all  mankind  are  created  free 
and  equal  by  a  good  God.  And  now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great 
contest  deciding  the  question  whether  this  nation  or  any  nation 
so  conserved,  so  dedicated,  can  long  remain.  We  are  met  on  a 
great  battle-field  of  the  war.  We  are  met  here  to  dedicate  a  por- 
tion of  that  field  as  the  final  resting  place  of  those  who  have  given 
their  lives  that  it  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper 
that  we  should  do  this. 

But  in  a  large  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate 
we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  the  living  and  the 
dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our 
power  to  add  to  or  detract  from  the  work.  Let  us  long  remember 
what  we  say  here,  but  not  forget  what  they  did  here. 

It  is  for  us,  the  living,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished 
work  that  they  have  thus  far  so  nobly  carried  forward.     It  is  for 


APPENDIX  491 

us  here  to  be  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us,  for 
us  to  renew  our  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the 
full  measure  of  their  devotion.  Here  let  us  resolve  that  what 
they  have  done  shall  not  have  been  done  in  vain ;  that  the  nation 
shall,  under  God,  have  a  new  birth  offered;  that  the  Government 
of  the  people,  founded  by  the  people,  shall  not  perish. 

Number  Seven 
The  Baltimore  Copy 

The  first  two  versions  here  given,  and  the  three  that  are  to 
follow,  are  all  in  existence,  and  in  Lincoln's  handwriting.  Any 
one  of  them  may  be  considered  correct.  The  last  three  represent 
not  only  the  careful  preparation  before  the  delivery  of  the  ad- 
dress, but  the  thoughtful  revision  which  Lincoln  gave  to  it  after- 
ward in  the  light  of  his  comparison  of  his  manuscript  with  the 
press  reports.  These  three  copies  vary  in  very  small  and  imma- 
terial details,  but  they  illustrate  the  evolution  of  Lincoln's  final 
text.  The  copy  which  we  number  seven  was  made  by  Lincoln 
for  the  Sanitary  Commission  Fair  in  New  York  in  1864,  and  is 
now  (1925)  owned  by  Senator  Henry  W.  Keyes,  of  New 
Hampshire. 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth 
upon  this  continent,  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  Liberty,  and  ded- 
icated to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war  testing  whether 
that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long 
endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We 
have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field,  as  a  final  resting 
place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives,  that  that  nation  might 
live.     It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  can  not  dedicate — we  can  not  con- 
secrate— we  can  not  hallow — this  ground.  The  brave  men,  liv- 
ing and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it,  far  above 
our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor 
long  remember,  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what 
they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here 
to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here,  have,  thus 


492  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

far,  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated 
to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us — that  from  these  honored 
dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  here 
gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion — that  we  here  highly  re- 
solve that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain — that  this  nation, 
under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom— and  that,  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish 
from  the  earth. 

Number  Eight 
The  Bancroft  Copy 

Lincoln,  having  made  a  copy  to  accompany  the  Everett  ora- 
tion and  to  be  used  at  the  Sanitary  Fair  in  New  York,  was  invited 
to  write  another  copy  to  be  used  with  facsimiles  of  the  writings 
of  many  authors  in  a  volume  to  be  sold  at  the  Soldiers'  and  Sail- 
ors' Fair  in  Baltimore.  His  first  copy  made  for  this  purpose  was 
not  available  because  it  was  written  on  both  sides  of  the  sheet. 
He  therefore  wrote  another  and  a  final  copy,  permitting  this  one 
to  be  retained  by  Honorable  George  Bancroft,  in  whose  family 
it  now   (1925)   remains. 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth,  on 
this  continent,  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  Liberty,  and  dedicated 
to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived,  and  so  dedicated,  can 
long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war. 
We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field,  as  a  final  rest- 
ing-place for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives,  that  that  nation 
might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do 
this. 

But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  can  not  dedicate — we  can  not  con- 
secrate— we  can  not  hallow — this  ground.  The  brave  men,  liv- 
ing and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above 
our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor 
long  remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what 
they  did  here.  It  is  for  us  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here 
to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far 


APPENDIX  493 

so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the 
great  task  remaining-  before  us — that  from  these  honored  dead  we 
take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  here  gave 
the  last  full  measure  of  devotion — that  we  here  highly  resolve 
that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain — that  this  nation, 
under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom — and  that  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish 
from  the  earth. 

Number  Nine 

The  Standard  Version 

The  final  copy  made  for  the  Baltimore  Fair  is  known  as  the 
Standard  Version,  and  is  that  found  in  facsimile  in  the  volume 
Autograph  Leaves  of  our  Country's  Authors.  The  original  is 
owned  (1925)  by  Professor  William  J.  A.  Bliss,  Baltimore. 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  on 
this  continent,  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  Libert}-,  and  dedicated 
to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

Xow  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long 
endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We 
have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field,  as  a  final  resting 
place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might 
live.    It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  can  not  dedicate — we  can  not  con- 
secrate— we  can  not  hallow — this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living 
and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it,  far  above  our 
poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long 
remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they 
did  here.  It  is  for  us  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to 
the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus  fat- 
so nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the 
great  task  remaining  before  us — that  from  these  honored  dead 
we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the 
last  full  measure  of  devotion — that  we  here  highly  resolve  that 
these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain — that  this  nation,  under 
God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom — and  that  government 
of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from 
the  earth. 


INDEX 


Able,  Bennett  and  wife,  I  -.224. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  in  Free-soil 
movement,  1:288,  299;  Republican 
speech  in  i860  without  naming  Lin- 
coln, 441  ;  on  Lincoln  and  Seward, 
II:i7-i8,  25;  on  Chittenden's  Rem- 
iniscences, 253. 

Adams,  Henry,  II  WJ. 

Adams,  General  James,  Lincoln's  con- 
troversy with,   I  :24i. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  I:ii3,  281; 
death  of,  284. 

/Esop's  Fables,  read  by  Lincoln, 
I  :i2i. 

Alabama,  British-built  Confederate 
cruiser,  II  :i22. 

Alaska,  purchase  of,  II:i22, 

Albany,  Lincoln  at,  I  '.471. 

Allen,' Ethan,   II  .78. 

Allen,   Dr.  John,   I  :i96. 

Allen,  Colonel  Robert,  Lincoln's  let- 
ter to,  1 1203. 

Allen,  William  W.,  1:3",  316; 
506  scq. 

Allin,  Hon.  Ben  Casey,  I  145. 

Almanac,  in  Armstrong  trial,  I  :3I2, 
506. 

Alton,  Lincoln-Douglas  debate,  1 :396. 

Amelia  County,  Virginia,  alleged 
home  of  the  Hanks  and  cognate 
families,  1 138. 

Anderson's  Creek,  Lincoln  as  ferry- 
man, 1 :  129-130. 

Anderson,  Major  Robert;  mustered 
Lincoln  as  soldier  in  Black  Hawk 
War,  1:176;  at  Fort  Sumter,  11:63. 

Andrew,  John  A.,  in  Free-soil  move- 
ment, 1:288,  299;  favored  enlisting 
negro  soldiers,  II:  148. 

Anti-slavery  agitation  from  Garrison 
on,  1 :269. 

Antietam,  battle  of,  II:i25. 

Apple  River  fight,  1:175. 

Appomattox,  surrender  of  Lee's 
army,  11:337- 

Arlotta  of  Falaise,  1 1157. 


Aristotle,  on  causes  and  occasions  of 

war,  II  :66. 
Armstrong,  Eliza.    See  Pantier,  Mrs. 

Eliza  A. 
Armstrong,    Hannah,    wife    of    Jack, 

I:3H,  445- 

Armstrong,  Ida  D.,   I  :i  16. 

Armstrong,  John  ("Jack"),  I:i6i, 
164. 

Armstrong,  Joseph  D.,   I:u6. 

Armstrong,  Perry  A.,  I:i74. 

Armstrong,  William  or  "Duff,"  I: 
310,  318;   506  scq. 

Arnold,  Isaac  N.,  contrasted  Wash- 
ington and  Lincoln  as  to  early  love, 
I:2ii;  as  to  Lincoln's  career  to  the 
end  of  his  work  in  Legislature,  286 ; 
as  to  Globe  Tavern,  319;  Lincoln's 
appointment  of  an  editor  who  had 
favored  Seward,  423 ;  campaign  of 
i860,  443;  II:i3,  47,  60;  Lincoln's 
supporter,  154;  on  Lincoln's  re- 
fusal to  use  his  power  to  secure 
his  own  reelection,  301  ;  on  Thir- 
teenth Amendment,  Z22>  \  on  Lin- 
coln's stories,  393. 

Ashley,  Hon.  James  M.,  II  :322. 

Ashmun,  George,  Lincoln's  associate 
in  Congress,  1 :28i  ;  permanent 
chairman  Chicago  convention,  427 ; 
Lincoln's  letter  of  acceptance,  438; 
Lincoln's    final   card,   II  :340. 

Associated  Press  report  of  Gettys- 
burg address,  II  :2o6,  214,  487. 

Atchison,   David  R.,   1 :34i,  350. 

Atkinson,    Mrs.   Eleanore,    1 :200. 

Atkinson,   Gen.   Henry,   I  :i76. 

Atlas,  Boston,  Whig  newspaper, 
1 :290. 

Atlas  and  Argus  of  Albany,  II:i5. 

Atzerot,  George  B.,  II  :354. 

Augur,  General  C.  C,  II  :343,  471  seq. 

Authors,  American,  in  nineteenth 
century,  1:26,  268. 

"Autograph  Leaves  of  Our  Country's 
Authors"  with  standard  form  of 
Gettysburg  Address,   II  .-205,  491. 


49. 


496 


INDEX 


Bailey  and   Cromwell  case,  1 1335. 

Bailey,  Francis,  Journal  of  Tour, 
1: 108. 

Bailey,   Rev.  John,  1 149,  62,   103. 

Baker,  Edward  Dickinson,  1 1237,  274  ; 
death  of,  II 146. 

Bale,  Abraham  and  Jacob,  1: 195. 

Ballads,  Old  English,  in  Kentucky 
mountains,  1 170. 

Ballard,  Hon.  Bland  W.,  1 131,  32. 

Ball's   Bluff,  battle   of,   11:83,  95- 

Baltimore  Convention  of  i860,  1 :438. 

Baltimore,  Lincoln's  passage  through 
in   1861,  1:5. 

Baltimore  riot,  II  :6g. 

Bancroft,  George,  II 1205. 

Baptist  Church  and  slavery,  1: 10?. 

Barlow,  Barbara,  wife  of  Christo- 
pher, 1:36. 

Barlow,  Catherine  or  "Caty."  See 
Lincoln.   Catherine   Barlow. 

Barlow,  Christopher,   1 .36. 

Barker,  H.  E.,  11:41. 

Barnett,  Joseph,  1 144. 

Barnum,  P.  T.,  and  his  "happy  fam- 
ily,"  11:39. 

Barrett,  Oliver  R.,  notable  collection 
of  Lincoln  manuscripts,  1:400;  II: 
253,  268. 

Bateman,  Newton,  1 :8o. 

Bates,  Edward,  at  River  and  Harbor 
Convention,  1 :279 ;  candidate  for 
presidency  in  i860,  431,  433;  ap- 
pointed attorney  general,  11:36; 
resignation,  309. 

Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil 
War,  The  Century  War  Book, 
II :  170,  230. 

Beall,  John  Yates,  II 1261. 

Bedell,  Grace.  See  Billings,  Mrs. 
Grace  Bedell. 

Beecher,  Prof.  Edward,  1:198,  199. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  1:408;  II: 
113,  287;    Eulogy   on   Lincoln,   359. 

Beechland,  Ky.,  I  :i9. 

Bell,  John  C,  1 :439. 

Benjamin,  Charles  F.,  II:i7o. 

Bennett,  James  Gordon,  Lincoln's 
message  to,  II  :38. 

Benton,   Thomas    Hart,   1 :28i,  363. 

Berea  College,  1: 106. 

Berry  family  in  Virginia,  1 :39. 

Berry,   John,   1  :6i. 

Berry,  Rev.  John  McCutcheon,  1:158. 

Berry,  the  mythical  Aunt  Lucy,  I : 
53,  57. 


Berry,  Richard,  Sr.,  not  the  uncle  of 
Nancy  Hanks,  l:\g. 

Berry,  Richard,  Sr.  and  Jr.,  1 119. 

Berry,  William  F.,  1:158;  Lincoln's 
partner  at  New  Salem,   188,  189. 

Bible,  in  Lincoln's  education,   1: 121. 

Billings,  Mrs.  Grace  Bedell,  1 1515. 

Bingham,  Hon.  John   A.,  II  :353. 

Binmore,  Henry,  1:389. 

Bird,  Abraham,  I  -.29. 

Birney,  James  G.,   1 .330. 

Birth  of  a  Nation,  II  :28i. 

Bixby,  Mrs.,  11:258. 

"Blab  schools,"  1:86,  119. 

Black,  Chauncey  F.,  author  of 
Lamoris  Life   of  Lincoln,  1 1449. 

Black  Hawk,  1:172,  175. 

Black  Hawk  War,  172  seq. 

Black,  Jeremiah   S.,   1:449,  451. 

Blackstone's  Commentaries,  procured 
by  Lincoln,  I  :i94. 

Blade,  Toledo,  II  :40s. 

Blair,   Francis   P.,   Jr.,   11:38. 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  Sr.,  11:37,  I57J 
visit  to  Richmond,  333. 

Blair,  Montgomery,  appointed  post- 
master-general, 11:37;  at  Gettys- 
burg,  192;   resignation,  309. 

Blanchard,  John,  I  -.283. 

Blaney,  Lucy  T.,  I:no. 

Blind,  asylums   for,  1 :268. 

Bliss,   Prof.  William   A.,   11:493- 

Blodgett,  Judge,  II  :38s. 

Bloomer,    Mrs.    Amelia,    1 :326. 

"Bobolink    Minstrel,"    1 :442. 

Bogue,  Captain  A.  Vincent,  1 1165 
seq. 

Booker,  W.  F.,  1: 16. 

Boone,   Daniel,   1 :27. 

Booth,  Edwin,  saved  Robert  Lin- 
coln's life,  II  :484. 

Booth,  John  Wilkes,  II:34i,  seq.; 
diary  of,  481,  seq. 

Bowers,  Claude  G.,  II 142,  54. 

Bowles,   Samuel   G.,  1 :4i9. 

Breckenridge,  John  C,  nominated  and 
elected  vice-president,  1 :356 ;  can- 
didate for  president  in  i860,  439; 
at  count  of  electoral  votes,  458. 

Breese,  Sidney,  II  :384. 

Bridges,    Benjamin,    1:29. 

Briscoe,  Parmeneas,  1 :59. 

Bristow,  William,  1: 128. 

Brooks,  Noah,  II  :200. 

Brown,  A.  M.,  1 :8i. 


INDEX 


497 


Brown,  John,  Lincoln  did  not  sym- 
pathize with,  1  :t,33  ;  exploits  in 
Kansas,  351  ;  attack  on  Harper's 
Ferr-y,  405  seq.;  Lincoln's  reference 
at  Cooper  Union,  406. 

Browne,  Charles  Farrar,  "Artemus 
Ward,"  11:408. 

Browning,  Orville  H.,  at  Blooming- 
ton  Convention,  1 1357  ;  his  account 
of  Lincoln's  lost  speech,  361  ;  on 
"house-divided''  speech,  368 ;  on 
Lincoln's  nomination,  440;  accom- 
panied Lincoln  part  way  to  Wash- 
ington, 466 ;  quotes  Lincoln  on 
Emancipation,  II  1131  ;  on  liberty- 
pole,  152;  on  Lincoln's  proclama- 
tions, 153;  on  Cabinet  crisis  and 
Lincoln's  declaration  that  he  was 
master,  154  seq. ;  the  mystery  of 
Lincoln's   personality,   456   seq. 

Browning,  Mrs.  Orville  H.,  Lincoln's 
letter  to,   I  -.226,  233,  236. 

Browning,    Robert,    II 1448. 

Brownlow,   William   G.,   II 1238. 

Brumfield,  William  and  Nancy  (Lin- 
coln),  I  :i2,  20,  36. 

Bryant,  John  H.,  on  Douglas'  speech 
at  Princeton,  1 :350. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  presided  at 
Cooper   Union  address,   1 1408. 

Buchanan,  James,  nominated  presi- 
dent, 1 1356 ;  elected,  363 ;  break 
with  Douglas,  364  seq. ;  his  policy 
after  secession,  449  seq. ;  at  Lin- 
coln's   inaugural,   II  :6,    14. 

Buckhannon,  George,  1 159. 

Buckhorn   Tavern,   1:149. 

Buckingham,  Gov.  William  A.,  1 141 1. 

Buckley,   Dr.   J.   M.,   1:479. 

Buffalo,  Lincoln  at,  1:469;  letter  to, 
11:299. 

Buffalo  wool,  1:90. 
Bull  Run,   first  battle  of,  II  72. 
Bulletin,  Philadelphia,  11:222. 
Burlingame,      Anson,      in      Free-soil 

movement,  1 :288,  299. 
Burnett,   Henry   L.,   II  1353. 
Burns,  Robert,  birth,  I:i;  recited  by 

Jack  Kelso  to  Lincoln,   193. 
Burnside,    defeat    at    Fredericksburg. 

II  :i54 ;    slow    progress    at    Knox- 

ville,  239. 
Bush,   Isaac,   I  :ii2. 
Bush,    Sarah.      See    Lincoln,    Sarah 

Bush    (Johnston) 


Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  on  "Contraband 
of   War,"  II  :i30. 

Butler,  William,  encouraged  Lincoln 
to  study  law,  I:i94;  furnished  Lin- 
coln a  home,  230,  274. 

Butler,  William  J.,  1 :230. 

Butterfield,  Justin,  defeats  Lincoln 
for  land  office,  1 :293. 

Byron,  quoted  to  Lincoln  by  Jack 
Kelso,  1: 193. 

Cabin,  in  American  architecture,  1 :2. 
Cadwalader,  General,  II  :274. 
Caldwell,  Gen.  George,  I  :io. 
Calhoun,    John,    surveyor    in    Illinois 
and      subsequently      prominent      in 
Kansas,    1: 187;    sketch    of    his    ca- 
reer,  188,  237. 

Calhoun,  John  C,  in  Senate,  1 :28i ; 
death,  328. 

California;  admitted  as  a  free  state, 
I  -329,  337- 

Cameron,  John  M.,  founder  of  New 
Salem,  II:i37,  184,  185,  211. 

Cameron,  Martha  or  "Mat"  and  her 
sisters,  1 :2i2. 

Cameron,  Nancy  (Miller),  wife  of 
Thomas,  I  :i57. 

Cameron,   Simon,  1 :433. 

Cameron,  Simon,  11:20;  appointed 
secretary  of  war,  36;  resignation, 
107 ;    on    the    Gettysburg    Address, 

^  199. 

Cameron,  Thomas,  1: 157. 

Campaign  songs  of  i860,  I  '.442. 

Campbell,  John   A.,  II  :66. 

Camp-meetings,    1: 106. 

Canisius,   Dr.   Theodore,   1 :420  seq. 

Cannon,   Mrs.  Jouett  Taylor,   1 145. 

Carden,  Allen  D.,  1:196. 

Carlyle,  James,  father  of  Thomas, 
1:7. 

Carlyle,  Janet,  mother  of  Thomas, 
1:8. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  birth,  I:i;  resem- 
blance to  Lincoln,  7;  his  mother's 
opinion   of  his  beauty,  8. 

Carnahan,  Rev.  E.  T.,  II 1221. 

Carpenter,   Frank  B.,   II  1137,  425. 

Carr,  Col.  Clark  E.,  II  :i8g.  217. 

Carter,   Hon.    David   K.,   11:346,  471. 

Carter,  Thomas,  I:ii2. 

Carton,  John  B.,  II  :384. 

Cartwright,  Rev.  Peter,  1 1182,  195; 
founder  of  McKendree  College, 
198;   Lincoln's   opponent,  277. 


498 


INDEX 


Cass,  General  Lewis,  I:i/8,  284,  449. 
Century  Magazine,  1 :5c 
Century  War  Book,  II -.170,  230. 
Chancellorsville,   battle   of,    II  -.172. 
Chandler,  Zachariah,  11:83;  167  seq.; 

291. 
Chapman,   Mrs.  Harriet,  daughter  of 

Dennis   Hanks,   I:n8,    139,   3^7- 
Charleston,    Lincoln-Douglas    debate, 

393- 

Charnwood,    Lord,   II  :390. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  appointed  secre- 
tary of  the  treasury,  II  132 ;  on 
emancipation,  143  seq. ;  disclosed 
Cabinet  information,  155 ;  ambi- 
tious to  succeed  Lincoln,  264  seq.  \ 
Lincoln's  comment  on  his  rivalry, 
310;  resignation  as  secretary,  311; 
appointment  as   chief   justice,  312. 

Cheney,  Bishop  Charles  Edward, 
1:85. 

Chicago  Convention  of  i860,  1 :42s 
seq. 

Chicago  Historical  Society,  1 1143, 
241,  265,  313,  315,  420. 

Chicago,  Lincoln's  first  visit  to, 
1 :2/8. 

Chicago  ministers  call  on  Lincoln, 
11:142. 

Chicago,  University  of,  1 :28,  33,  81, 
101,   106,  312. 

Chittenden,  L.  E.,  "Recollections," 
II :  1 16,  249. 

Choate,  Rufus,  1 1289,  298. 

Chrissman  Brothers,  New  Salem 
merchants,   I  :i83. 

Chrissman,   Isaac,   I  :i86. 

Christian  Advocate,  1 :479. 

Christy's  Minstrels,  II  :403. 

Chronicle,   Washington,  11:470. 

Churches  and  slavery,  1: 102  seq. 

Cincinnati,   Lincoln  at,   1 :467. 

Clark,  Gen.  George  Rogers,  I  -.33. 

"Clary  Grove  boys,"   1:164  seq. 

Clay,  Cassius  M.,  I  :i05,  432. 

Clayj.  Clement  C,  II  :294. 

Clay,  Henry,  opposed  slavery,  I  :io5  : 
death,  328 ;  Lincoln's  belief  as  to 
his  defeat,  330;  Lincoln  may  have 
visited,  337. 

Clendenin,  D.  R.,  II 1353. 

Cleveland,   Grover,   1 :448. 

Cleveland,  Lincoln  at,  1 :467, 

Cobb,  Howell,   1 :449,  450. 

Codding,  Ichabod.  1 :352. 

Coffin,   Charles   C,  I  .-437. 


Cole,  Hon.   Cornelius,  11:196. 
Colfax,  Hon.   Schuyler,  II  :327,  340. 
Collomer,  Jacob,   II  :20. 
Cologne,  on  Rhine,  1 :24. 
Colonization,   Lincoln's  belief   in,   II: 

Columbia,  District  of,  abolition  of 
slavery  in,   II 1132. 

Columbus,  Lincoln  at,  1 :468. 

Committee  on  Conduct  of  the  War, 
II :83. 

Compiler,  Gettysburg,   II  :489. 

Concord  Cemetery,  the  old  and  the 
new,  1 :3i8. 

Confederate  prisoners  as  Federal 
soldiers,   II  :3i3. 

Confederate  States  of  America  or- 
ganized,   1 :459. 

Congress,  Union  vessel  sunk  by  Mer- 
rimac,  II :  119. 

Conkling,   James   C,   1:251,  436;    II: 

243. 

Conkling,  Mrs.  James  C,  (Mercy 
Levering),  I  :25i. 

Conover,  Robert,  I  :i6i. 

Cook,  Burton   C,  1 :345. 

Cookstoves  introduced  into  Spring- 
field, I :263. 

Cooper  Union  address,  1 :4o8. 

Corbett,  Boston,  II  :353,  484. 

Corinth,  capture  of,  II 1124. 

Court  days   in  Kentucky,  1 197. 

Covode,  John,  II  £3. 

Cravens,  Joseph  M.,  1:140. 

Crawford^  Andrew,  I  :i ig,  122. 

Crawford,  Martin  J.,  11:65. 

Crawford,  William  H.,  1 :272. 

Creel,  Richard,   I  76. 

Crittenden   Compromise,  1 :452  seq. 

Crittenden,  Hon.  John  J.,  helped  de- 
feat Lincoln  for  Senate,  1:397  seq. ', 
his  attitude  after  secession,  456; 
resolution  after  Bull  Run,  11:82; 
his  belief  concerning  Lincoln's 
place   in   history,    133. 

Cromwell,  Nathan,  and  slave  girl, 
Nance,  1:335- 

Crume,  Mary  Lincoln,  wife  of  Ralph, 
I  :20,  114. 

Crume,   Ralph,   1 :20,    114,    118. 

Cudsworth,   W.   H.,   II  :22i. 

Cumberland  Presbyterians,  I:io8,  158 
seq. 

Cumberland,  Union  vessel  sunk  by 
Merrimac,  II  :ii9. 

Curtin,  Gov.  Andrew,  II  :i97. 


INDEX 


499 


Curtiss,  George  Ticknor,  II:  102,   105. 
Curzon,   Earl   II  -.224. 
'Cut-off"  in  Anderson  County,  Ken- 
tucky, 1 :40\ 

Dalev,   C.   P.,   11:340. 

Dana,  Charles  A.,  1 :200 ;  11:344- 

Daniel,  Bridget  Sparrow,  wife  of 
John,   I  :49- 

Daniel,  John,  1 :49- 

Davis,  Hon.  David,  1:305,  466;  at 
Lincoln's  funeral,  11:364;  did  not 
think  he  knew  Lincoln  well,  456. 

Davis,  David,  Jr.,  11:231. 

Davis,  Henry  Winter,  11:291,  303. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  did  not  muster  Lin- 
coln as  soldier  in  Black  Hawk 
War,  1:176;  in  Senate,  1 :28i,  328; 
debates  with  Douglas,  438;  inau- 
gurated president  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy,  II  :  1 6 ;  on  right  of 
secession,  49 :  call  for  troops,  68 ; 
favored   enlisting  negroes,   148. 

Davis,  Honorable  John  W.,  presents 
bust  of  Abraham  Lincoln  to  church 
in   Hingham,   England,   1 124. 

Davis,  J.   McCann,  I  -.318. 

Davis,  Joseph,  I  :59- 

Dawson,  John,  I  :205, 

Dayton,  William  L.,  II  :20. 

Decatur,  Illinois,  first  Illinois  home 
of  the   Lincoln   family,   I  :  141. 

Decatur,  Republican  convention,  and 
the  Lincoln   rails,   I  413   seq. 

Delahay,    Mark    W.,   1:431    scq.,  448. 

Delano,  delegate  from  Ohio  at  Re- 
publican convention  of   t86o,  I  434. 

Dennison,   Hon.   William,   11:309. 

DeWitt,  David  M.,   11:469. 

"DeWitt  Clinton  of  Illinois,"  1 :20j. 

Dickey,  John,  I  :283. 

Dickey,  T.  Lyle,  advised  Lincoln 
against  his  "house  divided"  speech, 
1:366;  helped  defeat  Lincoln  for 
Senate,  397;  on  Lincoln's  confi- 
dence in  Grant,  II  :236,  270. 

Dill,  John  T.,  and  brother,  I:i30,  132. 

Dillsworth's   Speller,   I  :86,    120. 

Disciples  of   Christ,  I  :io8. 

"Discoveries  and  Inventions"  Lin- 
coln's lecture,  1 :40s. 

District  of  Columbia,  slavery  abol- 
ished in,  II  :T3i. 

Dix,  General  John  A.,  1:451. 

Dixie,  the  song  enjoyed  by  Lincoln, 
II  403. 


Dixon.  John,  I  :  176. 
Dixon's  Ferry,  I  :ij6. 

Dixon,  Thomas,  on  Thaddeus  Stev- 
ens, II  :28i. 

Doctor's  Fork,  I  48,  63. 

Dodge,  Rev.  Josiah,   I  :54,  74. 

Donelson,  Fort,  surrender  of,  II :  1 23 . 

Dorsey,  Azel  W.f  I:iig. 

Doubleday,   General   Aimer,   11:228. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  first  meeting 
with  Lincoln,  I:iQi;  arrived  in 
Springfield,  237 ;  in  Senate,  328 : 
reported  bill  for  organization  of 
territory  of  Nebraska,  339 ;  candi- 
date for  president  in  1856,  356: 
break  with  Buchanan,  364  ;  Tremont 
House  speech,  369  seq.;  Blooming- 
ton  address,  378;  Springfield  ad- 
dress, 380;  debates  with  Lincoln, 
388  seq. ;  defeats  Lincoln  for  Sen- 
ate, 401  ;  candidate  for  president  in 
i860,  438  seq. ;  Lincoln's  first  de- 
bate with,  497;  at  count  of  elector- 
al votes,  458 :  his  comment  on  the 
election  of  Lincoln,  476-7;  at  Lin- 
coln's inaugural,  II:  12:  death  of, 
46:  made  election  of  Lincoln  pos- 
sible, S7- 

Drake,   Alexander   E.,    1 1 :26b. 

Draper   Collection,   I  :48r. 

Dred  Scott  decision,  I  1381. 

Dress  reform  in  the  '50's,   I  :325. 

Dresser,  Rev.  Charles,  marries  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  to  Mary  Todd,  I  :26s  ; 
sold  his  home  to  Lincoln,  319. 

Drink  water,  John.   II  -.32,  390. 

Du  Bois,  Jesse  K.,  I  \2yj. 

'"Duff  Greene's  Row,"   1:283. 

Duncan,  Joseph,   1 :  161. 

Durley,  Madison  and  Williamson, 
Lincoln's  letter  to,   I  '-330. 

Durrett  Collection  in  the  University 
of  Chicago  Library,  1:28,  33,  81, 
101. 

Durrett,  Col.  R.  C,  1:28,  31. 

Dye,  John  Smith,  on  alleged  murder 
of   two  Whig  presidents,   I  1329. 

Early,  Jacob  M.,  1:178. 

Edwards,  Cyrus,  1 :293. 

Edwards,  Elizabeth  Todd  (Mrs.  N. 
W.),  1:248  seq.;  reception  to  Sena- 
tor Trumbull,  347. 

Edwards,   Miss  Matilda,   I  :258. 

Edwards,  Xinian,  Governor  of  Illi- 
nois, 1 :255. 


5oo 


INDEX 


Edwards,  Ninian  W.,  1 :202. 

Eells,  James,  II  :22i. 

"Effie  Afton"  case,  1:309. 

Eggleston,  Edward,  1:8s,  H9;  The 
Graysons,  312. 

Eggleston,   George   Cary,   1:119. 

Eichelberger,   Prof.   W.   S.,   I  :ji2. 

"Eighteen  -  hundred  -  and  -  froze  -  to  - 
death,"  I  :ii4. 

Eliot,   Pres.   Charles,  1:85- 

Elizabethtown,    Kentucky,    1 :2,    73. 

Elkin,  J.  A.,  II  :353. 

Elkins,  William   F.,  1 :205. 

Elkins,  Rev.  David,  1:117. 

Elliott,  Andrew,  1:149. 

Elliott,  John,  1 :49. 

Elliott,  Nancy  Sparrow,  widow  of 
James,  and  subsequently  wife  of 
John   Elliott,   I  149. 

Elliott's  "Debates  on  the  Federal 
Constitution,"  1 :409. 

Ellsworth,  Elmer,  friend  of  Lincoln, 
1 1445 ;  accompanied  Lincoln  to 
'Washington,  466;   death   of,  11:46. 

Emancipation,  proclamation  of,  II : 
128  seq. 

Embree,  Elisha,  1 :283. 

Emerson,  Ralph  W'aldo,  1:324;  II: 
152. 

Emigration,  Commissioner  of,  II:  138. 

Emmett,  D.  D.,  author  of  Dixie, 
II :403- 

Enlaws  heirs  vs.  Enlaws  Executors, 
I  :ioi. 

Ericsson,  John,  inventor  of  Monitor, 
II:ii9. 

Erie  Canal,,  1 :267. 

Evans,  E.   P.,  II 1266. 

Everett,  Edward,  candidate  for  vice- 
president  in  i860,  1 :439 ;  at  Gettys- 
burg, II :i93  seq. 

Ewing,  George,  1: 10. 

"Family  Hymns,"   I  71. 

Farmer,  Rev.  Aaron,  1:134. 

Farragut,  Admiral,  at  Mobile,  II  :340. 

Fee,  John  G.,  I  :io5. 

Fell,  Jesse  W.,  1 :2i,  86,  344,  408. 

Fenton,  R.  E.,  11:388. 

Fessenden,  William  P.,  II 1155. 

Field,  David  Dudley,  I  :28a 

Fillmore,  Millard,  birth,  1:2;  can- 
didacy as  a  Know-Xothing,  418; 
meeting  with   Lincoln,   469. 

Fillson  Club,  Louisville,  Kentucky, 
T  :28,  75. 


Fires,  in  log  cabins,  I  '.4. 

Fish,  Hon.  Daniel,  II  :26o. 

Fisher,  Thomas  C,  1 :28. 

Fiske,  Stephen,  II  :38. 

Fletcher,   Job,   1 :205. 

Flowers,  Rebecca.  See  Lincoln,  Re- 
becca   (Flowers)    Morris. 

Floyd,  John  B.,  Diary  of,  1:449; 
member  of  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  449 
scq. 

Floyd's  Fork,  Ky.,  1 :29  seq. 

Foote,  Commodore  A.  H.,  II:  123. 

Foote,  H.  W.,  II:22i. 

Forbes,   B.,    1 :466. 

Ford,  Governor  Thomas,  on  "spared 
monuments,"   1 :2io. 

Forney,  John  W.,  11:3 15. 

Forquer,  George,  1 :204. 

Forsythe,  John,  II  :65. 

Fort  Dearborn  massacre,  I  :i75. 

Foss,   Sam  Walter,  1 :95. 

Foster,  R.   S.,  11:353- 

Fowke,  Thomas,  1 :40. 

Fowler,   Bishop,  II  :390. 

Francis,  Simeon,  editor  Sangamo 
Journal,  1 :2o6. 

Franklin's  Autobiography,  I:i2i. 

Freemantle,  Colonel,  believed  Pickett 
had  won  at   Gettysburg,  II:  183. 

Freeport,  Lincoln-Douglas  debate, 
1 :392. 

Free-soil  movement,  1 :288. 

Fremont,  John  C,  candidate  for 
president  in  1856,  1:363;  II:2o; 
ambitious  to  succeed  Lincoln  in 
1864,  282 ;  Lincoln's  opinion  of, 
286. 

French,  Benjamin  B.,  II 1195,  211. 

French,  Flenry,   1 :59. 

Friend,  Charles,  father  of  Dennis 
Hanks,   1:54,   55,  56,   105. 

Friend,   Charles,  Jr.,  1 :55. 

Friend,   Isaac,   1: 104. 

Friend,  Jesse,  husband  of  Mary  or 
Polly  Hanks,  1:54- 

Friend,  Mary  (Polly)  Hanks,  great- 
aunt  of  President  Lincoln,  wife  of 
Jesse  Friend  and  present  at  birth 
of  Lincoln,  1 :6 ;  named  in  will  of 
her  father  Joseph,  43 ;  mentioned 
by  Lamon,  50. 

Frost,   Prof.   Edwin  B.,   1 :32i. 

Fugitive  Slave  law,  1 :283. 

Fulton,  Robert  and  the  steamboat, 
1 :267. 


INDEX 


501 


Galesburg,    Lincoln-Douglas    debate, 

1 :393- 
Garfield,  President  James  A.,  II 1349. 
Garrison,  William  Llovd,  1 1269,  408 ; 

II :54- 

Gazette,  Cincinnati,  II 1490. 

Gentry,  Mrs.  Allen  (Katie  Roby), 
I  :i25,  211. 

Germans  in  Illinois  politics,  1 1416  seq. 

Gettysburg,  battle  of,  II:i74  seq.; 
dedication  of  cemetery  and  Lin- 
coln's address,   185  seq. 

Giddings,  Joshua  R.,  1 :283. 

Gilbert,  Joseph  L„  II  :2o6,  214. 

Gillespie,  Joseph,  associate  with  Lin- 
coln in  alleged  incident  of  breaking 
quorum,  1 :2o6.  294-296 ;  on  Lin- 
coln's popularity  with  Germans, 
421. 

Globe  Tavern,    Springfield.   1 1319. 

Gollaher,   Austin,   1 179-82. 

Gooch,  David  W.,  11:83. 

Goodrich,  Grant.  1 :302. 

Gordon  mill  in  Indiana.   I:i35- 

Gordon,  Nathaniel,  executed  as  slave- 
trader,  II :262. 

Gore,  J.  Rogers,  1 :82. 

Goskins,  I.  and  R„  1: 128. 

Goskins,  William,,  1: 128. 

Graham,  Dr.  Christopher  C.,  married 
to  Theresa  Sutton  by  Jesse  Head, 
1 : 1 7 ;  imagined  himself  present  at 
marriage  of  Thomas  and  Xancy 
Lincoln  and  of  Abraham  and  Mary 
Lincoln,    17. 

Graham.  Mentor,  clerk  of  elections 
with  Lincoln,  I:i62;  taught  Lin- 
coln grammar  and  surveying,  187- 
188. 

Grand  jury  in  early  Kentucky  litiga- 
tion, 1 :59. 

"Granny-woman"  at  Lincoln's  birth, 
I:/. 

Grant,   General  Frederick  D.,  II  -.234. 

Grant,  General  Ulysses  S.,  early  bat- 
tles, II:i23;  appointed  commander, 
229;  at  Chattanooga,  240;  receives 
his  commission  as  lieutenant- 
general,  235;  refused  to  be  can- 
didate for  president  against  Lin- 
coln, 282;  not  at  theater  with  Lin- 
coln, 341. 

Greeley,  Horace,  at  River  and  Har- 
bor Convention,  1 :279 ;  on  Whig 
Party,  353  ;  advocated  Douglas  for 
senator,  365,   397   seq.;   break   with 


Weed  and  Seward,  429;  "on  to 
Richmond,"  11:73;  hysterical  letter 
to  Lincoln,  74;  Lincoln's  letter  con- 
cerning union  and  emancipation. 
140;  two  groups  of  Union  generals, 
162 ;  request  for  pardon  for  a  spy, 
267;  efforts  on  behalf  of  peace, 
294  seq.;  Lincoln's  comment  on  his 
hvsterical  letter,  299; 

Green,  Bowling,  1:184,  188;  half- 
brother  to  Jack  Armstrong,  193. 

Green,    Mrs.    Bowling,    1 :227. 

Greene,  William  Graham,  1: 199. 

Greer,  Edmund,  1:189. 

Griff  is,  William  E.,   1:418. 

Grigsby,  Aaron,  I  :i28. 

Grigsby,  Charles,  1: 126. 

Grigsbv,  Edmond  and  Elizabeth, 
1: 126. 

Grigsby,  Mrs.  Xancy,  I:i28,  129. 

Grimes,  James  W.,  II:  156. 

Grimsley,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Todd, 
II  :40,  46  seq. 

'Grocery-keeper,"  Lincoln  denied  hav- 
ing been,  1 :39i. 

Gulliver,  Rev.  J.  P.,  1 1411. 

Gunther  Collection  in  Chicago  His- 
torical Society,  1:3 12. 

Guntraman,  A.,   I:i28. 

Gurley,  Rev.  Phineas  D.,  II  =42 ; 
prayer  at  death  of  Lincoln,  348; 
Lincoln's  funeral,  361,  471. 

Gurowski,  Adam,  II 77. 

Habeas  corpus,  suspension  of,  11:273. 

Haggin,  John,  1:59. 

Hale,  Rev.  Albert,  11:364. 

Hale,  Charles,  II  :2o6. 

Hale,  John  P.,  Free-soil  candidate, 
1 :339- 

Hale,  William   P.,  II:ii8. 

Hall,  Elizabeth.  See  Hanks,  Eliza- 
beth Hall.     ' 

Hall,  James,  father  of  Levi  and 
Elizabeth,  1 :52. 

Hall,  John,  son  of  Squire,  1 1139. 

Hall,  Levi,  falsely  alleged  to  have 
been  husband  of  Elizabeth  Spar- 
row, 1 :57 ;  husband  of  Nancy 
Hanks,  51,  56;  buried  with  his 
wife  near  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln, 
117. 

Hall,  Matilda,  wife  of  Squire.  See 
Johnston,   Matilda. 

Hall,     Xancy     Hanks,     daughter     of 


502 


INDEX 


Joseph  Hanks  and  wife  of  Levi 
Hall,  named  in  her  father's  will, 
1 143 ;  may  have  been  present  at 
wedding  of  her  niece  Nancy  to 
Thomas  Lincoln,  20;  wife  of  Levi 
Hall,  51,  56;  buried  with  the  pres- 
ident's mother,   115  seq. 

Hall,   Squire,   I  \$7,   139,    141. 

Hall  sisters,  captives  in  Black  Hawk 
War,  I:i75- 

Hall,  Thomas,  1:88. 

Halleck,   Gen.    Henry  W.,  11:99. 

Hamlin,  Hannibal,  at  reception  with 
the  Lincolns   in   Chicago,   1 :446. 

Hampton   Roads    Conference,   II  :333. 

Handley,  L.  B.,  I  76. 

Hanks,  Abigail,  wife  of  Benjamin, 
1:37. 

Hanks,  Abraham,  alleged  son  of 
William,   1:38. 

Hanks,  Ann,  or  Nannie,  wife  of 
Joseph,  1 14.1 ;  named  in  husband's 
will,  43 ;  probably  returned  from 
Kentucky  to  Virginia. 

Hanks,  Benjamin,  1 :2>7- 

Hanks,  Caroline,  1 :57. 

Hanks,  Charles,  son  of  Joseph,  1 :43. 

Hanks,  Dennis  F.,  1 :50,  55,  114;  on 
Lincoln's  boyhood,  134;  visit  to 
Illinois  in  1829,  138,  145;  on  auto- 
biographical letter,  484. 

Hanks,  Elizabeth,  great  aunt  of  Pres- 
ident Lincoln  and  wife  of  Thomas 
Sparrow.  See  Sparrow.  Elizabeth 
Hanks. 

Hanks,  Harriet,  daughter  of  Dennis. 
See  Chapman,   Harriet  Hanks. 

Hanks,  James,  alleged  son  of  Will- 
iam, 1 :38. 

Hanks,  John,  son  of  William  and 
Sarah,  and  great-great-grandfa- 
ther of    President   Lincoln,   1 :4I. 

Hanks,  John,  son  of  Dennis,  L139. 

Hanks,  John,  son  of  William,  and  as- 
sociate of  Lincoln,  1 :43 ;  first 
cousin  of  Lincoln's  mother,  52 ;  re- 
moval to  Illinois,  138;  assists  the 
Lincoln:,  in  establishment  of  Illi- 
nois home,  141  ;  splits  rails  with 
Lincoln,  141  ;  with  Lincoln  on  flat- 
boat,  146  seq.;  the  Lincoln  rails, 
414. 

Hanks,  John,  alleged  son  of  William, 
1 :38. 

Hanks.  Joseph,  alleged  son  of  Will- 
iam, 1:38. 


Hanks,  Joseph,  great-grandfather  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  birth  and  mar- 
riage, 1 :4i ;  removal  to  Hampshire 
County,  42 ;  mortgages  and  aban- 
dons his  farm  and  migrates  to 
Kentucky,  42 ;  his  will,  42 ;  his 
farm  in  Nelson  County,  44;  his 
missing  daughter,   58   seq. 

Hanks,  Joseph,  Jr.,  uncle  of  the 
president's  mother,  associate  of 
Thomas  Lincoln  in  carpentry,  1: 15: 
inherited  his  father's  farm  and 
transferred  it  to  his  brother  Will- 
iam, 44 ;  went  back  to  Virginia 
and  returned  to  Kentucky,  44. 

Hanks,  Joshua,  son  of  Joseph,  1 :42. 

Hanks,  Katherine,  wife  of  John, 
I:4i. 

Hanks,  Mary  Ripley,  1:38. 

Hanks,  Mary  or  Polly,  great-aunt  of 
President  Lincoln,  and  wife  of 
Jesse  Friend.  See  Friend,  Mary 
Hanks. 

Hanks,  Nancy,  daughter  of  Joseph 
and  aunt  of  the  president's  moth- 
er.    See  Hall,  Nancy  Hanks. 

Hanks,  Nancy,  mother  of  the  pres- 
ident.    See  Lincoln,  Nancy  Hanks. 

Hanks,  Nancy,  daughter  of  Dennis, 
1: 139. 

Hanks,  Richard,  alleged  son  of  Will- 
iam, 1 138. 

Hanks,  Sarah  Jane,  daughter  of 
Dennis,   1: 139. 

Hanks  (Hancks  or  Hankes),  Thom- 
as, 1 :40. 

Hanks,  Sarah  White,  wife  of  Will- 
iam  (1695),  1 :4c 

Hanks,  Thomas,  son  of  Joseph,  1 :42. 

Hanks,  William,  son  of  Benjamin 
and  Abigail,  1 138. 

Hanks,  William,  Jr.,  of  Virginia,  son 
of  William  and   Sarah,  1 :40-4i. 

Hanks,  William,,  son  of  Joseph,  1 :42- 
43;  purchased  his  father's  farm, 
44,  64 ;  traded  it  for  land  on  Rough 
Creek,  44. 

Hanks,  William,  Sr.,  of  Virginia 
(1695),  great-great-great-grandfa- 
ther of  President  Lincoln,  1 :40-42. 

Hapgood,  Norman,  1 :22. 

Hardesty,   William,   1: 16-19. 

Hardin,   Col.  John  J.,  1:237,  274. 

Harding,  Mrs.  Warren  G.,  II  :409. 

Harper's  Ferry,  captured  by  John 
Brown,  1 1405 ;  by  R.  E.  Lee,  II  :i24- 


INDEX 


503 


Harper's  Weekly,  II:io. 

Harris,  Ira,  II  1156. 

Harris,  John  T.,  I  -.27,  34. 

Harris,  Negro  Servitude  in  Illinois, 
1 1418. 

Harris,  T.   N.,  11:353- 

Harrisburg,  Lincoln  at,  1 :473-  475- 

Harrison,  Pres.  William  Henry, 
birth,   1:2;   funeral  train,   11:403- 

Harrod,  John,   1 159. 

Hart,  drayman  of  Springfield,  I  1254 
seq. 

Hartranft,  General  John   F.,  II  1353. 

Hawks  family  of  Amelia  County, 
proclaimed  members  of  the  Hanks 
family,   1 139. 

Hay,  John,  letter  to  Robert  T.  Lin- 
coln, 1 150 ;  Lincoln's  secretary, 
466;  his  diary,  11:33,  43:  on  Lin- 
coln's habits,  44 ;  on  McClellan's 
treatment  of  Lincoln,  95 ;  on  Lin- 
coln's conversation  on  election 
night,  303 ;  at  Lincoln's  death-bed, 
348;  on  Lincoln's  cousin  Robert, 
434- 

Hay,  Milton,  on  law  practise  in  Illi- 
nois, 1 :30i. 

Haycraft,  Samuel,  I:t6. 

Hayti,  attempt  to  colonize  negroes  in, 
II  :i40. 

Hazel,  Caleb,  1 152,  86,  104. 

Head,  Rev.  Jesse,  married  Thomas 
and  Nancy  Lincoln,  I:i6,  67;  a 
Democratic  editor  and  slave-holder, 
18 ;  his  life  storv,  479  seq. 

Heidelberg,  1:86. 

Hell-fire  for  the  living,  compassion 
for  the  dead,   I  :io6. 

Helm,   Hardin   Herr,  1:28. 

Helm,  J.  B.,  memories  of  camp-meet- 
ing, 1: 15. 

Helper,   Hinton  Rowan,  1 :407. 

Henning,  John  P.,  1 1418. 

Henry,  Fort,  surrender  of,  II -.123. 

Herald,  New  York,  unfavorable  to 
Lincoln,  1:479,  480;    II:  16,  38. 

Herman,  Charles  F.,  1 :423. 

Herndon,  Archer,  1 :205. 

Herndon,   Rowan,  I:i6o,  165,   183. 

Herndon,  William  H.,  quotes  Lin- 
coln regarding  his  mother,  1: 14, 
106;  death  of  Lincoln's  mother, 
116;  on  Lincoln's  boyhood,  124, 
134;  Lincoln's  journey  to  Illinois, 
139-140 :  error  concerning  John 
Hanks,   141  ;   first  journey  to  New 


Orleans,  150  seq.;  Lincoln's  arrival 
in  New  Salem,  156;  Lincoln's 
breaking  quorum,  206  ;  material  for 
Ann  Rutledge  lecture,  219;  Lincoln 
and  Stuart,  231  ;  roomed  with  Lin- 
coln and  others,  238;  concerning 
Mary  Todd,  248,  249,  273  ;  on  Lin- 
coln's New  England  visit  in  1848, 
290;  becomes  Lincoln's  partner, 
300 ;  as  to  Lincoln's  work  in  law 
office,  320;  Lincoln's  escape  from 
Abolition  Convention,  332 ;  letters 
to  Theodore  Parker,  398,  401  ;  Lin- 
coln's vision  of  the  presidency, 
412;  with  Lincoln  at  the  polls,  444, 
II  .4;  on  aspects  of  Lincoln's  char- 
acter, 458. 

Herold,  D.  C.  11:354,  483. 

Herring,  Bathsheba.  See  Lincoln, 
Bathsheba  Herring. 

Herriott,  F.  I.,  1  :420. 

Hill,  Parthenia  Nance,  wife  of  Sam- 
uel, I :2I3  seq. 

Hill,  Samuel,  I:i83,  186,  213. 

Hingham,  England,  supposed  home 
of  the  Lincoln  family ;  unveiling  of 
bust  of  Abraham   Lincoln,  I  124. 

Hingham,  Massachusetts,  first  Amer- 
ican home  of  the  Lincolns,  1:24 
seq. 

Hitchcock,     Mrs.      Caroline     Hanks, 

I  -37>  39,  44,  45,  5^-53. 

Hitt,    Robert    H.,    reported    Lincoln- 
Douglas  debates,  1 :389. 
Hodgen   family,   I  :2. 
Hodgenville,  Kentucky,  I  .2. 
Hodges,    A.    G.,    Lincoln's    letter    to, 

II  -.136,  297,  299. 
Holbert,  George,  I  -.13. 
Holcombe,   James    P.,   II  :294. 
Holland,    Josiah    G.,    1:419;     11:222, 

457-458. 

Holloway,  H.  C,  II  :2io. 

Holmes,   Lewis,   1 :59. 

Holt,  Joseph,  I  :449,  451  ;  II  -.63,  148, 
3io,  353- 

Hooker,  Major-General  Joseph,  ap- 
pointed commander  of  Army  of 
Potomac,  II:i70  seq.;  Lincoln's 
letter  to,  171  ;  transferred  army 
north  of  Potomac,  176;  succeeded 
by  Meade,  178;  at  Lookout  Moun- 
tain, .239,  240. 

Horr,  E.  Rockwood,  in  Free-soil 
movement,  1 :288. 

Hour,  A.  P.,  II 1353. 


504 


INDEX 


Howard,  Joseph,  Jr.,  11:287. 

Howe,  Julia  Ward,  II 1297. 

Hucks,    John,    erroneously    reckoned 

Hanks,  1 :4c 
Hughes,  Morgan,  1 128  seq. 
Hughes'   Station,  1:31-33. 
Huidekoper,  H.   C,  11:49,  315- 
Hunter,   General    David,    II  :353,   364. 
Hurst,  Charles  R.,  1:238. 
Hutchinson,  J.  R.,  associate  of  J.  H. 

Lea    in     The  Ancestry  of  Lincoln. 

See  Lea,  James  Henry. 

lies,  Elijah,  I:i77- 

Illinois,  migration  of  Lincoln,  family 

to,  1 1138  seq. 
Illinois   Central  Railroad,   Lincoln  as 

attorney   for,   1 :3o8 ;   McClellan  as 

official  of,  11:88. 
Illinois  College,  I  :ig8. 
Illinois    General    Assembly,    Lincoln's 

attendance  as  a  member,  1 :492. 
Illinois      State      Historical      Society, 

I:i4i,  252,  265. 
Imlay's     Topographical     Description, 

1: 108. 
Impending   Crisis,  by  Hinton  Rowan 

Helper,   1 :407. 
Inauguration   ball,   Lincoln  at,   II  :ij, 

40. 
Indian  Creek  massacre,  I:i75. 
Indiana,  in  Lincoln's  boyhood,  I:ii2- 

137. 
Indianapolis,    Lincoln   at,   1 :467. 
Ingersoll,  Colonel  Robert  G.,  II  :248. 
"In  God  We  Trust,"  1:284. 
Inquirer,  Philadelphia,  II  :2o6,  489. 
Irish   Schoolmasters,  1 :85. 
Irish    in    Illinois   politics,    1 :398,   401, 

416. 

Jackson,   Andrew,  birth,  1:2;  denied 

right  of  secession,  281. 
Jacobs,   Henry   Eyster,  II  :2io. 
Jameson,  Dr.  J.  Franklin,  II  :343,  469. 
John  Doe,  and  his  veracity,  1 :83. 
Johnson,  Andrew,  II  :83  ;  inaugurated 

vice-president,  315  ;  not  at  Lincoln's 

bedside,  343 ;  inaugurated  president, 

349- 
Johnson,  Hershel  B.,  1 :439. 
Johnson,  Jacob,  I  -.63. 
Johnson,    Reverdy,    II  :i5/. 
Johnson,  Rhoda,  see  Sparrow,  Rhoda 

Johnson. 
"Johnson  vs.   Jones,"   1 :309. 


Johnston,   Albert   Sidney,  II 73,   123. 
Johnston,  Cleveland  D.,  1:140. 
Johnston,  Daniel,  I  :i  17. 
Johnston,    John    D.,    son    of     Sarah 

Bush  Lincoln,  I:ii8,  139,  141,  145; 

with  Lincoln  on  flat-boat,  146  seq. 
Johnston,  Matilda,  daughter  of  Sarah 

Bush  Johnston  and  wife  of  Squire 

Hall,  1:57,  118,   124,  139. 
Johnston,  Sarah  Bush.     See  Lincoln, 

Sarah  Bush. 
Johnston,   Sarah,  daughter  of   Sarah 

Bush  Lincoln  and  wife  of  Dennis 

Hanks,  I:ii8,  139. 
Jones,    Abraham,     father     of     Sarah 

Jones  Lincoln,  gave  name  Abraham 

to  Lincoln   family,  1 :25. 
Jonesboro,     Lincoln-Douglas     debate, 

1 :393- 
Joseph,  Jonathan,  sale  of  cows,  1 :88. 
Journal,   Chicago,  1 :278. 
Journal    of    Commerce,    New    York, 

II  :286. 
Journal,  Providence,   11:222. 
Journal,     Sangamo,     Sangamon     and 

Illinois     State,      1 :202,     206,     272: 

II  :i,  2,  3. 
Judd,    Norman    B.,    1:345,    4^4,    4*3, 

466. 
Judy's  Ferry  on  Sangamon,  1:149. 
Julian,  George  W.,  II  :83,  352. 

Kansas,   Bleeding,   1 :35i. 

Kansas,  Lincoln's  interest  in  freedom 
there,  I  -.333 ;   his  visit,  406. 

Kautz,  August  V.,  11:353. 

Keckley,  Elizabeth,  II  :409. 

Keene,   Laura,   II  :34i. 

Kelley,  Hon.  William  D.,  1:437. 

Kellogg,   Elijah,   II  :39i. 

Kellogg's   Grove   fight,   1:178. 

Kelso,  John  ("Jack"),  1:163;  his 
knowledge  of  literature,  193. 

Kentucky,  originally  a  part  of  Fin- 
castle  County,  Virginia,  1 :98 ;  its 
character  in  Lincoln's  childhood, 
Inn. 

Kerr,  Orpheus  C,   II  :403. 

Keyes,  Hon.  Henry  W.,  11:491. 

Kidd,  W.  T.,  1:133. 

King,  Hon.  Horatio,  II:  197. 

Kipling,   Rudyard,   1:172,   181. 

Kirkpatrick  Mill,  1:2. 

Kirkpatrick,   William,   I  :i49. 

"Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle"  and 
kindred    organizations,    II  :27i. 


INDEX 


505 


Knob  Creek,  Kentucky,  1 78  seq. 

"Know-Xothing"   Party,   1 1418  seq. 

Knox  College,  1: 199;  Lincoln-Doug- 
las debate,  393- 

Knox,  William,  "Oh,  why  should  the 
spirit  of   mortal  be  proud?"   1:307- 

Koerner,   Gustav,   1 1417. 

Kyle,  Rev.  Thomas,  1: 12. 

Labor,  Lincoln  and,  11:367  seq. 

Lambert,   Col.   William   H.,   II:  199. 

Lamon,  Ward  Hill,  1 :49,  50,  114,  202, 
444,  466;  with  Lincoln  on  journey 
to  Washington,  475  ;  on  the  Antie- 
tam  incident,  II:  191  :  on  Lincoln  at 
Gettysburg,  215;  at  Lincoln's  fu- 
neral, 364. 

Land  titles  in  Kentucky,  1 :99. 

Lane,  Miss  Harriet,  II  ".40. 

Lane,  Joseph,  1 :439. 

Latham,  George  C,  I  -.466. 

Lawes,   Francis,   1 :24. 

Lea.  James  Henry,  and  J.  R.  Hutch- 
inson cited,  1 :25,  53-54. 

Leadership,  and  military  success, 
L165. 

Learned,   Marion   Dexter,   1 :22,  34. 

Lecompton    Constitution,    I  ^64   seq. 

Lee,  John,  1 :44. 

Lee,  Richard  Henry,  opposed  slavery, 
1 :269. 

Lee,  General  Robert  E.,  at  Antietam, 
II:i25;  favored  enlisting  negroes, 
148;  at  Gettysburg;   174  seq. 

Leslie's  Weekly,  II  :2o6,  473. 

Levee,  of  President-elect  and  Mrs. 
Lincoln,   I  ^64. 

Levering,   Lawson,   1 1251. 

Levering,  Mercy.  See  Conkling,  Mrs. 
James. 

Liberia,   emigration  to,   II:  139. 

Library  of  Congress,  versions  of  the 
Gettysburg  Address,  II  :209,  449, 
486. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  sixteenth  pres- 
ident of  the  United  States ;  birth, 
1: 1-8;  childhood  in  Kentucky,  70- 
96;  first  schools,  84  seq.;  riding 
horse  to  plow  corn,  87 ;  migration 
to  Indiana,  112  seq.;  death  of  his 
mother,  115  seq.;  his  stepmother, 
115  seq.;  school  in  Indiana,  119: 
books  he  read,  121  ;  the  store  in 
Gentryville,  123 ;  rapid  growth, 
123-124;  youthful  traits,  124;  de- 
scription    by     Katie     Roby,     122; 


jokes  and  crude  verses,  126;  ferry- 
man, 130;  first  voyage  to  New 
Orleans,  130;  reads  Statutes  of  In- 
diana, 132;  the  girl  in  the  covered 
wagon,  133;  description  of  young 
Lincoln  by  Dennis  Hanks,  134 ; 
riding  to  mill,  134;  called  lazy,  136; 
what  Indiana  did  for  him,  137 ; 
removal  to  Illinois,  138;  the  cabin 
near  Decatur,  142;  splitting  rails, 
143 ;  political  speech,  143 ;  "winter 
of  the  deep  snow,"  143 ;  meeting 
with  Denton  Offutt,  144;  second 
voyage  to  Xew  Orleans,  145  seq.; 
what  made  Lincoln  a  Whig,  150; 
at  Xew  Salem,  160  seq.;  clerk  at 
election,  162 ;  pilot  on  the  Talisman, 
165  ;  candidate  for  Legislature,  171  ; 
Black  Hawk  War,  172  seq.;  stud- 
ied grammar  and  surveying,  187 ; 
merchant  and  postmaster,  188  ; 
member  of  the  Legislature,  190 ;  one 
of  the  "Long  Xine,"  202;  loved 
Ann  Rutledge,  211;  courted  Mary 
Owens,  223 ;  removal  to  Spring- 
field, 230;  wooed  and  married 
Mary  Todd,  243  seq.;  elected  to 
Congress,  278;  at  River  and  Har- 
bor Convention,  279 ;  in  Washing- 
ton, 280  seq.;  first  visit  to  New 
England,  289  seq.;  sought  appoint- 
ment to  Land  Office,  293;  home 
life  in  Springfield,  319  seq.;  atti- 
tude toward  slavery,  328 ;  life  on 
circuit,  300  seq.;  return  to  political 
life,  339;  candidate  for  Senate  in 
1854,  345 ;  joins  Republican  Party, 
356;  candidate  for  Senate  in  1858. 
364;  debates  with  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  388  seq.;  candidate  for 
president,  404  seq.;  Cooper  Union 
address,  408;  second  Xew  England 
visit,  409;  bought  a  newspaper, 
416;  nominated  at  Chicago  for 
presidency,  425 ;  elected,  445 ;  re- 
ception in  Chicago,  447 ;  visit  to 
his  stepmother,  447 ;  farewell  to 
his  old  neighbors,  465;  journey  to 
Washington,  466-477;  preparation 
of  his  inaugural  address,  II  :i;  ef- 
fect of  his  journey  to  Washington, 
4;  experience  with  office-seekers, 
6;  persuades  Seward  to  recall  his 
declination  of  secretaryship  of 
state,  7 ;  accepts  proposed  amend- 
ment to   Constitution,   9;   his   inau- 


506 


INDEX 


guration,  u  seq.;  at  the  ball,  vj 
seq.;  his  Cabinet,  19  seq.;  his  life 
in  the  White  House,  40  seq.;  his 
sickness  with  varioloid,  51 ;  his  at- 
titude toward  secession,  54  seq.; 
his  negotiations  for  peace,  60  seq.; 
his  first  Cabinet  meeting,  63 ;  his 
question  regarding  Fort  Sumter, 
64  :  attempt  to  avert  bloodshed,  65 ; 
relations  with  Congress,  77  seq.; 
change  of  emphasis  from  slavery 
to  saving  the  Union,  81  ;  relations 
with  the  Committee  on  Conduct  of 
War,  84;  relations  with  McClellan, 
88  seq.;  accepts  resignation  of 
Cameron  and  appoints  Stanton  to 
succeed  him,  96 ;  ignored  McClel- 
lan's  incivility,  95,  103 :  relations 
with  Stanton,  107  seq.;  his  decision 
in  the  Trent  affair,  117;  opposed 
his  Cabinet  in  reappointment  of 
McClellan,  126;  his  emancipation 
policy,  128  seq.;  delayed  signing 
bill  to  abolish  slavery  in  District  of 
Columbia,  132 ;  his  border-state 
policy,  132;  on  compensated  eman- 
cipation, 134;  letter  to  Hodges, 
136 ;  first  proposal  of  emancipa- 
tion, 137 ;  attempts  at  colonization, 
138;  letter  to  Greeley  concerning 
slavery  and  the  Union,  140;  meet- 
ing with  Chicago  ministers,  142; 
the  signing  of  the  emancipation 
proclamation,  143  seq.;  on  employ- 
ment of  ne^ro  troops,  148 ;  the 
Cabinet  crisis  of  December,  1862. 
150  seq.;  election  of  1862,  152;  lost 
the  support  of  Congress,  154;  his 
distress  after  Fredericksburg,  156: 
his  refusal  to  dismiss  his  Cabinet, 
158 ;  his  promise  to  God  and  his 
feeling  that  God  had  forsaken  him, 
159;  his  emergence  as  leader,  160; 
his  search  for  a  general,  162;  his 
reading  of  Stedman's  poem,  167: 
his  removal  of  McClellan,  169;  his 
letter  to  Hooker,  171  ;  his  appoint- 
ment of  Meade  to  succeed  Hooker, 
172;  his  Gettysburg  speech,  185 
seq.;  his  visit  to  Antietam  and  the 
false  story  about  it,  190  seq:;  his 
disappointment  that  Meade  did  not 
pursue  Lee  after  Gettysburg,  228: 
his  letter  to  Grant,  229:  appoint- 
ment of  Grant  lieutenant-general, 
233;   his   substitute,   241;   his   letter 


to  Conkling,  243 ;  his  use  and  abuse 
of  the  pardoning  power,  248  seq.; 
the  sleeping  sentinel,  250  seq.;  let- 
ter concerning  condemned  slave- 
trader,  263 ;  his  amnesty  proclama- 
tion, 264;  his  stern  attitude  toward 
professional  agitators,  266 ;  his  let- 
ter concerning  Lewis  Welton,  268; 
his  mislaying  of  papers  in  the  case 
of  a  guerrilla,  269;  on  Knights  of 
the  Golden  Circle,  271 ;  on  arbi- 
trary arrests,  273 ;  on  Vallandig- 
ham,  277;  relations  with  abolition- 
ists and  Copperheads,  280 ;  cam- 
paign of  1865,  282  seq.;  on  Chase 
as  an  opponent,  282;  on  the  Pom- 
eroy  circular,  283 ;  on  Fremont, 
285 ;  campaign  vilification,  288 
seq.;  on  reconstruction,  291 ;  on  the 
Wade-Davis  Manifesto,  291 ;  on 
Horace  Greeley's  peace  proposals, 
294;  on  reception  of  the  Hodges 
letter,  299;  on  Greeley's  letter, 
299;  letter  to  Buffalo  meeting,  299 ; 
his  activity  in  the  campaign,  301 ; 
how  he  received  new?  of  his  re- 
election, 303 ;  his  pledge  in  case  of 
the  election  of  McClellan,  305 ;  his 
proposal  to  Governor  Seymour, 
305;  his  message  to  Congress  in 
1864,  306;  his  second  inaugural. 
309  seq.;  changes  in  his  Cabinet, 
309  seq.;  resignation  of  Secretary 
Chase,  310  seq.;  appointment  of 
Chase  as  chief  justice,  312:  on 
Confederate  prisoners  as  Union 
soldiers,  313;  his  concern  lest 
emancipation  end  with  the  war, 
319;  his  interest  in  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment,  322 ;  on  the  admission 
of  West  Virginia,  328;  of  Nevada, 
329;  the  Hampton  Roads  Confer- 
ence, 333;  letter  to  General  Sher- 
man, 336:  at  City  Point,  336:  in 
Richmond,  337 ;  his  last  Cabinet 
meeting,  338;  his  friendly  attitude 
toward  the  South,  338-339;  his 
dreams,  339;  his  last  writing,  340; 
at  Ford's  Theater,  341 ;  assassina- 
tion, 342;  death,  348;  no  in- 
quest, 349:  funeral,  356  seq.;  the 
return  journey  to  Springfield,  362 
seq. ;  burial,  364  seq.;  Walt  Whit- 
man's poem,  365 ;  his  attitude 
toward  labor,  367  seq.;  as  an  ora- 
tor, 379  seq.  1  his  humor,  300;   his 


INDEX 


507 


domestic  relations,  409  seq.;  his 
last  drive  with  Mrs.  Lincoln,  415; 
his  personality,  423  ;  his  appearance, 
424;  his  mind,  428:  his  supersti- 
tions, 436:  his  moods.  436;  his 
business  ability,  441  !  his  honesty, 
442:  his  moral  character,  444;  his 
consistent  inconsistency,  445 ;  his 
attitude  toward  intoxicants,  449 
seq.;  his  lack  of  sensitiveness  to 
small  discomforts,  453 ;  the  high 
quality  of  his  leadership,  455  \  un- 
known elements  in  his  personality, 
456;  his  religion.  459  seq.;  his 
creed,  463 ;   his  Americanism,  464. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  of  Taunton,  Mas- 
sachusetts, 1 .22. 

Lincoln,  Captain  Abraham,  grandfa- 
ther of  the  president.  Birth,  1:26; 
marriage  to  Bathsheba  Herring, 
27 ;  removal  to  Kentucky,  28 ; 
killed  by  Indian,  30;  family,  35; 
place  of  burial.  33. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  son  of   Mordecai, 

,  I  *6. 

Lincoln,  Bathsheba  (Herring),  wife 
of  Captain  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
grandmother  of  the  president.  May 
have  been  present  at  marriage  of 
Thomas,  I:2o;  her  own  marriage, 
27;  her  widowhood  and  subscrip- 
tion of  a  gun  to  fight  Indians,  33; 
resident  in  Washington  County, 
34 ;  home  on  tributary  of  Beech 
Fork,  35  ;  final  residence  with  her 
daughter  on  Mill  Creek,  35 ;  Cap- 
tain Abraham  Lincoln's  only  wife, 
33-35- 

Lincoln,  Catherine  or  "Caty"  Barlow, 
wife  of  Jcsiah,   1 136. 

Lincoln,  Charles  Z.,  1 .22. 

Lincoln  Circuit  in  Illinois,  1 1496. 

Lincoln,   county  in   England,  I  \2\. 

Lincoln,   Daniel.    I  124. 

Lincoln,  derivation  of  the  name,  1 :24. 

Lincoln,  Edward,  of  Hingham,  Eng- 
land, I  -.24. 

Lincoln.  Edward  Baker,  son  of  Ab- 
raham and   Mary,  1 1326. 

Lincoln.  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Mor- 
decai,  I  -.36. 

Lincoln  family  in  America,  a  Massa- 
chusetts family,  I  :2i  ;  variant 
spellings,  23 ;  migration  through 
Xew  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  to 
south   and  west,  24  seq. 


Lincoln  family  in  Illinois,  descend- 
ants of  Mordecai,  11:434. 

Lincoln,  forms  of  the  name,  1 :2i  seq. 

Lincoln,  Hannah,  wife  of  Mordecai, 
1:26. 

Lincoln,  Hannaniah,  I  '.27. 

Lincoln,  Isaac,  uncle  of  the  pres- 
ident, I  :io. 

Lincoln,  Jacob,  son  of  Josiah,  I  -.36. 

Lincoln,  James,  son  of  Mordecai, 
1:36. 

Lincoln,  James  Minor,  1 :22,  23. 

Lincoln,  John,  ("Virginia  John"'). 
1:26. 

Lincoln,  Josiah,  uncle  of  the  pres- 
ident, not  unjust  to  his  brother 
Thomas,  I  :  1 1 ;  birth,  marriage  and 
family,  36;  present  at  murder  of 
his  father,  20. 

Lincoln,  Martha,  daughter  of  Mor- 
decai, I  -.36. 

Lincoln,  Martha,  wife  of  Samuel, 
1  125: 

Lincoln,  Mary,  wife  of  Ralph  Crume. 
See  Crume,  Mary. 

Lincoln,  Mary  Mudd,  wife  of  Mor- 
decai, 1 135. 

Lincoln,  Mary  Shipley,  did  not  exist, 
I  -27,  34. 

Lincoln,  Mrs.  Mary  Todd,  a  Spring- 
field belle,  1 :24(5  seq.;  education, 
249;  rides  on  a  dray,  254;  her  ap- 
pearance in  Springfield  society, 
255  seq. j  engagement  and  quarrel, 
258  seq.;  marriage  to  Abraham 
Lincoln,  264;  in  Washington  in 
1848,  288;  opposed  her  husband's 
going  to  Oregon,  297;  as  a  house- 
keeper, 321  ;  her  characteristics, 
409  seq.;  her  insanity.  11:419:  her 
return  from  abroad,  420 ;  her  death, 
420. 

Lincoln,  Mordecai  (1657-1727),  of 
Scituate,  Mass.,  1 125. 

Lincoln,  Mordecai,  (1686-1736),  of 
Freehold,   X.  J..  1 :25-26. 

Lincoln,  Mordecai,  uncle  of  the  pres- 
ident, not  guilty  of  robbing  his 
brother  Thomas.  I:ii;  marriage 
and  family.  35-36:  kills  the  Indian 
who  murdered  his  father,  30. 

Lincoln,  Xancy.  See  Brumfield, 
Nancy   Lincoln. 

Lincoln,  Xancy  Hanks,  mother  of 
the  president.  Birth  of  her  son, 
1:5-8;    appearance,    14;    birth    and 


5o8 


INDEX 


early  life,  63-66;  marriage,  66  seq.; 
in  her  home,  70;  attire,  89;  domes- 
tic duties,  90;  last  illness  and 
death,  115-116;  her  grave  and  those 
of  her  relations,  116;  her  funeral, 
117. 

Lincoln,  Rebecca  (Flowers)  Morris, 
wife  of  John,  I  -.26. 

Lincoln,  Robert,  second  cousin  of  the 
president,  II 1434. 

Lincoln,  Robert  Todd,  letter  from 
John  Hay,  1:52;  birth,  326;  at  Ex- 
eter Academy,  visited  by  his  fa- 
ther, 409;  at  Harvard,  11:42; 
warned  to  keep  out  of  politics,  49 ; 
at  death  of  his  father,  348;  birth, 
437- 

Lincoln,  Samuel,  of  Hingham,  Mas- 
sachusetts, 1 :24,  25. 

Lincoln,  Sarah,  wife  of  Aaron  Grigs- 
by,  I74,  80,  87,  89,   128. 

Lincoln,  Sarah  Bush  (Johnston). 
Second  wife  of  Thomas  Lincoln. 
Marriage  to  Thomas,  I:ii7;  her 
transformation  of  the  Lincoln 
home,  118;  appearance,  118;  affec- 
tion for  Abraham  Lincoln,  119; 
church  membership,  127 ;  farewell 
visit  of  her  stepson,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, 447. 

Lincoln,  Sarah  (Jones)  wife  of  Mor- 
decai,  1 .2$. 

Lincoln,  Thomas,  father  of  the  pres- 
ident, at  birth  of  his  son,  I  7 ;  his 
youth  and  early  manhood,  9-13 ; 
marriage  to  Nancy  Hanks,  66  seq.; 
his  farms  in  Kentucky,  y^  seq.;  a 
judge  of  horses,  88;  migration  to 
Indiana,  112  seq.;  second  marriage, 
117;  church  membership,  127;  re- 
moval to  Macon  County,  Illinois, 
138;  to  Coles  County,  152;  death, 
,447- 

Lincoln,  Thomas,  great-uncle  of  the 
president,  testimony  concerning  the 
name,  Abraham  Lincoln,  1:8. 

Lincoln,  Thomas,  infant  brother  of 
Abraham,  1 1105. 

Lincoln,  Thomas,  of  Milltown,  In- 
diana, 1 :36. 

Lincoln,  Thomas  or  "Tad,"  son  of 
Abraham  and   Mary,  1 :326. 

Lincoln,  Waldo,  1 :25,  34,  52,  60. 

Lincoln,  William  Wallace,  son  of 
Abraham  and  Mary,  1 1326. 

Lincoln-Douglas     Campaign,     list    of 


speaking  dates  of  both  candidates, 
1:500. 

Lmdsey,  George,  1 :92. 

Littlejohn,  A.  N.  11:221. 

Little  Mount  Church,  1: 105. 

Little  Pigeon  Church,  1:127. 

Little  Zion  Association  of  Baptist 
Churches,   1:129. 

Loba,  Rev.  Jean  F.,  II  :303- 

Locke,   David   R.,  II  :4<>5. 

Lockwood,  Hon.  Samuel  D.,  on  the 
impracticability  of  cook  stoves, 
1 :263. 

"Locofoco  Democrats,"  1 :202. 

Logan,  Stephen  T.,  I:i94;  his  voice, 
282;  11:384;  candidate  for  Con- 
gress, 1 :293  ;  partnership  with  Lin- 
coln, 300;  became  Republican,  418; 
at  Lincoln's  funeral,  II  ^64. 

Longfellow,   Henry   W.,   11:448. 

"Long  Nine,"  1 :205 ;  denounced  by 
Governor  Ford,  210;  removed  capi- 
tal to  Springfield,  232. 

Long  Run  Baptist  Church,  1 :28  seq., 

33- 
Long  Run,  Ky.,  1 :29  seq. 
Longstreet,  believed  Lee  blundered  at 

Gettysburg,  II :  183. 
"Lost  Speech"  of  Lincoln  at  Bloom- 

ington  in  1856,  1 1357  seq. 
Louisiana   Purchase  and   slave   terri- 
tory, 1:327. 
Lovejoy,    Rev.   Elijah    P.,    killed    by 

mob  at  Alton,  1 :2o8,  270,  289. 
Lovejoy,    Owen,    1 1331,    357;    11:82, 

n8,  133. 
Lowden,  Hon.  Frank  O.,  1:311. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,    and    Biglow 

Papers,  1 :288,  445  ;  II  -.377,  455- 
Lunt,  George,  1 :29& 
Lynn,  Rev.  Benjamin,  I  73. 
Lystra,  an  abandoned  Utopia,  1:192. 

Macmillan's  Magazine  11:222. 
MacVeagh,  Hon.  Wayne,  11:196. 
Madison,       Dolly,       (Mrs.      James), 

II  :409. 
Mahan,  John,  1 :59. 
Manassas,  battle  of.    See  Bull  Run. 
Marble,   Manton,   II  :286. 
Markens,  Isaac,  II  :200,  223. 
Marriage  bonds   in  the  Virginia  and 

Kentucky  law,   I  :i8. 
Marshall,   John  H.,   1 :433. 
Marshall,  Samuel,  Lincoln's  letter  to, 

1 :265. 


INDEX 


509 


Martin,  J.  M.,  Defense  of  Lincoln's 
Mother,   I  :i6. 

Mason,  James,  II:ll5  seq. 

Matheney,   James  H.,   I  :347- 

Matheny,  N.  W.,  issued  Lincoln  s 
marriage  license,  1 1265. 

Mather,  Otis  M.,  I  -.104. 

Mathews,  T.  L.,  1 1313. 

Matson  slave  trial,  1 :335- 

Matteson,  Joel   A.,  I  :346. 

McAfee,  General  Robert,  1:481. 

McClellan,  General  George  B.,  vice- 
president  of  Illinois  Central  Rail- 
road, 1 1308  :  II  :88  ;  appointed  by 
Lincoln  to  command  Army  of  Po- 
tomac, 88  seq.;  treatment  of  Gen- 
eral Scott,  92;  succeeds  General 
Scott,  94;  in  command  after  defeat 
of  Pope.  102;  concern  for  the 
family  silver,  103 ;  left  Pope  "to  get 
out  of  his  own  scrape,"  104;  Lin- 
coln's disapproval,  105 ;  battle  of 
Antietam,  126;  Lincoln's  patience 
with,  253 ;  his  final  removal  from 
command,  169;  candidate  for  pres- 
idency, 287  seq.;  Lincoln's  pledge 
in  case  of  election,  305. 

McClernand,  John  A.,  1 :28c 

McClintock,   John,   II  :22i. 

McClure,  Alexander  H.,  II:J9i. 

McCormick,  Andrew,  1 :205. 

McCormick,  Cyrus,  and  the  reaper, 
I  -.267. 

McGinty,   Ann,   1 :6;. 

McGready,    Rev.   James,  I:i57  seq. 

McGreggor,   Thomas   B.,   1:127. 

Mcllvaine,  A.  R.,  1:283. 

Mcllvaine,  Miss   Caroline,  I:i43. 

Mclntire,  Roswell,   II  :254. 

Mclntire,  Thomas,  I  73. 

McKendree  College,  1: 198. 

McXamar,  John,  did  not  vote  at  Xew 
Salem,  1:161-163;  may  have  as- 
sisted Lincoln  in  first  circular  of 
candidacy.  170;  a  successful  mer- 
chant, 183-185 ;  departure  from 
Xew  Salem,  190;  return  to  Xew 
Salem,  213;  his  marriages,  219; 
purchaser  and  occupant  of  the 
Rutledge  farm,  219;  Herndon's  in- 
formant as  to  Ann  Rutledge,  219; 
evicted  Ann  Rutledge's  mother, 
221:  death,  218;  an  honest  and 
economical  man,  220. 

McXamar,  John,  Sr.,  1 :2I3. 

McXeeley,  Thomas  W.,  I  :i68. 


McXeil,  John.     See  McXamar.  John. 
McPherson,   Hon.    Edward,    II -.199. 

Meade,  General  George  G.,  succeeds 
Hooker,  II 1172;  fights  and  wins 
battle  of  Gettysburg,  175  seq.;  criti- 
cized for  not  pursuing  Lee,  183, 
228. 

Medill,  Joseph,  1:357.  361. 

Merrimac,  Confederate  ram,  sinks 
ships,  II : 1 19  ;  battle  with  Monitor, 
119  seq. 

Merriman,  Dr.  E.  H.,  and  his  poem, 
I  -.252. 

Merryman,  John,  II  :274. 

Merwin,  Rev.  James  B.,  II  :450. 

Methodist  Church  and  slavery,   [  :io3. 

Methodists,  the  Lincolns  not,   1: 16. 

Metzker.   James   Preston,   1 :3io. 

Mexican  War,  opposed  by  Lincoln, 
1 :284. 

Middleton,    Thomas,    1 :92. 

Midwife,   or  "granny-woman,"   I  :y. 

Mike's   Run,   West  Virginia,   1 :4T. 

Mike's  Run,  West  Virginia,  birth- 
place of   Nancy  Hanks,   1 :64. 

"Milk-sick,"  I  :ii4,  138. 

Mill  Creek  farm  of  Thomas  Lincoln, 
1:75. 

Mill,  John   Stuart,   II:il7. 

Mill   Springs,   II  :  123. 

Miller,  Mary  Ann.  See  Rutledge, 
Mary  Ann   (Miller). 

Miller,  Xancy.  See  Cameron,  XTancv 
(Miller). 

Milton,   Charles,   I  76. 

Ministers   and   slavery,   1: 102. 

Minnesota,  Union  ship  sunk  by 
Merrimac,  II  :ii9. 

Minor,  Rev.  N.  W.,  II 1364. 

Missouri  Compromise,  1 1271 ;  repeal 
of,  329. 

Missouri  Democrat,  1:436. 

Missouri  Harmony,  1:196. 

Mitchell,  Rev.  O.  J.,  commissioner  of 
emigration,   II 1138. 

Mitchell,  Robert,  1 :54. 

Monitor,  and  Merrimac,  II  :iig  seq. 

Moody,  Dwight  L.,  1 185. 

Morgan,  Governor  E.  D.,  1:471. 

Morris,  Rebecca.  See  Lincoln,  Rebec- 
ca   (Flowers)    Morris. 

Morse's   Life  of  Lincoln,  II  :203. 

Morse.  Prof.  S.  F.  B.,  II  :288. 

Morton.   Governor  Oliver,   II  :272. 

Mudd,  Luke,   1 :35. 

Mudd,  Mary  See  Lincoln,  Mary  Mudd. 


5J0 


INDEX 


Mudd,  Mary,  daughter  of  Luke  and 
wife  of  Mordecai  Lincoln.  See 
Lincoln,  Mary  Mudd. 

Mudd,  Dr.   Samuel  T.,  11:354- 

"Muggins,"    Lincoln   plays,    1 1245. 

Muldraugh's  Hill,  I  77. 

Nail,  J.  R.,  I  -.27,  31. 

Nance,    Parthenia.      See    Hill,    Par- 

thenia  Nance. 
Nasby  Letters,  II 1404  seq. 
Neale,  Thomas   M.,   I:i88. 
Needham,  Daniel,  1:152. 
Neele,  R.  H.,  II 1221. 
Nelson,    Dr.,    employed    Lincoln    as 

pilot,  1 1165. 
Nevada,   admission  to  Union,  II  :32c). 
Nevett,  Joseph,  1 :44. 
Newell,     Robert     H.,     "Orpheus     C. 

Kerr,"  II 1405. 
New    England,     Lincoln's    first   visit, 

I  .-289 ;   second  visit,  410. 
New   Granada,   proposed  colonization 

of  negroes  in,  II  :i39. 
New  Harmony,  Indiana,  1:192. 
New  Liberty  Church,  1 146. 
New    Orleans,    Lincoln's    two    visits, 

I  1130,  152  seq. 

New  Salem,  Lincoln  in,  1 1155  seq.; 
election  returns   complete,  485. 

Newspapers,  the  rise  of  American, 
I :268. 

Newspapers,  Lincoln's  appreciation 
of  their  support,  I:4i6;  his  pur- 
chase of  one,  416  seq. 

New  York  City,  Lincoln   in,  1 :472. 

Niagara  Falls,  Lincoln  at,  1 :29i. 

Nicolay,  J.  G.s  and  Hay,  John,  1 :50- 
52,  86,  265;  engaged  as  secretaries 
for  Lincoln,  444;  accompanied  Lin- 
coln to  Washington,  466 ;  on  Get- 
tysburg  Address,   II  -.202. 

Nolin,  the  name,  pronunciation  and 
origin,   I  73. 

Nolin  Creek,  I  73. 

Nolin   Baptist  Church,  1: 103. 

Norris,  James  H.,  1 :3io. 

North  American  Review,   1 :268 ;  II  :24. 

Northwestern      Christian     Advocate, 

II  :450. 

Odell,  Moses  F.,  11:83. 

Offutt,  Denton,  1:146  seq. 

Oglesby,  Richard  J.,  and  the  Lincoln 

rails,    1:414;    at    White    House    on 

day  of  assassination,  340. 


Ohiopoimingo,  a  Kentucky  Utopia. 
I  :i92. 

O'Laughlin,  Michael,  11:354- 

"Old  Blueback,"  Webster's  Speller, 
1:86,   120. 

Old  Capitol  Prison,  11:273. 

Old  men,  memories  of,  1 :83 ;  II  :450. 

Oldroyd,   O.  H.,  II  :470- 

Orator,  Lincoln  an,   II  :379  seq. 

Oregon,  Lincoln  offered  governor- 
ship, 1 :297. 

Ottawa,  Lincoln-Douglas  debate, 
1 :389- 

Owens,  Mary,  wooed  by  Lincoln, 
1 :223  seq.;  married  Jesse  Vine- 
yard, 227,  236;  Lincoln's  letters  to, 
233  seq. 

Palfrey,  John  G.,  1 :28i ;  in  Free-soil 

movement,  288,  299. 
Palmer,  John  M.,  1 :345,  357- 
Pantier,    Eliza   Armstrong,   I:i59. 
Pantier,  James,   I:i59- 
Parker,    Theodore,    Herndon's    letters 

to,  1 :398,  401  ;  and  the  Gettysburg 

Address,  II  :2o8. 

Pate,  Samuel,  I:i32. 

Patterson     Creek,      West     Virginia, 

1 :42,  64. 
Patterson,  J.  B.,  1: 174. 
Payne,  Lewis,  II  :354- 
Peace    Convention    of     1861,    I:457>" 

11:8. 
Peck,   Ebenezer,   1 :237. 
Peck,  Rev.  John  Mason,  1:198. 
Pence,  Hon.  Lafayette  S.,  1:35- 
Pendleton,   George  H.,   11:287- 
Peterson  house,   where  Lincoln   died, 

11:342,  345,  348,  470- 
Philadelphia,  Lincoln  in,  1 :472- 
Phillips,  Wendell,  denounced  Lincoln, 

1 :286  ;  on  night  of  secession,  II  :54 ; 

denunciation  of  Lincoln,  292. 
Piatt,  Donn,  11:254-255. 
Pickett's  charge,  II -.183. 
Pilcher,  John,   I:i33- 
Pinkerton,   Allan,  1:475- 
Pitman,   Benn,   II  :473. 
Pittsburg   Landing,   II:  123. 
Pittsburgh,  Lincoln  at,  1 :468. 
Plymouth     Church,     Brooklyn,     and 

lecture  course,  1 :4o8. 
Poe's   Raven  memorized   by   Lincoln, 

I  :.^o6. 


INDEX 


5ii 


Polin,  Joseph,  1 113. 

Polk,  James  K.,  denounced  at  River 
and   Harbor   Convention,    1 1279. 

Pollock,  James,  1 1283. 

Pomerov,  Senator  S.  E.,  emigration 
agent,  II 1139;  on  committee  to 
wait  on  Lincoln,  156;  his  famous 
circular,  2S3. 

Poortown,  inappropriate  name  for 
Beechland,  Ky.,  I  :i9- 

Pope,  Gen.  John,  1:466;  in  command 
of  Army'  of  Virginia,  11:99;  de- 
feated, 100;  permitted  "to  get  out 
of   his  own   scrape,"   102. 

Pope,  Nathaniel,  II  -.99. 

Porter,    General   Fitz-John,   II:  100. 

Posey,  Macon  County  candidate  in 
1830,  1:142. 

Posey,  settler  at  Thompson's  Ferry, 
I  :ii2. 

Potter,  Dr.  Daniel  B.,  physician  to 
the  Lincoln   family,  1 :6. 

Potter,  Nancy,  mother  of  Bowling 
Green  and  Jack  Armstrong,  I:i93- 

Presbyterian  Church  and  slavery, 
I  :i02. 

Prewitt,  Rev.  A.  M.,  1: 197. 

Prewitt,  David,  1:59. 

Prewitt,  Mrs.  Nancy  (Rutledge), 
I:i97. 

Prickett,  Josephine  Gillespie,  1 :2o6. 

Prime,  William  C,  11:286. 

Primogeniture,  Virginia  law  in  Ken- 
tucky, 1 : 1 1 . 

Procter,  Hon.  Addison  G.,  1 1431 
seq.;  11:24,  449. 

Proctor,   Edna   Dean,   II  ^64. 

Pryne,  Rev.  Dr.,  11:5. 

Putnam,  Peter,   I  -.42. 

Quakers,  the  Lincolns  not,  1 :26. 
Quincy,       Lincoln-Douglas       debate, 
1 :396. 

Radford.   Rueben,  I:i88. 
Randolph,  Gov.  Beverly,  1 128. 
Rapier,  Francis  X.,  1 78. 
Rapier,  Nicholas  A.,  I  78. 
Rathbone,  Major  H.  R.,  11:313;  with 

Lincoln    at    time    of    assassination, 

34i. 
Ray,   Orman   P.,   1 :426. 
Raymond,    H.    J.,    Life    of    Lincoln, 

II:i40;    request    for   a    pardon    for 

spy,  267 ;  on  Hampton  Roads  Con- 


ference, 334;  on  Johnson  at  Lin- 
coln's bedside,  344. 

Recollections  as  a  source  of  history, 
I:83. 

Reed,  James,  II  :22i. 

Reed,  John  M.,  1 :20. 

Reep,  Thomas  P.,  1 :3i8. 

Reid,  Whitelaw,   II 1311. 

Religion  in  primitive  Kentucky,  1 :  106. 

Republican  Party,  1:352  seq.;  Lin- 
coln's adhesion  to,  355 ;  first  Illi- 
nois convention  at  Bloomington, 
J856,  356 ;  state  convention  at  De- 
catur, 413 ;  Chicago  convention  of 
i860,  425  seq. 

Republican,  Springfield,  II  :222. 

Revivals  in  the  wilderness,  1: 108. 

Reynolds,  Governor  John,  I:i74,  405. 

Rice,  Rev.  David,  I  :io2. 

Riney,  Zachariah,   1 :86. 

Ripley,  Mary.  See  Hanks,  Mary 
Ripley. 

River  and  Harbor  Convention  of 
1847,  1:278. 

River  Queen,  steamer,  II  -.333,  336. 

Road  commissioners,  deservedly  in- 
dicted, 1 :59. 

Roberts,,  "the  old  president"  of  Li- 
beria, II  :i39. 

Robinson   Crusoe,    read    by    Lincoln, 

I  :i2i. 

Robinson,   John,    1 :59. 

Roby,  Katie,  later  Mrs.  Allen  Grigs- 

by,   I  :i25,  211. 
Rock  Island  Bridge  case,  1 :309. 
Rohan,  Rev.  William  de,  1 :36. 
Rolling  Fork,  of  Salt  River,  1 :64. 
Romaine,   John,   1:136. 
Roman,  Andre  B.,  II  :65. 
Roosevelt,  Theodore,  birth,  1 .2. 
Root,  George  F.,  II  .-297. 
Rosecrans,    General    W.    S.,    II  :239, 

310. 
Rosenberry,   Marvin   B.,   II  :55. 
Rumsey's  Minstrels,  11:403. 
Russia,    our    friend    in     Civil    War, 

II  :i22. 

Rutledge,  Ann,  relations  with  John 
McNamar,  1:190;  singing  from 
Missouri  Harmony,  196;  her  love- 
story,  2ir  seq.;  her  graves,  494. 

Rutledge,  David,  student  in  Illinois 
College,   I:i99;  hi-s  grave,  494. 

Rutledge,  James,  I:i57  seq.,  185  seq., 
195,  212. 


512 


INDEX 


Rutledge,  Mary  Ann    (Miller),  1: 157 

seq. 
Rutledge,  McGrady,  1:158  seq. 

Salter,    or    Saltar,    Hannah,    wife    of 

Mordecai  Lincoln,  1 126. 
Salter,  or  Saltar,  Richard,  1 126. 
Salter,     or     Saltar,     Sarah,    wife    of 

Richard,    1 :26. 
"Sandbar  case,"  1 1309. 
Sanders,  George  N.,  II 1294. 
Sangamo  or  Sangamon,  the  river  and 

the  name,  1 :202,  495. 
San  Jacinto,  U.   S.  ship,  II  :ii5 
Saunders,   Mrs.   Sarah  Rutledge,  sis- 
ter  of   Ann,    1 :2i2   seq.;    interview 
and  reminiscences,  221. 
Savage,    John,     author     of     Life    of 

Andrew  Johnson,  11:352. 
Scales,  Walter  B.,  11:384. 
Schneider,  Col.   George,   1 :424. 
"School-butter,"   1 :86. 
Schools,  in  primitive  Kentucky,  1 :86. 
Scott,    Robert,   the   sleeping    sentinel, 

1 1 :25o. 
Scott,  General  Winfield,  at  Lincoln's 
inaugural,   II:  14;   placed   guards  at 
White  House,  45 ;  advised  evacua- 
tion   of    Sumter,    63 ;     McClellan's 
opinion  of,  92;   resignation,  92;  in- 
vited to  Gettysburg,   189. 
Scripps,  John  Locke,  1 152,  86,  153. 
Secession,  1 :45o  seq. 
Severns  Valley   Church,  I  :i03. 
Seward,   Frederick,   II:  117. 
Seward,  William  H.,  with  Lincoln  at 
Tremont    Temple    in    1848,     1:290; 
"irrepressible    conflict,"    368 ;    can- 
didate   for   the   presidency   in    i860, 
427  seq.;  met  Lincoln  on  arrival  in 
Washington,     475 ;     proposed     dec- 
lination    of     Cabinet    appointment, 
II  :j  seq.;    appointed    secretary    of 
state,      22 ;      disappointed      at      his 
failure    to    secure    presidency,    22; 
"Thoughts,"     28 ;     on     liberty-pole, 
152. 
Seymour,   Governor    Horatio,    II  :288, 

305- 
Shabbona,   1:176,   178. 
Shakers,   1: 108. 

Shakespeare,  William,  birth,  I:i;  re- 
cited   by    Jack    Kelso    to    Lincoln, 
193;  quoted  by  Lincoln,   IL347. 
Shaler,  Prof.  Nathaniel  W.,  1 :99. 
Shaw,   George   Bernard,   1: 120. 


Shaw,  J.  Henry,  1:313,  316-317. 

Shaw,  James,  1 :278. 

Shaw,   Robert   Gould,   IL148. 

Sherman,  Senator  John,   II  :258. 

Sherman,   General  W.  T.,  II  :336. 

Sheridan,  James  B.,  1 :389. 

Sheridan,  General  Phil,  at  Mission- 
ary Ridge,  11:240;  victory  at  Five 
Forks,  337- 

Shields,  Gen.  James,  1 :237 ;  Lincoln's 
approach  to  a  duel  with,  261  ;  can- 
didate  for  senator  in   1854,  344. 

Shiloh,  battle  of,  11:23. 

Shipley,   Edward,   1 :53. 

Shipley,   Robert,  Jr.,   1 :53. 

Shipley,  Robert,  alleged  father-in-law 
of  Captain  Abraham  Lincoln,  1 :39, 
53- 

Shipley,    Sarah    (Mitchell),    1:53. 

Shipley  sisters,  1 :53-55- 

Short,  James,  redeems  Lincoln's  sur- 
veying instruments,  I  :i89,  218. 

Shurtleff  College,  1:198. 

Simpson,  Bishop,  II  :36i. 

Sinco,   Henry,   I  :i6i. 
Singing   Bird,   wife  of   Black   Hawk, 
I:i77. 

Slater,  Dr.  John  Toms,  1: 13,  75. 
Slavery     discussions      in     Kentucky, 

I  :ioo  seq. 

Slogans  in  political  campaigns,  1 :362. 
Smith,  Caleb  B,  11:37,  328. 
Smith,  Goldwin,  II  :223. 
Smith,  Rev.  James,  1:327;  II 151,  460. 
Smith,    General    W.    F.,     ("Baldy"), 

II  :25o. 

South   Fork  Church,   1: 102. 

Spangler,  Edward,  11:354. 

"Spared  monuments  of  popular 
wrath,"   1 :2io. 

Sparrow,  family  unknown  to  Lincoln 
biographers,  1 :45 ;  discovery  and 
relationship  to  Lincoln,  46-47. 

Sparrow,  Bridget.  See  Daniel,  Bridg- 
et Sparrow. 

Sparrow,  Dennis,  1 :49. 

Sparrow,  Elizabeth,  daughter  of 
Henry  and  Lucy,  1 :62. 

Sparrow,  Elizabeth  Hanks,  daughter 
of  Joseph  Hanks,  wife  of  Thomas 
Sparrow  and  foster  mother  of 
Nancy  Hanks,  birth,  1 :4i  ;  named 
in  her  father's  will,  43 1  probably 
present  at  birth  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln,   6;    named    by    Lamon,    49: 


INDEX 


513 


death  and  burial  beside  her  foster 
daughter  in  Indiana,   115. 

Sparrow,  the  mythical  Elizabeth 
Shipley,   I  03-57. 

Sparrow,  George,  son  of  Henry  and 
Lucy,   I  -.62. 

Sparrow.  Rev.  Henry,  son  of  Henry 
and  Lucy,  I  .62. 

Sparrow.  Henry,  son  of  James  W. 
and  husband  of  Lucy  Hanks; 
named  in  father's  will,  1 149 ;  "guar- 
dian" of  sister  Biddy,  49;  men- 
tioned by  Lamon,  49 :  marriage 
bond,  61 ;  possibly  present  at  mar- 
riage of  Thomas  and  Nancy  Lin- 
coln. 69  ;  Revolutionary  soldier,  63  ; 
second  marriage,  63  ;  death  in  1840, 
63. 

Sparrow,   James   Bowling,   1 148   seq. 

Sparrow,  James  Wright  (also  known 
as  James,  James  W.,  and  James 
R.),  1:48;  his  will,  48-49;  his  fam- 
ily, 49  seq. 

Sparrow,  James,  (son  of  James 
Wright   Sparrow),  1:49. 

Sparrow,  Rev.  James,  son  of  Henry 
and  Lucy,  I  .62. 

Sparrow,   Judith,   1 149. 

Sparrow,  Lucy  Hanks,  wife  of  Hen- 
ry Sparrow  and  mother  of  Xancy 
Hanks  Lincoln.  Known  to  the 
Hanks  family,  1 149 :  mentioned  by 
Xicolay  and  Hay,  51  ;  her  exist- 
ence denied,  54,  60 ;  her  early  life, 
58  seq.;  marriage,  61  ;  possibly 
present  at  her  daughter's  wedding, 
69;   last  visit  to   her  daughter,  95. 

Sparrow,  Lucy  or  Lucinda,  daughter 
of   Henry  and  Lucy,  I  -.62. 

Sparrow,  Margaret  or  Peggy,  daugh- 
ter of   Henry  and   Lucy,  I  :62. 

Sparrow,  Mary,  widow  of  James 
Wright   Sparrow,   1 149. 

Sparrow,  Mary  or  Polly,  daughter  of 
Henry  and   Lucy,   1 149. 

Sparrow,  the  mythical  Xancy,  1 :53- 
57- 

Sparrow,  X'ancy,  widow  of  James, 
and  wife  of  John  Elliott,  1 149, 

Sparrow,  Xancy.  See  Elliott,  Xancy 
Sparrow. 

Sparrow,   Peter,   1 :49. 

Sparrow,  Rhoda  Johnson,  second 
wife  of  Henry,  1 163. 

Sparrow,  Thomas,  son  of  Henry  and 
Lucv,  1 :02. 


Sparrow,  Thomas,  husband  of  Eliza- 
beth Hanks  and  foster  father  of 
Xancy    Hanks    Lincoln,    1 149,    55. 

115. 
Sparrow,  Thomas,  son  of  James  \\  ., 

1:49- 

Sparrow  Union   Church,  I  146,  63. 

Speed,  Miss  Mary,  1 1334. 

Speed,  Hon.  James,  II  :31c 

Speed,  Joshua  F.,  tells  of  Lincoln's 
retort  to  Forquer,  1 :205  ;  Lincoln's 
confidence  in,  223 ;  account  of  Lin- 
coln's moving,  229;  Lincoln's  letter 
about  slavery,  334:  with  his  wife 
visits  Chicago  to  meet  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Lincoln,  447 ;  on  Gettysburg 
address,   II  :20i. 

''Spot  resolutions,"  1 1282. 

Sprague,  Kate  Chase,  11:43,  312. 

Spriggs,  Mrs.,  boarding-house.   I  :283. 

Staats-Anzeiger  owned  by  Lincoln, 
1 1422. 

Staats-Zeitung,  I  -.422. 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  with  Lincoln  in 
Reaper  Case,  1 .309 ;  in  Buchanan's 
Cabinet,  451  ;  appointed  secretary 
of  war,  lino;;  relations  with  Lin- 
coln, 107  seq.;  after  surrender  of 
Lee,  338;  on  last  Cabinet  meeting, 
339  ;  at  death  of  Lincoln,  348. 

Staples,  John  S.,  II 1241. 

Stearns.  George  L.,  11:148. 

Stebbins,   Prof.  Joel,   1 1312. 

Stedman,  Edmund  C,  "Give  us  a 
man,"   II  :i65. 

Stephenson.  Misses  Mary  A.  and 
Martha.   I  :4s,  482. 

Stephenson,  Prof.  Xathaniel  Wright, 
11:86. 

Stevens,  Alexander  H.,  joined  Lin- 
coln in  support  of  General  Taylor, 
1 1281  ;  Lincoln's  admiration  for  his 
speech,  281:  Whig  leader,  328;  on 
right  of  secession,  11:54;  on  slav- 
ery, 56;  conference  at  Hampton 
Roads,  333. 

Stevens,  Frank  E.,  1:174. 

Stevens,  Joseph,   1:142. 

Stevens,   Mary.    See  Warnick,    Mary. 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  11:82;  declared 
Arnold  to  be  Lincoln's  only  sup- 
porter, 154;  his  speech  on  the  Thir- 
teenth Amendment,  326;  as  "Stone- 
man"  in  The  Birth  of  a  Xationi 
281. 

Stevens.  Walter  B.,  11:386, 


5i4 


INDEX 


Stillman  Valley,  I  :i75- 

Stoddard,  William  O.,  II '.269. 

Stone,  Daniel,  one  of  the  "Long 
Nine,"  I  :205 ;  signer  of  protest 
with  Lincoln,  209. 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,  I  1329,  408. 

Strikes,  Lincoln  on,  11:370. 

Strohrn,  John,  1 1283. 

Stuart,  General  J.  E.  B.,  11:178. 

Stuart,  Major  John  T.,  associate  of 
Lincoln  in  Black  Hawk  War, 
1:178-179;  candidate  with  Lincoln, 
182;  Whig  leader,  202 ;  Lincoln's 
partner,  229,  231  seq.;  Lincoln's 
letter  to,  259,  300. 

Studley,  W.  S.,  II  :22i. 

Sturtevant,  Prof.  Julian  M.,  1:198, 
199,  200. 

Sumner,  Charles,  in  Free-soil  move- 
ment, 1 :288,  299 ;  at  death-bed  of 
Lincoln,  II  1348 ;  on  Nasby  Letters, 
405- 

Sumner,  E.  V.,   I  -.466. 

Sumter,  Fort,  question  of  evacuation, 
11:63;  fall  of,  67. 

Superstitions   in   Kentucky,   I:no. 

Surratt,  John  H.,  11:354. 

Surratt,  Mrs.  Mary  E.,  II  :354. 

Sutton,  Theresa,  wife  of  Dr.  C.  C. 
Graham,    I  wj. 

Swaney,  Lincoln's  Indiana  school 
teacher,   I  :ii9. 

Talisman,  I  :i65  seq.,  183. 

Taney,  Roger  B.,  1 :38i  ;  at  Lincoln's 
first  inaugural,  II  :6,  12,  14,  op- 
poses Lincoln  in  the  matter  of 
habeas  corpus,  274;  death,  312. 

Tanner,   Corporal  James,  II 1343,  346. 

Tarbell,  Ida  M.,  believed  the  Graham 
story,  I:i7-i8;  and  the  Hitchcock 
story,  cited,  12,  44,  60. 

Taylor,  Colonel  Dick,  1 :239. 

Taylor,   Green,    1: 130. 

Taylor,   James,    1: 130. 

Taylor,  Gen.  Zachary,  in  Black  Hawk 
War,  1 :  176  ;  supported  by  Lincoln  in 
1848,  284  seq.;  Lincoln's  eulogy  in 
Chicago,  291. 

Temperance  societies,  1 :268. 

Tennyson,   Alfred,   11:448. 

Thayer,  Eli,   1 1351. 

Thayer,   William   Roscoe,   1 :49-50. 

Thirteenth   Amendment,   II  :322. 


Thirteenth   Amendment,  as   proposed 

in     1861,     ignored     and     forgotten, 

II  :9. 
Thomas,   Benjamin  F.,  1:298. 
Thomas,  D.  J.,   I  79. 
Thomas*  Daniel  L.  and  Lucy  Blaney, 

on   Kentucky   superstitions,    I:no. 
Thomas,  General   George  H.,    [1:123. 
Thomas,     Jesse     B.,     "the     skinning 

of,"      1 :24i ;      proposed      Missouri 

Compromise,  271. 
Thomas,   Philip  F.,  I:45i. 
Thompkins,  C.  H.,  II  =353. 
Thompson,  A.  W.,  II:  139. 
Thompson,  C.  W.,  1:140. 
Thompson,  Jacob,  1 :449  seq. 
Thompson,  Jacob,  II  :294. 
Thompson,   P.  W.,  1 :283. 
Thompson,  R.  M.,   1  :t6. 
Thompson's  Ferry,  Indiana,  1:93,  H2. 
Thoreau,  Henry  D.,  1:172. 
Thruston,  R.  C.  Ballard,  1:28. 
Times,  Chicago,  II  :38s. 
Times,  New  York,  II:t40,  484. 
Times,  Philadelphia,    11:391. 
Todd,  Lockwood,  I  -.466. 
Todd,  Mary.  See  Lincoln,  Mrs.  Mary 

Todd. 
Toucey,  Isaac,  1 :449. 
Townsend,  Hon.  Wm.  IT.,  1 :45,  132, 

140,  188,  308. 

Transcript,  Boston,  II:i5. 

Treat,  Hon.  S.  H,   11:364. 

Trent,  British  ship,  II : t  15  seq. 

Trenton,  Lincoln  in,  1 :472. 

Tribune,  Chicago,  for  Lincoln,  1 :4I3  ; 
II  :386. 

Tribune,  New  York,  on  Lincoln's  in- 
augural, 1 115. 

Trumbull,  Lyman,  senatorial  contest 
of  1854,  I  '-344  seq.;  election  and 
reception,  347 ;  in  Border's  case, 
417;  legislation  hostile  to  slavery, 
II  :82  ;  denounced  Lincoln's  admin- 
istration, 155 ;  author  of  Thirteenth 
Amendment,  322. 

Turner,  Prof.  Jonathan  Baldwin, 
1 1198,  199. 

Turner,  Nat,   insurrection,  1 :27c 

Turney,  James,  I:i6i. 

Turnham,  David,  1:123,  128,  132,  133- 

Tyler,   General   Dan,   II  :255. 

Tyler,  ex-President  John,  II  '.J ;  de- 
nied a  special  train,  403. 


INDEX 


515 


Union  League  Clubs,  11:272. 

United  States  Sanitary  Commission 
Fair,   II 1205. 

Upton,   General   Emory,   1:163. 

Usher,  J.  P.,  at  Gettysburg,  II -.192; 
story  of  Grant  receiving  his  com- 
mission, 234;  on  Grant  receiving 
his  commission,  235;  at  death  of 
Lincoln,  348. 

Vallandigham,     Clement     G.,     11:276 

seq. 
Van  Bergen,  Peter,  1:188-189. 
Van   Buren,   Martin,  visit   to  Illinois, 

1 1245 ;      succeeded     Jackson,     272 ; 

Free-soil  candidate,  339. 
Vandalia,     state    capital     of     Illinois, 

I  :iqi. 

Van  Tyne,  Prof.  C.  H.,  II 1469. 
Varioloid,      Lincoln      suffers,      "has 

something    he    can    give    to    every 

one,"   II 151. 
Vestiges  of  Creation,  II  :46o. 
Vicksburg,  capture  of,  II:  186,  232. 
Vincent,  General  Thomas  M.,  II 1346, 

47T- 
Vineyard,   Mrs.  Jesse.      See    Owens, 

Mary. 
Virginia,  Confederate  ram,  see  Mer- 

rimac. 
"Virginia  John"  Lincoln,   1 :26. 
Virgin's   Grove  camp  meeting,  I  '.310. 
Volk,      Leonard,      sculptor,       I:3io; 

II  :425- 

Voltaire's  definition  of  history,  1 :84. 

Wade,  Benjamin  F.,  11:83,   155,   167, 

291. 
Walch,   Hadley  H.,  11:469. 
Wallace,  General  Lew,  II  :353. 
Wallace,     Dr.     William     S.,     1:466; 

11:46-47. 

Walton,  Matthew,  1 :29. 

Ward,  Artemus,  (Charles  Brockden 
Brown),  II  1391,  407. 

Warnick,  Major  John,  1:141,  142, 
143,    144,   145. 

Warnick,   Mary   or    Polly,    1:141-145. 

Warren,  Rev.  Louis  A.,  1:13,  28,  30, 
32,  76,  92. 

Washburne,  Elihu  B.,  on  Lincoln  in 
Congress,  1 :283  ;  Lincoln's  letter  in 
December,  i860,  460;  met  Lincoln 
on  arrival  in  Washington,  475  ;  cor- 
respondence   with    Lincoln,    II  :6o , 


bill  to  create  office  of  lieutenant- 
general  for  Grant,  232. 

Washington,  George,  opposed  slavery, 
1 :269. 

Watkins,  Thomas,  1: 189. 

Wayland,  John  W.,  1:27. 

Weber,   Mrs.   Jessie  Palmer,  I  -.143. 

Webster's  Speller,  1 :86,  120. 

Webster,  Daniel,  helped  defeat  Lin- 
coln for  land  office,  I  -.294;  death, 
328;  on  national  unity,   II  :56. 

Weed,  Thurlow,  at  River  and  Harbor 
Convention,  1 :279 ;  at  Chicago 
Convention  of  i860,  429;  Critten- 
den Compromise,  455  seq.;  on  Lin- 
coln's mood  in  winter  of  i860,  462 ; 
request  for  pardon  for  a  spy, 
11:268:  Lincoln's  proposal  to  Gov- 
ernor Seymour,  305. 

Weems'  Life  of  Washington  and 
of  Franklin,  I:i2i,  472. 

Weik,  Jesse  W.,  1:259,  264,  327; 
II :448. 

Weldon,  Lawrence,  1 :343»  445.  446. 

Welles,  Hon.  Gideon,  II  :iq,  22;  ap- 
pointed secretary  of  the  navy,  37 : 
on  emancipation,  144  seq.;  con- 
cerning Lincoln  at  last  Cabinet 
meeting,  338;  on  Lincoln's  dream, 
339;  at  death  of  Lincoln,  348; 
Johnson's  first  Cabinet  meeting, 
35i. 

Welton,  Louis  A.,  11:268. 

West  Point  graduates,  depised  by 
volunteer  soldiers,  but  won  the  war, 
II:i65. 

West   Virginia,  admission   to   Union, 

II  :329- 
Whig,     why    did    Lincoln     become?, 

I:i50. 
Whisky  Rebellion,  11:55. 
White,  Alexander,   1 1177. 
White,   Charles   T.,    H  :45a 
White,    Horace,    on    Lincoln's    speech 

in    1854,   1 :342 ;   on   "Lost   Speech," 

360;   reported   Lincoln-Douglas   tie* 

bates,   389. 
White,  Hugh  L.,  I  -.272. 
White,  Richard,  1 :4c 
White^  Richard  Grant,  II  :24,  442. 
White,     Sarah.       See    Hanks,     Sarah 

White. 
Whitewater,  Wisconsin,   I -.178. 
Whitman,   Walt,   11:365. 
Whitney,    Eli,    and    the    cotton    gin, 

1 :267. 


5i6 


INDEX 


Whitney,  Henry  C,  I:i4I,  358. 

Whitesides,  General,   1: 177. 

"Whole-hog"    Democrats,    1 :202. 

"Wide-Awakes,"   1:411. 

Wigwam  at  Chicago  convention, 
1 1425. 

Wilkes,  Captain  Charles,  II:  115  seq. 

Willard  Hotel,   Washington,   II 15. 

William  the  Conqueror,  I  :i57 ;  11:4. 

Wills,   Judge,  of    Gettysburg,   II 1192. 

Wilmot,  David,  and  his  proviso, 
1 1285,  287 ;  temporary  chairman 
National  Convention   of   i860,  427. 

Wilson,  David  Alec,  quoted,  1 :8. 

Wilson,  Henry,  with  Free-soil  move- 
ment, I  1288,  299 ;  on  Thirteenth 
Amendment,  323. 


Wilson,  R.  L.,  1:205. 

Wilson,    Mrs.   Woodrow,   II  :4CK). 

Winter  of  the  Deep  Snow,  1:143. 

Winthrop,  Robert  C,  1 :28o,  289,  298. 

Wise,  D.  W.,  II:i56. 

Wood,  Fernando,  1:471. 

Wood,  William,   1:136. 

Wood,  W.  S.,  1 1466. 

World,  New  York,  published  Howard 

forgery,  II  :286. 
Wycliffe's  Bible,  II:2o8. 

Yankee  Doodle,  official  musical  end- 
ing of  state  receptions,   II  :42. 

Yates.  Richard,  on  Lincoln  as  a  law= 
student,  1: 194,  466;   11:272. 

Young,  Mary,  1 :57. 


Barton's  Lincoln 

Complete  in  One  Volume 

IN  regard  TO  Mrs.  Lincoln,  the  author's 
attitude  is  admirable;  he  refutes 
Herndon's  assertion  that  Ann  Rutledge 
was  Lincoln's  only  love  and  believes 
Mrs.  Lincoln's  ambition  spurred  the 
President  to  the  White  House. 

The  crisis  of  December,  1862,  after  the 
November  elections  had  gone  against 
Lincoln  and  the  army  had  been  defeated 
at  Fredericksburg,  is  brilliantly  pictured 
in  the  chapter:  HE  SAID  HE  WAS 
MASTER.  The  cabinet  was  divided, 
Congress  was  in  rebellion,  and  Lincoln 
said  it  seemed  as  if  God  had  forsaken 
him.  Yet  out  of  this  abyss  of  despair  he 
rose  to  a  new  triumph,  a  new  confidence 
in  the  righteousness  of  his  cause  and  a 
new  sense  of  victory: 

The  Generals  of  the  war,  from  Mc- 
Clellen  to  Grant,  are  justly  treated,  while 
Lincoln's  actual  knowledge  of  military 
affairs,  his  efforts  to  define  the  Presi- 
dent's real  area  of  power  in  wartime,  his 
struggle  to  make  his  generals  move,  are 
all  graphically  set  forth. 

The  elections  of  1862,  the  campaign  of 
'64,  Lincoln's  sealed  letter  in  that  sum- 
mer when  McClellen  seemed  sure  of 
election;  the  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion, and  the  efforts  to  get  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  passed,  are  clearly  de- 
scribed. Much  space  is  given  to  the  trip 
to  Gettysburg,  to  his  preparation  of  the 
famous  speech,  and  his  disappointment 
that  he  had  not  done  better! 

The  events  of  the  last  days,  the  assas- 
sination and  death,  and  the  burial  at 
Springfield — all  are  related  with  simpli- 
city and  warm  feeling. 


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